The Church Made Simple

This is an older article from my time between ministries. Just transferred it over here.

Church should be simple, not this complex machine of committees and programs that it has become. I am pretty "lazy" when it comes to doing traditional church as I do not go to our church's Sunday evening or Wednesday evening services; I only spend four to five hours there every Sunday morning in a leadership meeting, teaching a Sunday School class, attending the "service," and sharing in a fellowship meal. I have friends who keep busy going to the church every time the doors are open.

Church wears them out. Keeping busy going to church takes away time that they could be visiting a neighbor or helping another person by taking up at least one morning and two evenings every week.

There are some in my church, and possibly yours, who think if you are not there when the doors are open, then you are not being faithful to Christ. It is presented as if attendance at another educational function is essential to being faithful disciples. If you catch some of these people who do not miss a service when they are in the right mood, they will actually tell you that. I have been present for some of these unity-building moments.

Church is not something that should keep us busy through education and worship; church is the relationships between people living out the call to be disciples of Christ. Instead of becoming a tool to help us follow Christ in our homes, neighborhoods, and places of employment, church has developed into a mammoth assortment of programs that keep us busy from actually loving those around us that are not part of the church. Church has moved from being the relationship between the people of God to being an institution that must be maintained.

For many who desire church to be different, they change the word "church" to words like "fellowship" or "community" and label their buildings as "Christian Centers" or some other name. If changing our vocabulary helps us to be the church, then our vocabulary should be quick to go. But if we change only the vocabulary and leave the practices in place that have actually took the church on a scenic detour from where we need to be, then we are only playing word games. I can hear the argument that we need to call things by their biblical names. We need to note that "church" is just a translated word from the Greek "ekklesia." If "church" has morphed into meaning something in our culture that is not really what the "ekklesia" of the Bible is, then a vocabulary change would be useful. It does nobody any good to keep calling a biblical idea a word that has lost the biblical meaning.

"Church" has become associated in people's minds with singing, sermons, lessons, Sunday morning, programs, and all other various activities. Maybe a vocabulary change is needed because it should be associated with prayer, apostle's teaching, relationships, eating together, loving, and sharing. The essentials of church have been replaced by ancillaries. We can stop singing, having sermons, meeting on Sunday mornings, and creating programs and still be healthy churches.

Nor is it necessary to be a large group to be the church. "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them" (Matthew 19:20). That section of Scripture is in the midst of a section on the power of believers when they gather together. Being a disciple is not to be done alone but along with others on the journey together, but it does not have to be done with fifty, a thousand, or ten thousand people. The problem is that we have so narrowly defined what that communal journey is to look like that we have made it corporate. A corporate journey is one in which the leaders discover the path through prayer and conversation with one another. The leaders follow that up by passing the direction down from the top. A communal vision is one discovered by the people through conversation and prayer with one another and then shared. This is then lived out in fellowship with one another.

One of the major problems of corporate church is that it financially and time-wise costs much more. Is it possible to have all of the assets, which require maintenance, and the regular expenses of an institutional church, not become distracted by them, and remain focused on the mission of Christ in our community and around the world? It might be possible, but the default seems to be distraction. Most churches spend the majority of their money on the maintenance of the institution of church, on their leaders and on the building they meet in. The institution becomes the goal rather than being disciples. It is a very rare church that spends over 50% of their money helping people rather than on the maintaining the institution. I know some will say that the maintenance of the institution is helping others, especially when it comes to paid ministers. I might have to concede that, but the goal needs to be something other than the maintenance of the institution. What I have found is that megachurches and house churches use a smaller percentage of their budget on the maintenance of the church compared to all of the churches in between.

Jesus said that the world will know his disciples by their love for one another. We somehow have lost the desire to emphasize love. Proper doctrine that does not lead us to be more loving is a waste of a teachable moment. A building that does not cause us to be more loving is a total misuse of God's resources. We have lost site of the goal in the midst of church. Bells, whistles, and all other sorts of distractions are meaningless if they are not tools to equip us to be more loving. We lose focus in maintaining the institution and it becomes a mean in itself rather than the tool it should be. A lot of time with have a lot of time and money invested in tools that have lost their effectiveness.

Let the institution fall. Let the saints rise up and begin to love one another and all who they encounter.

Just a Building, Not the Church

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.

