THE CHURCH OF CHRIST

By Cougan Collins

lgchurchofchrist@cableone.net

 

Here are some things you may not know about the church of Christ:

 

  • Churches of Christ rank first in the nation in weekly attendance among their membership.
  • Churches of Christ rank first in the nation in distribution of congregations.
  • Churches of Christ rank fourth in the nation in number of counties in which there is a congregation.
  • Churches of Christ are the sixth fastest growing church in America.
  • Churches of Christ constitute the twelfth largest religious group in America.
  • Churches of Christ are regarded as having a “remarkable degree of unity” by other religious groups because “they have experienced far less fragmentation.”
  • Only 4.2 percent of young people in the churches of Christ who graduated from high school in the past ten years have divorced, which is half of the rate of their peers (8.1 percent). —Dr. Flavil Yeakley, The Christian Higher Education Foundation Report

 

I do not share this information with you to boast, but simply to invite you to investigate for yourself what others are finding so compelling. The churches of Christ have a unique plea in the current religious world. We plead for (a) no creed but Christ (Acts 8:36–38), (b) no book but the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16–17; 2 Pet. 1:3; Jn. 16:13; Jude 3), (c) no church but Christ’s (Mt. 16:18; Eph. 1:22–23; Rom. 16:16, (d) no name but Christ’s (Acts 4:12; 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16), and (e) no worship (Acts 2:42; 20:7), organization (Phil. 1:1), or doctrine (Tit. 2:1), but that authorized by the word of God.

 

As the restorers expressed it, “Let us call Bible things by Bible names, and let us do Bible things in Bible ways. Let us speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent.” We plead for “Christ’s church in the twenty-first century as it was in the first century.” Many are finding this plea is reasonable, logical, sensible, and compelling.

 

A growing church is a gospel church (Mk. 16:15), a going church (Acts 8:4), a giving church (1 Cor. 16:2), a good church (Gal. 6:10), a gracious church (Col. 4:6), a greeting church (3 Jn. 1:14), a gifted church (Mt. 25:14–30), a godly church (Tit. 2:11–12), a glad church (Acts 2:46-47), a gathering church (Heb. 10:25), a glorious church (Eph. 5:27), and a great church (Heb. 9:11). That’s what the church of Christ is striving to be. We invite you to worship and study with us to learn more about first century Christianity – lgchurchofchrist.com. Adapted from Wendell Winkler, The Church Everybody Is Talking About