WHY PEOPLE NEED THE CHURCH

The Big “C” Church, the gathering of Christ’s followers (Greek “Ecklesia”) is the Body of Christ, the ongoing incarnation: the hands, heart, hands, feet and voice of Christ on Earth.  The Church is essential to God’s plan.  Can you imagine Christianity exploding from the twelve to half the world’s population without the Church?

We need the Church!  And each church must understand the reasons: 1) In being his incarnation, we become his followers, his hands, heart, feet and voice.  2) The Church is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is uniquely present when two or three are gathered in ways we cannot experience alone.  3) When we meet, we encourage one another.  There would be no Christianity today without the gathering people.  4) We can do far more things, greater things together than we can apart.  We’ve created schools, hospitals; we’ve met crisis and flood; we’ve attacked poverty and injustice, all in the name of Christ.  We could not do it alone.  5) We receive unique gifts of the Holy Spirit, not for our purpose but for building up others.  If we want to realize those gifts, we must be part of the Church.  6) Finally, there are things we cannot learn alone.  We cannot learn to love alone, to forgive alone, compassion, mercy, gentleness.  We need others to learn these things.  We cannot reach our potential as Christians by ourselves. 

In other words (GECKO) (We had a little fun with Church, Ecklesia, and Gather (CEK--Sounds too much like a brew keg) and GEK (which reminded us of the Geico Gecko and helped us remember the reasons we need the Church):

G: To Gather and do Greater things.  

E: To Experience Christ.  

C: To be a Community Commanded to gather and enCourage one another.  

And KO: (Kristos Overall) Because Christ is the head Overall, we are able

to be his deeply committed followers, to be individually members of his

body.  “We are the Church together.”