The Building is For Sale; Not the Church

Because of circumstances (the public listing, people inquiring, and some controversy at a local diner), I have decided to release this letter for public consumption. There have been a few changes since this was writtn. First, we are not broke as our projections forecasted we would be at this time because of a generous $2000 gift given to Riverside after the writing of this letter. And the outside support did not come through.

**

The title says it all. We are looking at selling the building; however, the church is not for sale.

What that means is that we believe the church is the people.

Together, we are the church. Whether we worship in the park as we have before or whether we have to find a new, permanent location to meet at, we, people with friendships with one another under the lordship of Jesus, will still be the church. Nothing can change that unless we get too discouraged.

The reason we are looking at selling the building is that we lack sufficient operating revenue. We have been blessed with an outside donor who has been giving us $2000 a month for the last two years. He heard about the changes we were doing and wanted to support us as he would a new church plant, which we basically were. When the leadership of the church decided to hire me and to bring about changes, we faced all of the hardships of being an old, established church while facing all the obstacles of being a new church without the funding that a new church has. In December we saw the donations from our generous donor drop to $1500. That amount will continue to drop by $250 per month every quarter until our generous donor is no longer financially supporting our church. Our current shortfall is around $1500. With the incremental decreasing that we will see in the coming year and a half, our shortfall will eventually reach around $3000 a month.

As you can see, the amount of money that we’re taking in does not cover the expenses that we have. This means that we have to do something drastic. Our church is heading in the right direction. People are growing in the Lord. People are excited about loving their neighbors. And we are growing in numbers. We want to keep going. We believe the work that God has started here is not over yet. We are excited to see what God will do through us.

We have cut expenses to the bare bones. The people in our church are giving generously, yet we still do not have enough to make ends meet. We must grow in people who are emotionally, financially, and spiritually committed to our mission so that we can meet the budget needs that we currently have and will have in the future. At this point in time, we are faced with some difficult options: To close up the church completely, to lay me off and go without a pastor, or to sell the building. We don’t want to close up shop because we believe that God is doing great things among us and through us. This church has previously tried stretches without a paid pastor, and it is our opinion that during those stretches the fruit has been lacking. We see no reason to believe that by laying me off our church will prosper, and that is the most important thing here. Not to mention that I still feel called to minister in Antwerp. Considering all of that, we’ve decided that at the present time the best option out of all the bad options is to put the building up for sale.

Receiving miraculous financial support would be great. Even with more outside support to help us through the coming year, we will be in a similar situation at the end of next year. We are thankful to hear that another organization, who asked us to keep their name anonymous, wants to support us with $1500 a month for a year. This has not officially gone through yet, but it looks promising. What this means is that we don’t have to close up or lay me off in mid February like we feared we would. But it does not get us out of this crisis. It gives us some breathing room to allow God to do what He wants to do.

We must reach a point where we’re financially self-sufficient if we are going to continue to minister to and have an impact on the community of Antwerp. We don’t want to always be on the receiving end of help; we want to reach a point where we can have a local, national, and international impact for the kingdom of God. If we can sell the building, the revenue received from that sale will give us some operating cash to function for around two to three years. As we grow and the financial giving increases, the length of our survivability increases. We hope to reach a point where we will be receiving more money through offerings than we have going out through ministries. At that point we can look at owning a building again, but the key is to be a self-sufficient church before making that decision. A building, although a great and useful tool, is not necessary to be a thriving and community-impacting church. The key to be a thriving church is for all of us to be surrendered to the Lord’s will for our lives.

It is a shame to have to sell the building. A lot of people have donated generously through the years with their time and money to make this building what it is. Unfortunately, those blessings from the past cannot help us at this point in time to get us where we need to go. Financially, selling the building is a terrible long-term solution, but it is the best short-term one available to us. However, God might have better long-term plans for us in selling the building and meeting in a different location. His ways are not our ways. And just because we list the building does not mean that it will sell.

The great thing about being followers of a wonderful God is that we know He can turn what we perceive as bad situations into great, life-changing events. We can be better as a result of this change than we were before it. This might even be what God wants for us. He knows what we need and what our community needs better than we do.

