Why Do We Need The Church?

Check this aticle out: it is written by José Figueroa... a colleague and friend of mine from Miami who is exploring how the church in Miami should be expressed:

It used to be that people would go to church because you could find great speakers and teachers, but people really aren't all that impressed anymore by great teaching. You can go to the internet and listen to the best preaching in the US on line. People used to go to church because it was the center of the community. But the church has been displaced by other community centers (places where you see people on an everyday basis). The church really doesn't provide great community. In fact the way the church is structured today (i.e. meeting for 2 hours on a Sunday and 1 1/2 hours on a Wednesday) works against forming authentic community. Church can be a very lonely place for members of its community. Great worship really doesn't do it for people anymore either. Many churches are stripping their worship bands to one or two people leading the congregation in song. Why? People are hungry for an authentic embodied faith.

However, something the Church shall always have is the Lord's Supper and this will always feed someone who hungers for embodied faith. There is something truly mysterious about the Lord's Supper that is transformative. Here the body and blood of Christ are offered to a world that desperately needs him in the symbols of bread and wine. And as we take these simple elements, the Holy Spirit works so powerfully through them in a very mysterious way, that we who feed on them are nourished by Jesus Christ.