The Church: The most diverse organization in the history of the world

The Church, founded by Jesus Christ nearly 2,000 years ago, is indeed the most diverse organization in the history of the world, and at the same time, the most cohesive and tightly knit together.  When Jesus sent his disciples out into the world to share the Good News of his death and resurrection, he sent them to peoples and lands without regard for the race, ethnicity, class, or gender of their audience.  As the Church became established and grew, it soon encompassed a vast array of people who, until their commitment to Christ, would have believed that they had little in common. 

While it is true that the people who comprise the Church have not themselves always been immune to the temptation to sin by treating fellow believers as "other", the spiritual bond of union with Christ that binds the Church together is stronger than any other familial bond, let alone the various other bonds that people enter into willingly.  Those who are indeed part of the universal body of Christ, who have been washed clean by the blood of the lamb, share one characteristic that transcends human frailty and the human propensity to squabble or divide: Each and every Christian is a sinner saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Unity on that basis cannot be destroyed by the failures of the people who have been called by God out of the darkness and into the light, for it is maintained not by our power, but by the power of God.

Perhaps the vast majority of your experience with church has involved people who look, speak, and think as you do.  Perhaps you've been lulled into thinking that the Church (universal) is a mirror image of the local church to which you belong.  If that is the case, you're not seeing the whole picture.  The Church, universal, is incredibly diverse in virtually every category, much of it very different, perhaps uncomfortably so, on the outside, from what you may have experienced.  And yet, at the same time, that universal Church is bound together by one singular and all-encompassing commonality: Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord of each and every one of his adopted brothers and sisters.