The Misunderstanding of Church

The number of people who never or rarely attend church continues to increase. A George Barna poll shows 38% of adult Americans are in the category of being unchurched. Of the people who regularly attend church, a staggering 45% are willing to try a new church. So we have a large group of people who see little or no value in church and another even larger group who are dissatisfied with their current church. I believe that behind these statistics lies a great misunderstanding of church.

Based on my understanding of the Bible, here’s my definition of a local church.

A church is a group of believers in Jesus Christ who committed themselves together to extend the kingdom of God in a particular locality.

Just as many people who claim to be Christians, are not believers in a biblical sense, so many groups that claim to be churches, are not churches in a biblical sense. So, we have people who have left or are thinking of leaving “churches” that are not truly churches. That’s actually a good thing, as long as they are searching for a true biblical church. Unfortunately, many lump all “churches” together and think they are all the same. On the other hand, we have people who claim to be believers leaving or thinking about leaving biblical churches because of some perceived imperfection. That is not a good thing.

Is it possible for a true believer to exist outside of a church family? The surprising answer is that no, it is not possible.

1 John 3:14 (NIV) We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

Here the apostle John tells us that one of the proofs of being a believer is love for other brothers and sisters in the family of God. If someone claims to be a believer, but has no desire to be around other believers in a church family, it proves they are not a believer at all. So, for the true believer, a biblical church family is not optional, but a necessity and something to be cherished.

The importance of being part of the family of God is seen in the Old Testament. To be cut off from the people of God because of some sin, was considered a fate worse than death. In the New Testament, the concept of a believer who was not part of church family is almost unheard of. The only mention of it is when someone was put out of the church through church discipline because of sin. This process was called “being handed over to Satan” (1 Corinthians 5:5, 1 Timothy 1:20). The whole idea was that being outside of the protection of the church would drive the sinner to repentance and back into the church family. Today, we also see terrible things happen to people who have placed themselves outside of the protection of the church.

In my message, “Depending on God” from June 7, 2009, I look at the story of Nehemiah’s passion and prayer for the people of God in Nehemiah 1, as an example of what our attitude should be toward our church family today (message notes).