HAVE you ever asked yourself what church really is? Today is the day to ask such questions as this one!
Church is often used as a term to describe a lot of different buildings, a lot of denominations, a lot of philosophies or a whole bunch of other things. Unfortunately none of them are in the Bible, so let’s see what the Bible says about church, right?
What church is NOT:
- a building (whether it’s a temple, an architectural masterpiece, the room where people gather on Sundays, …)
- a denomination (whether it’s catholic, protestant, pentacostal, baptist, …)
- a special label added to a special name (like Church of Christ, Church of God, Church of , …that’s very different from a simple description of churches in different regions or cities, as the Bible says, e.g. Church in Corinth or Church in Ephesus…this description has nothing to do with a “special label” added to a “special name”)
- “a” or “the” pastor (often the pastor or leader of the congregation is the main person in “church” and the church sometimes even “belongs” to this person. How far it is from the real church and real leaders in the Bible…)
- a group of people meeting on Sundays for a “modern” church service (with program and liturgy and where most of the people are just visitors similar to a concert or a show.)
What church is:
- ekklesia, meaning “the called-out-ones” (describing the nature of the people who are born by the spirit and not by human flesh, God’s people, whether they meet or they don’t meet. Ekklesia is about the people and not about the meeting.)
- a family (How intimate and private and deep our relationships to one another should be!)
- a bride (Yes, the church is described as the bride for God’s Son Jesus; it is a beautiful picture and mystery of our Oneness as believers and our Oneness with God, His Son and His Holy Spirit)
- a spiritual house consisting of living stones – a holy people (living stones – we are more an organism than an organization)
- the body (…”the” body? Yes, of Jesus Christ Himself. It is a picture where we as the church are His body and Jesus is our head. A beautiful picture how close we are connected to God, when we are truly His body. We also believe there is a real spiritual meaning in being His body. We’d love to explore it with anyone who also loves to follow His voice.)
- holy, loving, without sin, caring, encouraging, trusting, believing, praying, giving, admonishing, helping, changing and a lot more…
As you can see, church is more than a building or the meeting. It’s about the people and the life.
Practically this means, that:
- the church only consists of disciples, people who really love Jesus wholeheartedly (this doesn’t mean, that there will never be any problems or sin, but(!) sin will be worked out and will never be tolerated or ignored. Once again: Worked out in love. 🙂 )
- there is no “membership” in God’s church or do you have to sign up to be part of your biological family? No, you don’t. You are part, because you have been born the way you have been born. Sounds logical. Same with God’s family: You are part of God’s church when you are born through a second birth, spiritually by God.
- the church as a family exists 24/7 and we take care of and are interested in one another on a daily basis. It’s about our family-life in and with God.
- there are no meetings that dictate how our church-life looks like. But out of our daily together-life some meetings can be the result of our love we have for one another. So it’s the other way round. It’s not: Sunday service and church meetings or Smallgroup meetings lead to church-together-life. It’s because of(!) the together-life we have that they may lead to (bigger) meetings in the city the church lives.
- all the gifts that God has for us as His body (and therefore for you and me!) are for THIS together-life as described above, not for the Sunday service! A handyman may help a brother with a broken table or a broken sink at his home or a sister with the gift of encouragement encourages another sister who has had a bad day. And this could happen on a Wednesday! That’s true love that goes further than any Sunday service or Smallgroup meeting can be. Not because of the heart of the believers who attend the Sunday service meeting – I am sure that there are some who love our Lord with all of their heart. But because of the setting of “this special day” and the “program” the church cannot act as the real family as it should be. The program usually goes on, whatever might happen.
Therefore…don’t “go” to church.
Be the church.