Part 2 in a series. Read the first part, “Fusion,” posted in Editor’s Journal on July 30.

Some sports, such as golf and marathon running, are focused on individual accomplishment. With other sports, such as baseball and soccer, the skills of individual players are important, but alone they are insufficient. Each participant is dependent on the team for success.

If you were to compare the experience of being a Christian to participation in a sport, would you say it is more like golf or more like baseball? I’ll pose the question more directly: will a solitary Christian—one who does not associate with other believers—truly come to know the experience of being "in Christ"?

Church—that experience of being with other Christians—can be very disappointing. Too often, weekly services are boring; sometimes church people are offensive; sometimes it all just seems irrelevant. Nevertheless, if we take the Bible seriously, it is difficult to conclude that Christians can just consider church a convenient or inconvenient option.

Being a Christian is not just a matter of deciding what we like; it’s about being a Christ-follower. The quest for personal spiritual fulfillment has taken Americans on many journeys in recent years. Some seem to have concluded that the path to ultimate fulfillment must be uniquely their own. If it’s not somehow unusual, it can’t be truly spiritual. But Christians don’t seek their own path to spiritual fulfillment. Being a Christ-follower means trusting the words He spoke, and the words of those He empowered to speak on His behalf—in other words, the Bible. There is no coercion here, but these are the words Christ-followers choose to follow.

In a previous entry of Editor’s Journal, I wrote that Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has recently grabbed my attention. In the letter, the words “in Christ” appear over and over. At first, I thought this was simply a way Paul chose to describe the close relationship between Christ and the individual believer. There is truth in that, but reading the entire letter makes it obvious that the experience of being in Christ is not only an individual matter. Listen to these words written to the Gentile Christians of Ephesus:

"Remember that . . . you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. . . .  Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" (Ephesians 2: 12-13, 15, 19-22, NIV, italics supplied).

There’s no getting away from this: In Christ, all believers—Jews and Gentiles—come together to form God’s household, of which Christ is the cornerstone. When Paul says “in Christ,” he means this shared experience.

If the example of a building is not clear enough, Paul makes the point again with another analogy: the body. He writes:

"There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope. . . . It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up. . . . Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" (Ephesians 4:4-6, 11-12, 15-16, NIV, italics supplied).

The message is clear: to be "in Christ" is to be part of the building of which Christ is the cornerstone; it is to be part of the body of which Christ is the head. In other words, to be in Christ is to be be with His people. We usually call this church. This is why Paul writes of the relationship between a husband and wife, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32).

There is one other line of thought that shows up several times in the letter to the Ephesians. It adds yet another layer of meaning to this subject, but that will have to wait for another journal entry. Meanwhile, I will conclude this entry with something to consider from the world of sports:

Simply entering a baseball stadium does not make a person part of a baseball team. However, if you are part of the baseball team, you do show up for the games, don’t you? Similarly, entering a church building does not make a person a Christian. But if you are in Christ, you do show up with your fellow Christians in church, don’t you?

B.W.