A Church Without Walls - Values, Part 4

Have you ever heard a church building referred to as the church-house? "Well, we went down to a meetin' at th' church house." Do you think you might be a redneck if that is what you call it? Actually, redneck as it sounds, you might be theologically correct. As we continue highlighting our core values as posted on the Mission Wall at the HBA Mission Center, the next value reads ...

Community Impact: Motivating the church to get outside the walls of the church-house to be the church in the community.

One way the Body of Christ has missed the mark is in referring to a building as the church. The New Testament never uses the word church in reference to a building, but in reference to a congregation or assembly of believers. The church is the people. It is not something you go to or have, but something you are a part of. You can't be a part of a building unless you are a brick (I won't make any brick-head comments. You can insert your own joke). One of the ways the association seeks to assist our churches is in helping to focus the church on being the church. Instead of trying to figure out how to get the community to come into a building (the church-house), we need to help each congregation focus on how to be the church (the visible representation of Jesus Christ) in the community. I am not anti-building. I am anti-edifice obsession. Churches are not built from wood, steel, brick and mortar. Churches are built with grace, truth, holiness, and compassion. A building is no more than a gathering place. Stained glass, steeples, pulpits, organs ... none of these make Christ real in the community. It is only what happens inside those buildings that motivates something to happen outside those buildings that determines whether the building is truly a church-house. Let's join together to pray that Christ is preeminently proclaimed inside our church-houses so that the church can get outside the walls and display in our communities the reality of who He is.