What is the Church worth to God

[Amisk]

What is more important to God than His church? We only need to look at the price He paid for His church."
Major Greg Simmonds..... Salvation Army Major

[Frederic Dalton]

Good point - and I think it's useful to bear this in mind when evangelising new-agers.

There are many new-agers with varying degrees of Biblical literacy - some have studied the scriptures in great depth, others have only brushed the surface. But all have missed the point.

They all think that it's okay to pick and choose your beliefs. When you explain that you can't do this, they point to sectarian divisions within the church - and explain that if Christians didn't pick and choose their own beliefs too, then there would be no different denominations.

Now that's all very well - but if you make up your own faith from scratch, or pick your beliefs from various different traditions, then no-one else will hold the same faith as you - which means that you won't be part of a church. New-agers tend to overlook this point.

It's worth pointing out to these new-agers that there's plenty of room in the church for discussion of interpretation of scripture - indeed, it's encouraged, which is why we have forums like this one. But the overriding thing is that you must belong to a church. After all, if you don't belong to a church, then who can you have discussion with anyway?

Despite the apparent divisions, we are still one church, one community and one family. Who wouldn't want to be part of it?