Communion and Community

"There must be communion and community among the people of God: not a false community, that is set up as though human community were an end in itself; but in the local church, in a mission, in a school, wherever it might be, there true fellowship must be evident as the outcome of original, individual salvation. This is the real Church of the Lord Jesus Christ--not merely organisation, but a group of people, individually the children of God, drawn together by the Holy Spirit for a particular task either in a local situation or over a wider area. The Church of the Lord Jesus should be a group of those who are redeemed and bound together on the basis of true doctrine. But subsequently they should show together a substantial 'sociological healing' of the breaches between men which have come about because of the results of man's sin" (Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, 153).

Schaeffer is arguing for a "visible quality" to the invisible church, i.e., "The final apologetic, along with the rational, logical defence and presentation, is what the world sees in the individual Christian and in our corporate relationships together" (152).