So I want to encourage you to not be discouraged by the circumstances. That’s easier said than done. I spent a few weeks deeply discouraged about our financial situation and the future of this church, but God continues to convict me that what I perceive as a bad situation will actually bring him glory. Paul wrote, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6 ESV). That promise was true for the Philippians and it is true for us today. I know that God has been doing great things here in Antwerp as a result of our faithfulness to him. Let us not give up hope. Let us not be discouraged. Let us continue on in our mission to love Jesus, to love each other, to love our neighbors, and to expect God to bring about positive change. The building is for sale, but the church will continue on in the work we have been called to do. Where he will have us worshipping him in a year’s time does not really matter. What matters is whether we are committed to worshipping and serving him together.

Grace and peace,
Regan Clem
Pastor at Riverside Christian Church

**

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments below.

A Reexamination of the Church Building

In 2004, a long time ago and what seem like a galaxy far, far away, a stranger named Regan wrote a few posts expressing his views on the church building. Recently, in discussions on Facebook, discussion over the building resurfaced. After rereading this writings from 2004, I think my views are a little different than Regan's.

Here are the posts from 2004:
The Chain that Keeps the Church from Flying
Questions concerning abandoning the sanctuary

I still struggle with a church owning a building. In our leadership meetings, we have even discussed in about selling our church building with the intention of moving our gathering to the school auditorium or in one of the storefronts downtown. In the end, the financial savings would not be all that much. Either we would have to become smaller and meet in various houses or we would need a rich homeowner with a lot of room in his home to provide us with a place to gather. The baffling thing is that we would probably lose at least one family from doing that. I would hate to see that. To illustrate the point of the role of the building in some people's view of church, the last two summers we moved our gathering to the park for three Sundays. A family silently protested our gathering in the park and did not come to worship with us. As for our church, we only have eight years left of paying the mortgage and we are in the clear.

One difference I have noticed from when I gathered with Christians in houses to now is that random people never popped into a house gathering. They all have to be personally invited. There is an advantage to that, but there is a great disadvantage. The advantage is that the church is based purely around relationships. The disadvantage is that the church would not get strangers who become friends through them seeking out a place to belong. Invited friends are more comfortable (and more as meaning "still not that comfortable") checking out a church in a church building than in a house. The building is an outrageously expensive tool, but it does seem to work at opening the door to share the Gospel and get people connected with other believers despite all of my arguments against it.

Although I approve of buildings now (not that they needed my approval), buildings should not be our default position. It's often like, "Ooh, we are a church. Now let's build a building to be official." But we don't need a building to be official. The negatives of church buildings can outweigh the positives. They limit the size to which a church can grow. They create a mindset that God is more present there than where we eat, work, play, and sleep. And a multitude of other problems.


Then I come back to the situation I find myself in. The situation in which I believe God placed me. Probably to stretch me along with others. In this situation, it seems unwise to get rid of the building, so we are trying to make sure that we give God glory through His building not being empty throughout the week. We changed the name of our building away from the name of the church (the building is the Riverside Family Center and we are the Riverside Christian Church) because we want it to be a blessing to the community rather than just our church's building. We view it as a missions center rather than a sacred place.

I also understand Ken Williamson's (an article entitled "My Next Church" that I discussed yesterday in my post "Toward a Better Church") comments about the division over things in our building. The church I am a pastor at has been here forty-nine years now. The building was build just a few years after that start. Unknowingly, I created a lot of controversy when I rearranged the stage. I didn't know that it hadn't been rearranged except for weddings since it was set in that place over forty years ago. Since then, we have sold the pews and communion table - creating controversy, but we thought it was worth it (I had been making and living through decisions like that). Selling the pews did not go over well, but it allows the gathering room to have other uses beside the one hour it is used on Sunday mornings. That room is pretty expensive to be used only one hour a week.

When we received our nearly $800 air conditioner repair bill the other week, it definitely made me rethink the building. But I just concluded that was an expense to help the daycare exist. The organization running our daycare had been looking for a home for years. Antwerp does not have a licensed daycare, and there was no place working out. The over year long process should be rewarded with a license on Monday! When I came here, we started discussing using the building for other purposes throughout the week, and we connected with the daycare. Hopefully, it will be a blessing to the community. Hopefully, we can find other uses for our building to be a blessing to the community.


