Today’s
article is more of a Riverside church update. I hope you enjoy and are
challenged.
This
last week, I heard that a family didn’t visit our church when they were looking
for a church because they believed that we would not be here in the future. They
thought, “Why invest in a church that will just close up?”
Then
in another conversation I had this week, someone mentioned that they thought our
church was going under.
So
I want to emphasize in this article that “We’re still here. We still care. And
we still have a mission.”
I think these thoughts all stem back to when we put our
building up for sale. Notice that I didn’t say “church” up for sale. At that
time we were in financial dire straits. This led to us listing the building on
the market. When we did that, I emphasized that the building is for sale, not
the church. I posted an article online explaining that. I wrote an article for
this paper doing the same. And I preached it. Our church, if the building sold,
was not leaving Antwerp. We would have been moving into town and had a budget
for a few years to be a fully-funded church, allowing us to do many of the
ministries we have a passion for but currently lack the funding for. Things
that would help us fulfill our mission as a church.
For many, being a church without a permanent building is
apparently a tough thing to grasp. Some apparently think that the building is
the church. But I know of many churches that have prospered and thrived renting
out a place to worship. Rick Warren’s church (Rick of Purpose-Driven Life fame)
had 10,000 people attending the church he pastors at before building a building.
They were a church without a building.
Rick wrote, “I'm often asked, `How big can a church grow
without a building?' The answer is, `I don't know!' Saddleback met for 15 years
and grew to 10,000 attenders without their own building, so I know it's
possible to grow to at least 10,000! A building, or lack of a building, should
never be allowed to become a barrier to a wave of growth. People are far more
important than property” (Purpose Driven Church, 46).
Others have probably heard wrong information through the
Antwerp gossip vine concerning Riverside. Maybe they heard that we were closing
up or some other news instead of just selling our building. In this article, I
hope to set the record straight.
For us, listing our building for sale reminded us that the
building is not the church. The building never has been the church. The
building never will be the church. Understanding that is a good fundamental to
build off of. We, the people, are the church. Our relationships with one
another and Jesus make a church, not the building. When we meet in the park,
we’re the church. If we meet in another building, we would still be the church.
When we meet for a Bible study at my house, we’re the church. We, the people,
are the church. And if we don’t have good relationships with one another and
Jesus, yet have a building, we are not the church. The building, although a
useful tool at times, is irrelevant to being the church.
If the day comes when it would be better for us to sell
the building, we would not hesitate to sell it. We would gladly and eagerly
sell the building to further God’s church. Now those two sentences would be
confusing if you don’t differentiate between the building and the church, but
that is only due to a wrong understanding of what the church is.
And we get that wrong understanding
honestly. We’re ingrained from birth with a wrong understanding of the
building. “Here
is the church, Here is the steeple, Open the doors, See all the people. “
But
the truth is better expressed in a
revised rhyme that I found, “Here is a building, On top there’s a steeple, Open
the doors, The church is the people!”
Anyway, I want to emphasize today that “We’re still here. We
still care. And we still have a mission.” So if anyone asks how Riverside is
doing, let them know that. “We’re still here. We still care. And we still have
a mission.” We’re not going anywhere. Thankfully, things are a little better financially
right now than the tough times we faced at the turn of the year. God’s unending
and unexplainable provision is awe-inspiring. Our building is now off the
market. We have even hired a part-time children’s pastor. And we are growing
and actively ministering to our community. We are moving in the direction that
God wants us to move in as we continue to seek ways to minister to the
community with our limited budget.
May we always remember that people are more important than
any tool used in ministry, even the building.
