Explore "What the Church Means to Me" by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Church to me means all who, consciously or unconsciously, are forwarding God's kingdom on earth. In the broad definition of the Master it means "all those who are not against us." The way in which men associate for worship, or in which they consider it most remunerative to invest their efforts to forward the kingdom, gives them no right to arrogate to themselves the title of God's Church. Any body of men saying, "We are the Church," seems to me ridiculous.
If they try to exclude at the same time those who approach their Maker, or who are endeavoring to do faithfully the things Christ would approve, only in some other way, then they become offensive also. I am firmly convinced the world is coming to this view, and I am glad it is already beginning to express it. Through "the Church" the salvation of the world must come. I have no use whatever for the critic whose heart is set on her destruction or who muckrakes it for a revenue. By this I mean the Church Invisible, known only to God's Holy Spirit.