It is not the pastor or the leadership or the elders.
If a group is headed by any of those, then Jesus Christ is not the head and it is not the church.
The church is
not disciples and a building and Jesus.
not disciples and liturgy and Jesus.
not disciples and anything or anyone other than Jesus.
The Church is Jesus and those who love and follow Jesus. WE are Christ’s body and Christ is our head. Nothing else is needed to be the church. Anything else is not the church. The Church is Christ and people who live in Him and for Him, and who point others to Him. We, the church, are the Christ point. We are the point in time and space where Christ and the world intersect. It is in Christ’s body that heaven and earth come together.
When followers of Jesus Christ gather, we gather to pray, rejoice, and commune with God and each other. It is a time for resting, refreshing, and refueling for the work and ministry God has called us to do. But there is nothing that we HAVE to do other than follow Jesus Christ. Anything we do other than following Him leads us away from Him. We are the church simply through following Him. We follow Jesus by teaching others as He did, by living as He lived, by serving as He served, by loving each other as He loves us.
We don’t need to be in charge or in control of the church or any part of it. Jesus is!
There doesn’t need to be a lot of us to be a church. Jesus told us, “20Whenever two or three of you come together in my name, I am there with you.” CEV
All of us, His disciples, have all been called, each to minister in a unique way. We are called to minister according to the skills and gifts God has given us and the occupation or life situation we find ourselves in. Ministry and discipleship is 24-7, 365 days a year (and 366 on leap years.) Some people think that the only "real" ministers are those who are "professional" ministers. In our culture, it is sometimes thought that the "best" clergy are the ones who get paid the most and have the largest congregations. Maybe the "best" ministers are those who serve God, even when it is very costly for them.
Most of us know that the church is not the building. But do we know it is not the people unless Jesus is their head? Do we know it is not the singing, or the preaching, or the ceremony, or the service, or the fellowship, or the evangelism, or not even the worship, unless Christ is the point of it all?
Christ Point! Christ period! Christ alone! Christ only!
Let us “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Cor. 4:18
