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Originally Posted by Evangelical
OK so if not us, which group do you suggest we equate "the one church" with? Someone has to put their hand up and say "we are the one church". The alternatives are - there is no such thing as the "one church", or that every group that calls itself Christian is the"one church". I doubt that Catholics, Orthodox, and most protestants/evangelicals would like calling every group in their locality the "one church".
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What you are is not negated by what you call yourself. And what you call yourself doesn't make you what you are.
It's simple, there is one church in the city which is comprised of smaller groups and churches, just like there is one church on earth comprised of smaller churches. On the one hand each group is "the church" and on the other they are just their group.
The LCM is "the church" but so are the community churches and other groups of Christians. On the one hand they can call themselves "the church," on the other they can can call themselves something else. There is no Biblical edict or warning that if you call yourself something else you lose your status as the church. Claiming otherwise is non-biblical.
For example, each year a family might celebrate the "Smith" reunion. But the Smiths have grown into other families by marriage. So the Joneses are there, the Johnsons are there, the Greens are there, etc. But they are all the Smith family as well.
The Church is like that. Every group is the church in the city, but on the other hand every group is only part of the church in the city. Just like every group is the universal church, but then again only part of it.
Size and name does not take away the status of being the church. We are what we are.
You seem to to think there must be one group in the city that has the overriding status of being the church over all others, or that by having some kind of name one's status as the church is diminished.
But the Bible gives us no such instruction. It is just an LCM construct. It carries no weight because it's not backed by the Bible. It's just human reasoning.
And please don't try to make the case that the LCM is more inclusive because they call themselves "the Church in ...." The LCM is more doctrinally divisive than most groups are. Any credit they might get by their naming conventions is more than eclipsed by their insistence on following Lee to a "T."