An Unchurched Christian
We are not only Christian people; we are also church people. We are not only committed to Christ, we are also committed to the body of Christ.
I trust that none of my readers is that grotesque anomaly, an un-churched Christian. The New Testament knows nothing of such a person.
For the church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought. It is not an accident of history.
On the contrary, the church is God’s new community.
For his purpose, conceived in a past eternity, being worked out in history, and to be perfected in a future eternity, is not just to save isolated individuals and so perputuate our loneliness, but rather to build his church, that is, to call out of the world a people for his own glory.
-John Stott, The Living Church, p. 19.
