The Church - 9

The Church is the habitation of God through the Spirit on the earth. It is visibly experienced in a local congregation of water-baptized believers who are related by faith and fellowship of the Gospel, whose lives and conduct are governed by the Word of God, who exercise the spiritual gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by grace, and who seek to extend the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The local church is commissioned by Christ to evangelize the lost in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is where believers worship and where saints are perfected and matured. (See 1 Corinthians 1:2; Hebrews 10:25; 1 Corinthians 12:12-14; James 5:14.)