I had a good convo with my friend Jonathan this morning. We primarily talked about the church, where it is, where it is going, where it should be. Primarily we talked about the role of the church for college students. For myself, I felt that I didn't learn about the importance of the local church until towards the end of college. I wish someone had told me about it earlier. On top of that, a few people I knew substituted large group fellowship for church, and skipped Sunday services. While I didn't do that, I never really understood what was so special about the local church.

Yet, the local church is where God is doing great things. It's where we hear the preaching of the Word, where the glory of Christ is put on display, where people can hear the Gospel, and where believers can be trained up in righteousness. As John Stott says, "If the church is central to God's purpose as seen in both history and the gospel, it must surely also be central to our lives. How can we take so lightly what God takes so seriously? How dare we push to the circumference what God has placed at the centre?"

I admit that I don't always take the church seriously. But at the same time I don't truly understand all that I need to know about the church: the local church and the universal Church. In fact, at the end of our conversation, Jonathan and I both expressed just how much farther we needed to go in understanding the church in the way that Christ views her. But through grace, we are learning. We ended our time in prayer for our church, and our pastors who serve us so well.