What is the church?
February 24, 2009
One of the things we’ve been exploring as a leadership team over the last few weeks and months is what it really means to “be the church.” Last Saturday at our first Community Gathering, we explored this question together and what it means for us as a new church here in the city of Denver.
The Community Gathering is an environment we do twice a month to help develop relationships and begin learning together, and it seemed appropriate as we started to spend some time talking about the question of what a church really is. To aid in the discussion, we watched a short film entitled Sunday, and then we shared thoughts and reactions to the film and to some questions we prepared ahead of time.
Overall it seemed like a great exercise for everyone involved. One idea the video brought out was that we have all experienced things we’ve felt like we “have to do.” As people shared it was clear that we’d all experienced this in some context – either in school, in our jobs, in our hobbies, and definitely in our experience of church. We talked about the benefits and the dangers that bringing organization and structures around our faith and agreed that these structures aren’t necessarily bad. The structures can be helpful in growing our faith, as long as the focus is on a relationship with God and not on just participating in activities associated with a church.
As we talked it became clear that this is important for us to grasp as a community now, before we have worship services or systems or programs. We talked about some of the important things that make the church the church – community with other believers, an external focus on those outside the church, a commitment to serve the marginalized, and an observance of the sacrements of our faith. We recognize that these are all things we can already do, even before we have a building or services or any of the things we may usually associate with “being a church.” The night was a good reminder for us all that the church is people not a building or programs. I think we’re all looking forward to exploring how we can continue being the church as our small community continues to grow.
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Figuring out what you are doing in is essential. I’ve been studying for 40 years and I’m finally getting to the beginning. I see this for the church: The model church is Acts 2:42-47. Its leader was no doubt Peter (John 21:15-19+Acts 2:14-47). He explains his philosophy in I Peter 2:4-12. He was createing a priesthood of believers. The church is comprised of living stones, gifted people serving the areas of their giftedness. The notion of the priesthood suggests that Christ wants every believer to be a priest, that is, one who does the Lord’s business, carrying the gospel and serving others (Note: II Cor 2:14-16, 5:16-21). So one task for the church is to train the priesthood. In other words, training people to train people. You grow churches by growing people. I’ve been trying to get the leadership at my church to see this. Individually, they’re fine Christian men. As a group, they’re a stone wall. In any event, your post shows you are building Peter’s foundation. God bless.