How big is your church?

what would your answer be? "about couple hundred people"? "its a really small church"? " i found it disturbing when we never thought about the underlying implications as we answer this question.

what im trying to say is that what we are implying when we reply in similar fashion as those answers above is something subtle yet can be damaging to our Christian walk. i admit that i havent given much thoughts into this, but i really believe that this is something crucial that needed to lifted up from my heart, as it has been bothering me for the some days now. i know in reality i wasnt majorly concern about our church as i began to think about all these but rather for selfish reasons, yet i still thank God for revealing Himself to me as i meditate upon this matter a little further, that i got to see my own sin better, that i got to know Him more, seeking Him and growing closer to Him.

when we answer this question by giving people a number, or even something related to the physical size, we have fallen into the trap of limiting ourselves to think that church is in the "physical" sense. people in the past (and even now!) have mistaken that church is the physical building. we know thats wrong. we teach people in church that church is not referring to the physical building, but rather the people who meet in it. now that is correct, but we then limit "our church" to those people who meet in "our physical building", exclusively. people who go to another church, well, they go to another church, and they are not part of our church. THIS IS DANGEROUS, in a sense that we refer to those physically attending our church as our own congregation, hence "our church" in the non-physical building aspect. but CHURCH is the body of Christ, the one and only body of Christ, where Christ is the head of all.

when we reply with physical size, we are referring to our church in the physical aspect, when in reality, all who are believers should be part of the church. we limit ourselves to "our church", the "physical bodies" of Christ, rather than the spiritual body of Christ. when we say we should serve our church, we are actually saying we should serve physical bodies of Christ within "our church", rather than the spiritual body of Christ. when we say we should love our church, we limit ourselves into loving the physical bodies of Christ within "our church", rather than the spiritual body of Christ.

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)

i hope what i wrote make some sense. bottom line is that i ask that we would all think deeper into what we think "our church" is. are we only caring and loving the physical bodies of Christ in our church? how much do we love CHURCH as a whole? do we even think about the spiritual well-being of THE BODY of Christ? lets not limit ourselves to just the church we go to, but the body of Christ that we adopted into.