Although many of us have been loving the Lord and meeting together
for years, there may be some in our neighborhoods who do not yet know us. As children of
light, we are thankful for this opportunity to bear public testimony to who we are and
what we believe.
We are Christians who frequently meet together in various homes in the Rochester area.
Whether we meet in homes or in a larger facility, the place in which we meet is not "the
church." We, the believers in Christ, are "the church."
The word "church" in the original language of the Bible, and in its true meaning,
simply stands for the believers themselves, the "called-out congregation." We are not any
special kind or "group" of Christians, but simply those who believe in and love the Lord
Jesus and meet together in one accord with gladness and singleness of heart (
Acts 2:46).
We do not really have a name, although some have tried to give us one. We are simply
believers in Jesus Christ who desire only to hold and honor the precious Name of our Lord
Jesus. In the first century, believers were simply "Christians" (
1 Peter 4:16), and that
was a name given to them by others (
Acts 11:26).
The believers also called one another "saints" (
1 Corinthians 1:2). The only other designation
the Bible assigns to the believers is the name of the locality in which they lived. Thus,
the Bible refers to the believers corporately with phrases such as "to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi" (
Philippians
1:1) and "unto the church of the Thessalonians" (
1 Thessalonians 1:1). Thus, the Christians
in a particular locality comprised the local church in that city. For example, the church
in Corinth was all the believers in Corinth (
1 Corinthians 1:2), and so forth. This is consistently presented in the
New Testament (cf.
Acts 8:1;
13:1;
Romans 16:1;
Colossians 1:2,
4:5;
2 Thessalonians 1:1
Revelation 1:11;
2:1,
8,
12,
18;
3:1,
7,
14). And since we believe that we should be
consistent with the Bible, we meet as the church in Rochester, and this church includes all of the genuinely born-again believers in this city.