This is a real post by a real person on a messageboard, in reply to another person…

Quote: “there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church.”

That’s a pretty sad statement, and that sort of thinking is precisely why the modern church is so wrecked.

Being part of the “church” doesn’t have anything to do with being a member of a certain congregation. There’s no biblical precedent for that.

Quote: “It is absolutely the height of hypocrisy to say that we love Jesus but will not commit ourselves, in an obvious and outward way, to a local body of His church that He died for.”

Where does Jesus or anyone else say beans about commiting to a local body? I’m not a member of any church but I’m commited in obvious and outward ways to all the Christians in my community. I worship with them, fellowship with them, study with them, I just don’t submit to the beancounting. If a persons idea of being a christian is somehow tied to the status of their church membership then that’s a false impression that the modern church has managed to insert into peoples minds, it certainly isn’t biblical.