The word “church” derives from the Greek “ekklesia” which means “assembly”, “group”, “reunion” and certainly does not refer to a building made of brick and tile, instead it refers to a group of people who have come together to worship God and to put into practice the teachings of Christ. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands” (Acts 17:24). To say “the church of Christ” is the same as saying “the whole of the people who follow Christ, who belong to Christ”.

The church of Christ was born according to divine will on the day of Pentecost following His death, resurrection and ascension to heaven, and grew thanks to the preaching of the apostles and of all who believed in the gospel. When in any place, at any time, a few people decide to follow with simplicity and faithfulness the divine model of the church as was established by Christ and described with clarity in the New Testament, spontaneously there is born the church of Christ “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).

During the centuries, man has added new doctrines and practices to the original model wanted by God, and these have little by little contributed to modify it substantially. However Jesus had been very clear: he did not promise to build a church, one of the many churches, but “I will build my church...” (Matthew 16:18), that is the one and only church, well defined.

This uniqueness of the church of Christ has been illustrated by Jesus himself with pictures of the vine, with God as the one and only vine-dresser, of the one and only flock with Christ as its only shepherd, of the one body with Christ as its only head, of the one house or family of God moved by only one spirit.

The one and only church was propagated by the preaching of the one gospel. The apostle Paul exhorted the church to stay united “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” (I Corinthians 1:10).

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the anchor of salvation of his church that extends across the centuries in order to be carried unchanged into all the world.
We want to be like the original church established by Jesus Christ, nothing more, nothing less, and no differently. We know how the church of that time was, and that is our model.