The other day I did a strange thing - I brought a magazine!
What's strange you think - it was a Christian magazine, nothing to do with buses, trains, computers...

Reading the articles from various parts of the Church it made me think about the New Testament imagery of the Church as the body of Christ.

Col 3v16

Let the message about Christ completely fill your lives, while you use all your wisdom to teach and instruct each other.
 

1Cor 12v20-27

Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

 

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If they were all one part, where would the body be?

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
 

Eph 4v16

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Some parts of the Church produce things which I find indigestable - but others are built up by that and I benefit from their work.

Some parts of the Church I find an embarrassment - but again I benefit from their work.

I recall an occasion when someone suggested I visit church 'X'. I had the time and the opportunity but I was in turmoil as I discovered parts of 'X' I could not cope with - did something else instead! But interestingly around that time some people from 'X' were God's provision for me in a time of need - 'we are joined and held together by every supporting ligament'.