Membership is the church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation.

Friend, the church finds its life as it listens to the Word of God. It finds its purpose as it lives out and displays the Word of God. The church’s job is to listen and then to echo.

I don't have any way to control the Spirit or create revival. I pray that the Holy Spirit would move upon the church, but at the same time, I want to busy evangelizing. I am not one of those people who moan and pray for revival all the time, but do nothing.

The church arises only from the gospel. And a distorted church usually coincides with a distorted gospel.

All evangelists want to do is share a message about the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. But our world is confused by the confidence we have in the gospel, and is threatened by it. Satan, I am sure, causes those things to echo in the world to increase this sort of common confusion.

T]he church is not a place. It's not a building. It's not a preaching point. It's not a spiritual service provider. It's a people - the new covenant, blood-bought people of God. That's why Paul said, 'Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her' (Eph. 5:25). He didn't give himself up for a place, but for a people.

From the time of Cain until the last believer before Christ's return, we are all fundamentally in the same boat. We suffer the same spiritual afflictions and tendencies.