So what exactly do you mean by Church?
“The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.” ~ Article XIX.
The Church is a community of faith. The Greek word ekklesia from which we get the word Church in fact means, gathering. That is an essential point right there – we were created for community. Not just community with the living God, who is in fact a community of Persons within His very nature. But we were created to express that community in the world, living out this faith together with one another.
Sadly the American experiment has wreaked more havoc on this essential truth than on any other aspect of our Christian faith. American Christianity, and dare I say, evangelicalism in particular has imbibed the rugged individualism of the American way and as a result the Church, the Bride of Christ is the weaker for it. But Christianity is a communal faith. And to be a part of the Church then is to be a part of the community of the faithful.
And how do we know where the Church of Christ is? It is wherever the Word of God is preached and the Sacraments are duly administered. If you want a quick and easy way to distinguish a cult from the true church, look at what is preached – is it the True Word of God or is it something else. Are home fellowships and Bible studies acceptable substitutes for the Sunday gathering of the Church? What about the Sacraments? Other kinds of groups may express the fellowship of the Church. But they do not express the Church in her fullness
In general Anglicans take Sunday morning worship rather seriously because that is the one place where we, in the fullest sense possible, represent what God intended his Church to be. Do we have fellowship? – You bet. Do we break open the Word of God and sit at His feet and learn from Him? – Absolutely. Do we break bread together and experience the manifest Presence of Christ in our midst? – Praise His Holy Name we sure do! You cannot experience the fullness of the Christian experience, without the gathering of the Church. And guess what – the rest of us can’t experience it fully when you aren’t there either.
We need one another, just as much as we need the Word and the Sacraments. That is why Anglicans begin so many of our prayers with the call and response, “The Lord be with you…And also with you.” It is a recognition that the Lord, by the manifest Presence of His Spirit is with each of us – not just the priest, but all of us. And by acknowledging that we are saying, “I need you to complete this act.” Could I as a priest complete the act of the Eucharist without the congregation praying along with me – I would submit to you that the answer is indeed no. That is why Jesus said to us, “where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name I am in the midst of them.”[1] We need one another. The Church needs YOU to truly be the Church. And like it or not, you need the church. But enough of my soap box. I digress.
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