When I say the word “church” what do you think of? Most Americans probably think of a single building that they might attend or drive by on the way to work.

If you said “church” to a first-century Christian, they had a very different image pop into their minds. New Testament scholars agree that the way the early church conceived of itself was as a collective city-church. In other words, when Paul writes his letter to the church at Philippi, he writes it to all of the congregations that meet within the city of Philippi. The letter made the circuit through the city and was read by the leaders at various assemblies. In other words, there was such strong unity across local churches that they conceived of themselves as a collective church.

In fact, there appear to be certain leaders in the various cities who held authority over their local church as well as a number of congregations within their respective cities (Titus, Timothy, Peter, John, etc).

Now, this isn’t to diminish the serious challenges and conflict within these city churches. A cursory look at the letters makes it clear that these churches dealt with many of the same problems we still deal with today: sexual misconduct, greed, heresy, gossip, and conflict, to name a few. It’s instructive to see how these issues are dealt with in the context not just of a local church, but of the city-church.

The average church today is an island unto itself. If truth be told, most churches are for their church, not the church.

It’s understandable why any given local congregation would withdraw from a broader commitment to the church. There are a number of challenges to being committed to the church.

How the Church Can Stop Eating Its Own Tail

It was our youth pastor, Dustin Tramel, who first made the pitch to me. I had just recently come on staff at New Life and he encouraged me to consider attending the Tucson Pastors’ Prayer Summit. He guaranteed it would be one of the most important things I did. He was right.

A couple of weeks ago I attended my fourth Pastors’ Prayer Summit on Mount Lemmon alongside Pastor Greg and Ryan Paonessa. It’s a three-day event that gathers forty pastors from around Tucson to pray for the city and one another.

In many eras of the church our theological disagreements have divided us. Those disagreements still persist, but I believe stronger even than those theological disagreements are our own competitive impulses. More than ever it is the fine and elusive line between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of [insert your church’s name here] that has created division in the church. It’s impossible to build unity in the Kingdom of God when we subconsciously believe our local church is the Kingdom of God.

This, of course, is a monster that is almost impossible to stop feeding. Christians float in our doors from other churches, wooed by our children’s program or music, and then float out to another church, wooed by its student ministry or preaching. We are the Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, pastors and parishioners swapping out positions as mouth and tail. We consume one another with an insatiable appetite.

And this is why I need the Prayer Summit.