Series Details
We need one another . . . even if we don’t always want to admit it. Human beings were made to thrive in relationships—with God and with people. And yet we are often tempted to ignore God’s unique communal design for those who follow Christ: the church.
But what is the church, and what is our place in it? The Bible uses a variety of metaphors to describe Christ’s church. In this series, Chuck Swindoll explains four of those metaphors: a growing family, a dependent flock, a functioning body, and the branches of a flourishing vine. This series will help take us beyond understanding how God desires us to be in community. It will show us how it can happen.
What exactly is the church? Far more than a building or a weekly event, the church is a living, breathing community designed by God. In this four-part series, Pastor Chuck Swindoll explores four powerful biblical metaphors that define our identity and our relationships with one another. By viewing the church as a family, a flock, a body, and a vine, we discover how to move from isolation into the vibrant, communal life God intended for every believer.
1. Making Room for the Family (Ephesians 2:19; 1 Timothy 3:15)
- Overview: Explores the church as “God’s household.” This portrait emphasizes the warmth, acceptance, and growth that occur when believers treat one another as spiritual brothers and sisters.
- Key Fact: Just as physical families must adjust and make room for new members, the church must remain flexible and welcoming to all whom God calls into His family.
- Scripture: Ephesians 2:19 – “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household.”
2. Feeding the Flock a Healthy Meal (1 Peter 5:1–4; Psalm 23)
- Overview: Focuses on the imagery of the flock and the Shepherd. This message highlights the vulnerability of the sheep and the vital importance of leaders who provide the “healthy meal” of God’s Word.
- Key Fact: A healthy church is one where the “sheep” are not driven by fear but led to green pastures of truth and grace by caring under-shepherds.
- Scripture: 1 Peter 5:2 – “Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God.”
3. Finding Your Place in the Body (1 Corinthians 12:12–27)
- Overview: Discusses the church as the “Body of Christ.” This portrait emphasizes the diversity of spiritual gifts and the essential nature of every member, no matter how small their role may seem.
- Key Fact: There is no such thing as an “unimportant” part of the body; health is achieved only when every member functions in their unique, God-given capacity.
- Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:27 – “Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.”
4. Abiding in the Vine (John 15:1–11)
- Overview: The most intimate portrait of the church, showing our absolute dependence on Jesus Christ. As branches of the True Vine, our only source of life and fruitfulness is our connection to Him.
- Key Fact: We do not “produce” fruit by our own effort; we “bear” fruit as a natural result of abiding (staying connected) to the Vine.
- Scripture: John 15:5 – “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
