One Church

As I pack up our house for a brief move (while we have work done on our kitchen and basement) I keep coming across pictures, notes, magazine articles, etc. that I've had squirreled away in boxes or cubby holes for years. 

I came across an old notebook (from about 1996?) in which I had notes from a book I was reading at the time.  As I reread my notes I hit this great quote:

"Something else you see if you spiritually belong to the church is that belonging to it means being catholic -- it means belonging to the whole church, belonging to all others who belong to Christ.  Being a church member is not the same as belonging to a denomination, or a congregation, or a theological persuasion.  If the church is the body of Christ, there can't be more than one church, because there's only one Christ.  Anyone clinging to him must cling to the others who are clinging to him." -- Taking the Word to Heart (I think it's by Robert C. Roberts.  But I didn't write the author's name down in my notes.)

I think this is something the church is constantly struggling with.  We hold so tightly to our own ideas about what church is or what we have to believe to "count" as a Christian, or what our political beliefs must be to be a "proper" Christian that we forget we all follow the same God, and the same savior, and have the same Spirit and we are, whether we like it or not, all one church.