Cover Article
Why the Church Needs You (and You Need the Church)
by Michael Jones · Week of August 16, 2026
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). Picture a hand severed from the arm: five fingers, a palm, the lines that trace your story, but it can hold nothing, heal no one, lift no burden. That is the portrait of a Christian cut off from the body. We were never designed to follow Jesus alone. God built His kingdom not as a collection of isolated souls but as a living organism in which every member matters. Paul writes, “God has so composed the body…that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Corinthians 12:24–25). He was not making a suggestion. He was declaring reality. When you stepped out of the waters of baptism, buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3–4), you were not simply saved from something; you were saved into something: the church, purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28). You became a living stone “being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). Stones stacked together form a temple. A stone lying alone in a field is just a rock.
It is dangerously easy to treat the church as something we attend rather than something we are, grading the experience like customers leaving a restaurant. But the New Testament never describes worship that way. Paul commands, “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19; cf. Colossians 3:16). Notice: to one another. Worship is an act we give, not a product we consume. When the church in Troas gathered on the first day of the week to break bread (Acts 20:7), they came to participate: in the Lord’s Supper, in teaching, in fellowship. The early church understood that showing up was not optional; it was an act of love. “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some” (Hebrews 10:24–25). Every empty seat on Sunday morning is a gift the body did not receive.
God has placed in the church “first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance” (1 Corinthians 12:28). The gifts vary on purpose. “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?” (12:17). Think about the quiet member who slips a note of encouragement into someone’s hand, to the soul teetering on despair, that is the very hand of God. Think about the brother with the gift of helps, first to arrive and last to leave, fixing what is broken so the body can function. Think about the sister who studies Scripture deeply, building others up in “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). When you withhold your gift, you rob the body of something God intended it to have.
Here is the beautiful paradox: the church needs you, and you need the church just as desperately. You cannot sustain faith in isolation any more than a coal can stay ablaze apart from the fire. “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). You need brothers and sisters who will “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). You need the Lord’s Supper every first day of the week to remember the broken body and shed blood that hold everything together (1 Corinthians 11:23–26). You need voices around you singing truth straight into your weary heart (Colossians 3:16). God designed it so that serving others would transform you, healing your wounds, reordering your priorities, conforming you “to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). So we ask you plainly: Are you attending church, or are you being the church? If you have drifted to the margins, come back to the body. Find your people. Discover your gift. Show up, not because a preacher guilted you into it, but because a God who bled for you built a family and saved you a seat at the table. “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). Take your place. - MJ
Other congregations are welcome to reprint this. It may be reproduced in
another congregation’s bulletin or newsletter without asking permission. An
acknowledgement of Orange View Church of Christ is appreciated but not required.
Bible Questions & Answers
What is the age of accountability, and is it in the Bible?
This question surfaces most often in two settings: parents wondering when their child is ready for baptism, and grieving families asking what happens to children who die before coming to faith. Both concerns deserve a careful answer from Scripture. Let us begin with a plain admission: the phrase “age of accountability” does not appear anywhere in the Bible. Yet the concept it represents, that there is a point at which a person becomes morally responsible before God for personal sin, rests on solid biblical ground. The question is not whether such a threshold exists but how Scripture describes it and what implications it carries for obedience to Christ.
Several passages shed light on this principle. In Deuteronomy 1:39 Moses recounts God’s words concerning the generation that would enter the Promised Land: “And as for your little ones…your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there.” The Hebrew phrase translated “no knowledge of good or evil” (lo yad’u hayom tov vara) points to a stage of moral development in which a child has not yet reached the capacity for culpable moral choice. Isaiah 7:15–16 reinforces this idea, prophesying of a child who has not yet learned “to refuse the evil and choose the good.” The verb pair (ma’as/bachar) implies deliberate, rational discernment: the very faculty young children have not yet developed. Together, these texts establish that Scripture itself recognizes a period in which a human being is not yet morally accountable. Perhaps the most comforting passage is 2 Samuel 12:23. When David’s infant son dies, David declares, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” David’s confidence that he would be reunited with the child implies the child’s safe standing before God, not because the child earned salvation, but because God, who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8), does not hold the innocent accountable for sins they are incapable of committing.
This understanding has direct bearing on baptism. The New Testament consistently presents baptism as a response demanding faith, repentance, and understanding. On Pentecost, Peter commands, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). Repentance presupposes the knowledge that one has sinned and the conscious decision to turn from it. When the Ethiopian eunuch asks Philip, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” Philip answers, “If you believe with all your heart, you may” (Acts 8:36–37). The Greek verb pisteuo (“believe”) carries the weight of personal conviction and trust, not mere assent, but wholehearted commitment. An infant simply cannot exercise that kind of faith. This is why churches of Christ have always practiced baptism by immersion of penitent believers rather than infant sprinkling: the New Testament pattern requires a candidate who can hear the gospel, believe it, confess Christ as Lord (Romans 10:9–10), repent of sin, and be “buried with Him through baptism into death” so as to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3–4).
Practically, then, when should a child be baptized? There is no magic number. Some children develop a genuine understanding of sin, grace, and the lordship of Christ earlier than others. The real test is not a birthday but a conversation. Can the child articulate what sin is and acknowledge personal guilt before God? Does the child understand that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again (1 Corinthians 15:3–4)? Can the child explain why baptism matters: that it is the moment one is united with Christ’s death and resurrection and receives forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; Romans 6:3–4)? Parents, your role is to “bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), to teach, to model faithfulness, and to create a home where the gospel is lived out daily. Do not rush the decision, and do not delay it artificially. When your child begins asking about baptism, engage those questions with patience and Scripture. If a child truly grasps the weight of the gospel and desires to obey it, do not stand in the way. And if a child is not yet ready, continue teaching with confidence, knowing that God holds the innocent in His care until they can choose for themselves. - MJ
Other congregations are welcome to reprint this. It may be reproduced in
another congregation’s bulletin or newsletter without asking permission. An
acknowledgement of Orange View Church of Christ is appreciated but not required.