The Church as denomination

A difficulty we have in understanding church identity is that denominations refer to themselves as churches. Even the Roman Catholic Church, from the orthodox and protestant points of view, is just another denomination. Denominations are essentially organisations of like-minded local churches that provide such things as corporate structure, cohesiveness, and pooled resources for the member churches. They are similar to parachurch organisations. Denominational organisations are not “the church” but organisations serving part of “the church”.