This sessions comes from a course called “Church Essentials” 9Marks created with Lifeway in 2012.
If you want to take this course in a structured manner, please visit: https://courses.9marks.org
Many Christians today tend to view their Christianity as a personal relationship with God and not much else. They generally know that this “personal relationship” has some implications for how they should live. But those same Christians often don’t realize how this most important relationship with God necessitates a number of secondary personal relationships—the relationships that Christ establishes between us and His body, the church.
Despite popular opinion, an ongoing and participatory relationship to the church is not optional for a Christian. Healthy churches teach this. Healthy church members understand and love it. To begin to have that understanding, though, we must begin to see what the church really is … and is not.
