One Body, Many Members

1 Corinthians 12:12 says, "For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ."  (NASB)

I am so grateful for this truth and the realization that the work of the gospel does not belong solely to the Pastor!  I am so thankful for my church body who gathers together weekly, but who worships together through service in many different ways during the course of the weeks and months and years. 

It is interesting that many people consider their relationship with Jesus to be something private and something that they exercise only as an individual or as they come to church.  I think this is a fateful view of the Christian life.  We were reborn into the family of God.  We are a member of a larger body.  Nearly every metaphor that describes the church or the Christian is a plural metaphor.  We come together to form something larger than ourselves.  And interestingly, I believe that we are called to function in the same way.  We are to do together what we cannot do ourselves.  And this is where the body of Christ comes together - not at church - but outside the church.  Here is what I mean.

I can only be neighbors to a few people - but our church is neighbors to many.  I can only be a co-worker to a few people, but as a church we can be co-workers to many.  I as a person - even a pastor - can only do so much, but as a church we can do so much more.  As a church we can run a VBS that ministers to many because people invited friends and neighbors in a way that I could not.  As a church we can pass out 3000 water bottles during a single parade (I could not).  As a church we can organize and connect with a sister church in China in a way that I could not on my own.  The church combines all of our individual opportunity into a communal opportunity in the same way it combines our individual joy into community joy, or our individual sorrow into communal sorrow.  We are the body of Christ.  And I am so pleased to see White Lake Baptist Church function as the body of Christ.  It is my prayer that we will continue to do so!