IT WAS PROBABLY a good twenty years ago, but I remember the incident well. I had just finished preaching for the morning and had come down the steps from the platform. I was approached by an elderly gentleman — probably about the age that I am now! — who walked as if carrying a burden. The distressed look on his face told me that he had an important question to ask.

He told me a bit of his story. He had grown up in a denomination that prioritized the gift of speaking in tongues, and learned that those who didn’t speak in tongues were lacking God’s special blessing. All his life, he had prayed to receive the gift, but it never happened. He felt confused and ashamed.

When he finished his story, he raised his head for the first time and looked me in eye, beseechingly. “I’ve loved Jesus for as long as I can remember, ever since I was a boy,” he said. “But am I really a Christian? Am I even saved?”

My heart went out to him. His faith seemed so earnest, yet he was wracked with doubt. What could I say in that moment that could answer decades of feeling like a second-class citizen of the church of his childhood? “Yes,” I told him, as firmly as I could, “you are a Christian, and God loves you.” He nodded, as if that was what he expected me to say. I imagine that he had asked others and received the same response. But his body language said that he wasn’t convinced; he turned and shuffled away, his head still hung in shame.

That morning, I was the guest preacher, feeling tired, and wanting to get on my way. But looking back, I wish I had taken the time to sit down with the man to hear more of his story and to prayerfully give what reassurance I could. May God forgive me.

And may God forgive all of us who have without good reason caused others to doubt their place in the body of Christ.

. . .

PAUL TELLS THE Colossians not to let others judge them for not obeying what others think are the religious requirements of being a Christian, not to be swayed by people who brag about their spirituality with false humility. I imagine the Colossians paying attention to what these folks were saying because they were relatively new believers who wanted to be sure that they truly belonged to the community of faith. But what these people were teaching wasn’t about faith in Jesus; it was about obedience to religious rules.

Thus, Paul has a few more choice words to describe them:

They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. (Col 2:19, NIV)

In using the metaphor of a body and its head, Paul echoes language he’s already used in the letter. In chapter 1, for example, we read that Jesus

…is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. (Col 1:17-18)

As he says elsewhere, Christ is the head of the church, which is his body. Moreover, as he then insists here in chapter 2, we as believers are in Christ and dependent upon him for our spiritual vitality:

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. (Col 2:6-7)

All of this forms the background to the accusation Paul levels at the false teachers. Some of the Colossians probably wondered whether they were really part of the body of Christ if they didn’t do what the false teachers said. But Paul turns it around. No, he says, the people telling you such things are the ones who should wonder. They believe themselves to be part of the body of Christ, and want to make you into their image. But in reality, they’ve lost touch with the head. In their pursuit of religion, they’ve become disconnected from Christ. And you know what happens to a part of the body that gets disconnected from the head.

. . .

SO MANY PEOPLE would love to see their church grow. They strategize ways to reach their communities with the gospel; they set ministry goals that honor the Great Commission. At the same time — and let’s be honest — too often one of the main motives for growing our churches is pride. We want people to admire our pastor, our church, our ministry for being dynamic, cutting edge, attractive. We implicitly believe that bigger is better.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing for a church to grow. I myself am a member of a large church, and appreciate the staff’s vision of ministry. But we must remember that when Paul speaks here in Colossians of “growth,” he means something more akin to spiritual growth than numerical growth in attendance or even finances. A church can grow in numbers without staying connected to Jesus. But it cannot grow spiritually in that way.

The church is the body of Christ, and Christ is its head. The church that becomes disconnected from its head may still be a “body” in some sense — a social body, a religious body — but it will not be the body of Christ.

And heaven help us, if we notice that we have alienated some of our own members, that may be first thing we need to ask ourselves: have we lost touch with the head?