Do We Need Other Christians?

by David Rollert

On a door-knocking campaign in Utah, we met a family who claimed to believe in God and follow the Bible, but they did not attend any church. Their claim was that they didn’t need anyone telling them how to follow God. On a different evangelism campaign, we met a man who used to attend the local church of Christ. The elders there tried to get him to stop being involved in a particular sin, so he stopped attending. His statement was that he never liked being told what to do.

These statements may resonate with some of us. We may view ourselves as lone wolves or we may be fiercely individualistic. So, do we need other Christians? Do we need the local congregation?

In Ephesians 4:11-14, Paul states that God gave us elders and evangelists as teachers to help us reach spiritual maturity. That means that sometimes the elders may tell us something that we don’t want to hear by confronting sin in our lives or error in our beliefs. It also means that sometimes they might encourage us to grow past our current comfort zone to better reach maturity. This is not always comfortable, but it is necessary for our continued growth.

The next few verses expand on this concept, pointing out:

“but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” Ephesians 4:15-16

Not only do the elders and evangelist help us grow, but each member of the body has a part in helping us mature. Now, sometimes interacting with our fellow Christians is challenging; they might have a lot of areas where they need to mature. They might accidentally hurt our feelings. We might need to practice a lot of patience, humility, and grace when interacting with them. In short, interacting with our fellow Christians requires us to become skilled at practicing the love of Christ.

Do you notice the dual nuances there? First: everything that is true about interacting with THEM, is also true about interacting with US. They show us the love of Christ by practicing patience, humility and grace with our shortcomings. Second: we all are spurred on to maturity, not just by what others teach us, but by the experience of learning to show the love of Christ to one another.

In conclusion, do we need other Christians and the local congregation? Yes, we do need them. But, they also need us! Each and every individual is important to the local congregation!