We need the church as urgently as a starving baby needs his mother’s milk.
Without the church it's like having a boat without the rudder. You think you can do it on your own and this may sound pedestrian or trite but I'll equate it to this: all my life I've been involved with exercise but no matter how much - and I know a great deal about the body - you need help. You need a trainer. You need to go to a gym and you need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself. I feel the same way about Christianity and what the church is. The church is the gym of the soul.
You can't have Christ without the Church.
The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart.
A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.
Church is the textured context in which we grow up in Christ to maturity. But church is difficult. Sooner or later, though, if we are serious about growing up in Christ, we have to deal with church. I say sooner.
Anyone who is to find Christ must first find the church. How could anyone know where Christ is and what faith is in him unless he knew where his believers are?
As of essential importance in town churches which are not at all equally necessary in the country.
