We Are Church We Don't Go to Church!

A post from Pastor Kathy.

What does it mean to be the church? What is the church anyway? In the early days of the church, it never meant a building because there were no church buildings. St. Paul used to address his letters to “the church in ____’s house.” The church was the group of believers who met together. The meeting place could be anywhere: in a house, in the catacombs, in a field, etc. Early Jewish Christians continued to go to the temple or the synagogue but gathered elsewhere to study, commune listen to the apostles. It was not until after the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire that buildings were converted or constructed for worship use.

The challenge is that we have now become accustomed to think of the building as the church. (Think of the finger play we learned as children: Here is the church; here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.) We often talk about going to church, not about being the church. Sadly, we get to the point where we think that if something happens to our building we are no longer a part of the church. I received a call recently from one of my former parishioners that her congregation is so busy doing fundraisers to pay the church expenses that they have no time, money or energy to help meet a need for someone in the community whether or not they are a member of the congregation. One of the members is frequently in tears because she doesn’t know what she will do if/when the doors close. Sadly, she (and others in the congregation) never seem to remember that Jesus promised to be among us wherever we gather no matter how many or how few of us are there.

The writers of scripture used a number of images to describe the gathering of the believers. The gospel of St. Matthew refers to the assembled believers as the church (See Matthew 18). One of St. Paul’s favorite images is the believers as the body of Christ. In Romans 12 he wrote, “ For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” Working together, using the gifts God has given each of us, we are the functioning body of Christ in this world. Thus the church is not simply a place to meet for worship and fellowship; instead the church is the people themselves who work together – to praise God, to learn about God and his purpose for us, to love and serve others in the Name of Christ.