What is the Church?

            What is the church?   In common terms of North American culture it means a building.  When someone says church, typically they are speaking of architecture, not a group of people who follow Jesus.  The other way I often see the word church used is in the sense of an institution.   I find this too less than ideal.  Because in this sense it is not about following Jesus, it is about serving the organization.

            Brethren were hesitant about building buildings and even after they did build buildings they intentionally called them meeting houses.  They were intentional about not confusing the issue, the church is the people not the building.  The issue is very confused in our modern culture.  In this regard perhaps the transition we are seeing in church nomenclature is not troubling but rather clarifying, not meeting at the church but on the campus.  At one point we must ask, does it matter where the church meets?  Does a building need to have a steeple to be a church’s meeting place?  I also ponder the huge amount of resources it can take to maintain a building, especially an older building.  I consider the budget for building and grounds at First Church, and ask, “What else could we do with that money?” 

            How many lives could we impact if we didn’t need to heat a facility, if we didn’t need to pay the electric usage, the trash hauling and sewer, the mowing, the repairs. . . and on and on the list goes.

            I realize that there are trade offs, if you rent space, you don’t have your own space to use as you wish.  You are not able to change your schedule at a whim, but then again how often do most congregations change their meeting times. 

            These however are not my primary concerns with the building issue.  One is that association with bricks and not people, as I stated above.  The other is related to problems that come with a building becoming a shrine.  It is easy to allow a pew to become a family’s pew, and when a visitor comes and takes a seat in that family’s pew, or when so and so has been taking care of one area of the building for years, it becomes theirs, at least in their mind.  We form incredibly strong emotional ties to our buildings, so strong in fact that they at points become more important than following after Jesus, while this may not be universal experience, but it becomes a reality for many people.  Then there are additional problems that come with the practice of dedicating windows, pew, offering plates, pulpit furniture, rooms, musical interments and the like to people who have served the congregation and are now with the Lord.  How long do we keep such dedications, what happens when that item needs to be renewed or renovated?  Who gets the dedication?  It opens a myriad of problems for faith and deepening spiritual lives.  After all why is the church in the modern world, is it for dedicated architecture?   Does the church exist to hold dedications to lost loved ones?  Does the church exist to provide denominational jobs?  Is the church here to share Christ with a people seeking light and love and joy and hope?  Is the church here to be a blessing to the communities in which we live and work?  Is the church here to proclaim Christ and see people come to follow him as Lord and Savior.  Perhaps it is time for us to see if our buildings are serving our mission or if we are serving our buildings?