If I love Jesus must I love His Church? - MANY Guests This Sunday - Please come early to show our care and hospitality.

Hey GCT:  As believers, who love their church, sometimes we are involved in those wonderful church conversations that start something like this:

"As believers you do not have to be a part of a local church.  Church is optional, Jesus never said to do church the way you do every Sunday.  In fact on Sunday morning or any other day of the week when I curl up in my comfy orange chair, sipping my vanilla latte, wearing my purple plaid pajamas, loving Jesus and listening to my favorite teacher on my favorite podcast that is the same as having church, me and Jesus, He makes me happy at home as I worship alone… etc… etc… etc.”

SO, what is this thing we call Church?  What makes what we do a biblical Church?  If we gather up in our home for a pickle party with all of our friends who love Jesus and we call it a church does that make us a church?

In the New Testament the Lord has given us almost 100 images and metaphors for His Church.  He is very specific and clear as to what He expects from His people when they gather as a church.  Over the next few weeks we are going to look into these images to help us understand better what Jesus expects from us as His body.  As we look at each image from scripture we are going to clearly see that He has non-negotiable expectations and guidelines for us to be considered His Church.  We will also see that loving Jesus means loving the Church.  The Church is the precious bride of Christ, whom He nourishes, for whom He shed HIs blood.

Our definition for church, compiled from the images and truths from Scriptures, that we will use over the next several weeks is: God chooses and preserves for himself a community elected for eternal life and united by faith, who love, follow, learn from, and worship God together. God sends out this community to proclaim the gospel and prefigure Christ’s kingdom by the quality of their life together and their love for one another.

Acts 20:28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

SPECIAL GUESTS THIS SUNDAY
Also, this Sunday we will be having many guests, brothers and sisters in Christ, coming over from Grace 210.  They will be joining us for coffee and donuts at 8:45am and worship at 9:00am.  Would you please make every effort to be present at 8:45am to welcome our guests and make them feel at home, answering any questions that they may have about GCT.  Let us show them great love, care and hospitality as they walk through this difficult time in the history of their church.