There is a concept which is very popular in the organized church, its called covering.  Usually, the question goes, “who’s your covering?” in other words, “who are you accountable to?”  It’s not necessarily an improper question but can lead to oppressive attempts to control brothers and sisters in the body.  Such control is truly one of the main factors in our departure from the institutional church.

The body of Christ is to be made up of brother and sisters living together in unity following our Head, Jesus as He guides us by the Holy Spirit.  This model is by nature messy because it includes humans, we are quite imperfect at hearing and following the leading of the Spirit.  We must have examples of godly men and women who’ve gone on before us down this path and can help us along the way.

So we come to the conundrum.  We have a Head, Jesus alone is the Head of the Church, His body here on earth.  We also need examples of successful followers of the way.  Into this problem the human organization of the institutional church has stepped.  This requires much prayer and guidance from the Holy Spirit to discern what all is going on in the local body and that it is in line with the true Gospel of grace.

It may take some amount of time associating with a particular church (local expression of the body) to determine how closely they are following Jesus and what their particular bent to the Gospel is.  Churches can operate in various modes and be well within the guidelines of Scripture.  So we as individual believers must listen carefully to the witness of the Holy Spirit about the situation.

I know this is not a clear answer, but it is a call to maturity.  We are each responsible to Jesus to follow Him with our whole being.  To do that well we must continue to grow daily in our fellowship with Him.

We live life on a path which has many branches. They lead us upward, downward and even just sideways. Each choice of direction sets up the next. Just like physics says a box in motion tends to continue in that same direction we get bent towards the path we choose. Like the verse which tells parents to train up a child in the way he should go and that will set them on the path of righteousness.

However our choices can lead to great endings or horrible ones. It is so much easier to continue on the path of righteousness when we have a foundation of godliness. Likewise the path of doom is a self fulfilling spiral like a whirlpool with a slippery slope surrounding it.

Then there’s also the sideways trails which lead to repetitive motion ever leading nowhere effectively. These go around and around the mountain of life bringing frustration and eventually leading us, exhausted, to crossroads where we must go up or down realizing the utter failure of this way. These paths are most dangerous because of the vexation they bring to the whole journey.

The good news is that at any time in our journey we can choose to turn off that downward trail and rejoin the upward path which we were destined for. It is amazing that if we simply turn Jesus is right behind us with open arms. Once we follow Him the path upward becomes one of ever increasing joy and fulfillment.