Who is the Church?

   I was watching a football game many years ago in my youth where the announcers were Pat Summerall and John Madden.  In the midst of a break in the action, a camera near of the top of the football stadium focused in on a church in a neighborhood close to the stadium.  John Madden started making circles with his famous pen as he said, “This is the church, this is the steeple, look inside, and see all the people.”
   I thought his play on a childhood rhyme was hilarious.  Yet I was not a Christian at that time, and gradually after becoming a believer in Jesus, I learned the Church consists of God and followers of Jesus, and nothing less.  The Church is the body of Christ, with Christ as the head: “…as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior” (Ephesians 5:23 NIV).  And Paul states: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27 NIV).  Taken in context, the “you” here is the believer in Jesus.  Thus Jesus is the head of people who follow Him, and they are members of the Church whatever country they live in, whatever their language, and whatever “church” they attend.
   From the Church derives the natural human development of Christian institutions called churches which involve by-laws, leaders, committees, more committees, faith statements, music teams, web pages, and on and on.  Churches are hopefully a product of the Church, yet not the Church itself.  The Church is not a conglomerate or collage of human institutions, many of which have extremely different doctrinal convictions, and many of which do not even fellowship with churches of different denominations.
   A few weeks ago I wrote down the various Christian denominations of which I have worshiped in one of their churches over the past 26 years.  The total number of denominations was nineteen.  Wow.  For some I have worshiped in one of their churches countless times, for others I worshiped there only for a season, and lastly for others it was merely a single visit.  Yet I have been exposed to many different “churches.”  But not a single one of those human institutions was The Church.  Yet within every one, so far as I know, was the Church, since Jesus said, “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20 NIV).
Hunter Irvine