What is a church? What is The Church?
One of the problems in answering these is that there are
human answers and trans-human answers. We may be referring to a building,
anything from the largest and most ornate cathedral to the smallest and
plainest place where two or three are meeting in the name of God.
Perhaps that is a starting place. What makes a building,
or a group of people, a "church" is the intention: to make time and space for God. We do not always remember that all time and
all space is His; in the time and space that He created and gives us the use of
it is easy to get so overwhelmed with all of the demands of the world that we
need to set aside times and spaces to be conscious of and open to God.
As human individuals, what do we know about God, believe
about God, and expect from God? We live in a world where we tend to think first
about ourselves. Too often, that translates into thinking of God as an
overindulgent daddy who wants us to have all the goodies of the world and
nothing uncomfortable happen to us. But Jesus very clearly said that “My
Kingdom is not of this world.”* And He said it as He was about to die at the
hands of this world.
What does that have to do with the church? It should give
us a perspective that is different from the world; that the Kingdom of Heaven
is ruled by God, through Jesus. Truly, we don’t own our lives, we don’t own the
church. And the church on this side of Heaven has its authority from God, not
from any earthly power. None of us know everything there is to know about God
in this life; we should be learning and growing every day. No single
organization knows everything, either; we each know some things, and we can
learn from each other—both as individuals and as small-c churches.
What are we called to be? Jesus’ most often mentioned
goal was to bring the Kingdom of Heaven, not only in Heaven itself, but with
His citizens here as salt and light. We are here as people whose first allegiance
is to God. We need the support and fellowship of others on the same road; for
help, for accountability, for wisdom, to share in praising God, sharing what we
have experienced and learned in our journey, to share in praise and worship,
and more as we are led by God and Godly leaders.
We know that God is the power behind everything that is;
but He has allowed us an amazing amount of freedom to accept and reject. The
Authority is there, and it is easy to think that He is so big and powerful that
He doesn’t have time for the likes of us. But He is big enough to reach out to
each and every one of us and make us an offer that He wants us to accept—on His
terms, not ours. What He offers is truly best for us. But our responsibility is
to recognize the line between what we see and want, and what He wants for us;
*John 18:36
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