Mad Creek Trail, Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Group Shot!

I haven't got a clue what these plants are named but that's not what's important anyway.  This is a group shot.  Take away all these plants except one and I don't stop to take a photograph.  Not one plant stands out from another.  Each is equally important.

What a picture of the church.  

"By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.  Whether we are Jewish or Greek, slave or free, God gave all of us one Spirit to drink."  1 Corinthians 12:13 GW

There is unity and symmetry to these plants.  Both their symmetry and their unity are based in their rootedness.   The roots of these plants tie them together.  In their unity they are interdependent.  They need each other, gain nourishment from each other and grow together.

Being that they share a genetic similarity there is a symmetry to their appearance.  This symmetry does not come from each plant looking exactly like the other but from its being what God had created it to be.

Unity in the Christian community is not the same as uniformity.  Unity and symmetry in the church flows out of the fact that we are rooted in Jesus Christ, the God/man who pours out mercy and grace on his people to be the church.  

Rooted in Christ we need each other.

Rooted in Christ we become this amazing organism that makes others stop and contemplate what God is doing in us.

(Click on picture to enlarge.)

Text and Photographs ©Copyright 2012 Douglas P. Brauner.  ARR.