100 Days of HopeSample

The Interconnected Church

My wife, Carol, and I spent time in San Francisco and took a day to hike around the John Muir Woods.  If you’ve been in a redwood forest, you’ll know it is like entering Notre Dame or another of the great European cathedrals.  The people are reverent in their respect for these living giants of another age.  Everyone instinctively looks up!  The realization of being in the presence of Earth’s oldest living species is overwhelming.  Reaching 300 feet in height and with diameters up to 44 feet, these figures of age and beauty have lived up to 2,000 years.

Not knowing anything, I dropped in on a tour just in time to hear the guide describing the remarkable root system of the Muir redwoods.  I heard these trees do not grow like pines or oaks with individual root systems.  Rather, their root systems, while relatively shallow, are completely interconnected.  The trees themselves are all outgrowths of a parent tree, and they grow around the parent in a complete circle.  That circle is called a “cathedral.” One of the keys to their survival is their ability to hold each other up with these merged roots. No known wind can topple them. Virtually no disease can kill them. They thrive in fires. They are knit together inextricably and bound together in the longest living family on record.

That is Paul’s definition for the church.  We may look separate and individual but in our roots we are one – each an outgrowth of Christ our Head.

Prayer: Father, thank you that we as the global church are a living and dynamic extension of you and your work. Strengthen your church today.