The Bible:

A young man from a famous family was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in the affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. Bill and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation they found the perfect car. Bill was certain that the car would be his on graduation night.

Imagine his disappointment when, on the eve of his graduation, Bill’s father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible! Bill was so angry; he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house. He and his father never saw each other again. It was the news of his father’s death that brought Bill home again.

As he sat one night, going through his father’s possessions that he was to inherit, he came across the Bible his father had given him. He brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier’s check, dated the day of his graduation, in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together.

CHURCH:

What the Church is?

All Christians, past, present, and future, make up what is called the Church.

Romans 1:6-7  

6 And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:2  

To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

Galatians 1:13  

For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

Ephesians 5:25  

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

The Greek word for Church means being called out for a group meeting. It may help to think of the church as a body. Jesus Christ is Head, and all Christians are part of the body.

Colossians 1:18  

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

CHURCH: 

Quality refers to the kind of disciples a church produces. Quantity refers to the number of disciples a church produces.

Asking for commitment doesn’t turn people off; it is the way many churches ask for it.