The universal Church and local churches

The distinction between the Body of Christ, local congregations and ecclesiastical organizations

Our Individual Oneness with Christ

Jesus called Himself the whole vine—which includes each of the branches—not just the root or the trunk of the vine. Thus, we are one with Him as the branch is one with the vine. We are each a part of Him, just as he is the life of each of us…. if we live in Christ and His words live in us, anything we ask will be done for us, because the Father is glorified when we bear fruit.

The Underlying Truth: The Church is One, Invisible Body – What is Missing is Visible Unity

All of our questions about the oneness of the Church, as a present reality, are answered if we truly recognize Christ as its Head… However, our choice for or against the truth does not affect the reality that Christ died to make us one with Himself and with each other. His work is done, and our oneness is a present, completed truth that should influence all of our conduct.

An old dream about dirges, Sunday school classes, and the expectation to hide problems

How a dream about the word “dirge” led me to recognize two of the major problems of modern Western churches: our insistence on hiding problems to preserve our “witness” rather than dealing with them in the Spirit (hypocrisy) and our one-way, “fact”-intensive teaching style.