Ephesians 2:19-22  “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…”

I have really only lived in one place other than Colorado, and that was Lillian, Alabama while I worked a short drive away in Pensacola, Florida. There in the Bible Belt, it’s weird if you don’t go to church on Sunday. Yet among the heavily churched, I saw division within many areas. The crossroads that revealed a different church building at every corner. At the time, I shirked it as theological differences, but in the years since, my heart breaks for church to be one – not in a building, but in our loving mentality towards others.

It’s startling to see similarities in the church in Colorado Springs; our own little Western piece of the “Bible Belt”. At times I wonder if God took me to a similar place to open my eyes for the town I grew up in. If only we could wake up in our hometown as if we’d never been there before, and view it with a fresh pair of eyes – no warm and fuzzy memories or notions attached.

“…built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord…”

I can remember teachings about Christ being the cornerstone of our faith. However you frame it; being the most important, most solid, most vital part of this building – it all falls apart and will not stand without the focus of – Jesus! As we fix our eyes on Jesus at the center of the catholic (universal, all embracing) church, everything else we’ve made major, becomes minor.

“…In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

“The greatest, strongest, mightiest plea for the church of God in the world is the existence of the Spirit of God in its midst, and the works of the Spirit of God are the true evidences of Christianity. They say miracles are withdrawn, but the Holy Spirit is the standing miracle of the church of God to-day.” – Charles Spurgeon

I pray that within the Colorado Springs community, Jesus’ church is unified amidst youth groups, local churches, organizations, Next Step Ministries and all parts to the larger hands and feet of Christ; that our focus is Jesus and His love and care for the broken. Pray that this summer the community doesn’t see different churches working together – but the same church working together.