Dear Small Church Congregation,
I saw a t-shirt recently with the statement, “I Love My Church.” I thought, “how nice.” The person “loves” attending a worship service at that church facility. Or does the person “love” the people who worship there? Or does he/she “love” the activities or the youth group or the music team or the style of preaching from the pastor?
Just what constitutes “loving my church?”
As I thought about this question, I remembered a situation that occurred in the city of Corinth in the New Testament. Some of the attenders were associating their faith with the apostle Peter. Others were connecting with the orator Apollos. Still others were saying they were following Paul.
Paul asked a simple question of the people: (Paraphrased) Did Peter or Apollos or I die for you? He did this to refocus the people on who it is who should be the center of their worship. Paul pointed out that only Jesus should be followed and worshipped.
Let me get back to the t-shirt. Is the church a facility, a set of programs or a following of one particular pastor? Your automatic answer should be an unqualified, “NO.” The church described in the New Testament is not a place or a building. The church is not a denomination or a fellowship or an association of congregations. The church is not a man-made construct.
The church originally began as a synonym for all the disciples of Christ. It was the assembled believers in Jesus. It was referred to as the bride of Christ. It was what made up his “body” on this earth after Jesus ascended to the father and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in the believers. It was the physical, living, breathing, ministering group of people to whom Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel (good news).
The “church” did not belong to a human. It belonged to Jesus, because he paid for the people who made up His church with His blood sacrifice on Calvary. It (everyone in the world who believes in Jesus, has repented of sins and been forgiven through faith in His name) still belongs to Jesus. The church is His!
That means it’s not ours. The body of disciples is not ours to do with as we please. It is not ours to control, to manipulate or to regulate to a set of rules.
Since the church is not ours, how should we approach the concept of being part of the church? Allow me to recommend something to you. Stop equating the world-wide group of people who follow Jesus with a building or a denomination or a certain pastor.
A bit of history so we can get this concept into perspective—the disciples of Jesus did not construct buildings into which to gather for services for about 200-220 years after Jesus ascended. (ChristianityToday.com) Fast forward to the early settlers in North America—buildings were constructed for general community uses, and those uses included worship, education and civic meetings. Many towns during the expansion westward had buildings dedicated to worship, buildings which doubled as the local school because they were used to teach people how to read scriptures.
As time passed, the buildings were called “church houses,” and later the “houses” part was dropped and shortened to “church.” That one word was then used to represent the followers of Jesus in general, not referring to the building, but to the people. However, the term eventually took on the location meaning instead of the people who met there.
Back to today. The vast majority of the people who attend worship services refer to “the church” as the location of the building and not the people in the building. They say they are “going to church” when they actually mean they are gathering at a location for worship. But the worship has been overshadowed by the location.
Many I have encountered are more concerned about the building, the programs, the events and the pastoral staff than they are about being a part of the body of Christ, the church of the living God, the bride of the coming King. And that concern has prompted people to take ownership of the building, programs, etc. because they have invested their time, talents and treasures in constructing and maintaining these things in what they consider important aspects of spreading the gospel of Christ to all the world.
People begin to look at anything they invest themselves into as being “theirs.” I fear it is for this reason that some say, “I love my church.” They mean they love being part of a particular group in a particular building promoting a particular doctrine under the leadership of a particular pastor because they have invested significant amounts of time and money into the upkeep of that building, administering the programs, cooking meals, cleaning the bathrooms, mowing the lawns, playing the instruments, sitting on the pews/chairs, attending business meetings and a multitude of other activities that focus on where they are instead of who they are and whose they are.
I’ll say it again—I fear some have forgotten what the church is and whose church it is. We’ll look at congregations who remember the “who” and “whose” in the next letter.
Sincerely,
A Small Church Pastor