What I see as a problem from the organic church crowd (and myself from 2004) is that they just disregard the  building entirely, but I am learning to see that God can use a building for His glory. We just need to disregard our conceptions of what the uses of the building should be. I anticipate that I will get a complaint today because we have a lot of sorted clothes from our Kid's Clothes Closet in the back of our worship gathering room (for lack of a better word because I don't want to use "sanctuary") waiting to be hauled away. But I am fine with that. I will emphasize that the gathering room is a mission station. Sometimes things get messy when we are doing the work of the Lord.

I have wrestled with the building many a time, and I am sure that I will continue to wrestle with it in the future. Not only does it take financial resources, it also takes mental resources and physical resources through thinking about what needs to be improved and through actually maintaining it. May we all be willing to use our building in whatever way God calls us to despite our preconceptions.

Toward a Better Church

‎Recently I was directed to "My Next Church" by Kent Williamson. It's an article expressing what Williamson views as the ideal church and all of the faults in many churches. Faults most of us can relate to.

He proposed an admirable goal for his next church:

My next church will actively engage the culture. It will not wait patiently for seekers or the lost to wander through it’s doors. No, instead it will prayerfully seek them. It will not abandon the arts, but instead will actively pursue them, both in creating them and experiencing them. It will attempt to live culturally relevant lives, not to be seen by the world around us hip or in, but in an attempt to become all things to all men so that more may come to know Him.

Finally and probably most importantly, my next church will be about the great commission and the greatest commandments. It will actively pursue making disciples (not merely converts) of all men. It will actively be about loving our neighbor as ourselves. And it will actively attempt to love the Lord our God with all our heart soul and strength. The message of my next church will not change, but it’s methods will."

That is what church is about, but the ideal church he projects gets distorted in the midst of pointing out his many frustrations with the church. He wrote that his next church "will discourage argument for arguments sake over the finer points of theology that have divided so many for so long."

Will it not have enough time to talk about finer points of theology because it will too busy dividing and condemning others on finer points of ecclesiology? I'm not picking on Williamson. I believe that he expresses thoughts that many discouraged and disillusioned Christians have about the church. But in barraging the church with such vitriol, people who desire the church to be more than it is substitute one poisonous, divisive fruit for another. It is just as detrimental to divide over lesser points of theology as it is to divide over lesser points of church structure.

Williamson writes:

My next church will meet in the community. It may gather at a coffee house, a restaurant, or a neighbors yard today, and a playground, a theatre, or a parking lot next time, but the focus will not be on meeting to cloister ourselves from the world. 

Williamson would have to meet at an everchanging venue to find his goal of a church being about the great commission and the great commandments. Having an established building to gather in rather than a mobile, spontaneous gathering is irrelevant to us reflecting the Kingdom of God and being the people we are called to be. The Church can be found in a mega-church, a small rural church, and a group of Christians that don't want a formalized community and choose to meet in a coffee house one week and a parking lot the next. Praise God for His diversity and glory in His victories all around.

I hope that Kent Williamson finds the Church, but I also hope that he hasn't missed the Church around him because of his strict ecclesiology.

What I see in a lot of the "sanctuary church is evil" conversation is that the argument is based on an ideal structure that is not given in Scripture. 

The hermeneutics that would be needed to state that a church should not have a building is the same hermeneutics that leads some groups to think that baptism is essential, participating in the Lord's Supper must only be on Sunday, and instruments cannot be used in the weekly worship gathering. It is the idea that if something is not explicitly stated in the New Testament or wasn't in practice with the early church, then it cannot be implemented today.

Personally, I wish the church where I was a pastor at didn't have a building, but we have tried to transition the building into being a missions center for the community rather than a place that is only used on Sunday mornings. We now house a Kid's Clothes Closet to provide clothes to children in need. We have invited in a daycare that will be able to provide childcare to families in need and also help pay for the building. We are open to more uses of the facility that can bring God glory. A building is a big expense. We must realize that it is only a tool. It is an expensive tool, so we better get a great use out of it for Jesus' glory. We must never forget that it is just a tool, neither moral or immoral by itself. It's moral or immoral based upon what we use it for. 

The hermeneutics that are against having a paid minister goes contrary to Scripture. I was an anti-paid minister person for a while. It was something I had to wrestle with when I felt God calling me back to the ministry for my livelihood. I didn't want to do it because I strongly felt that ministers shouldn't be paid. That was me forcing the Scriptures to say something that it doesn't say because I wanted the church to be something other than what it was and is. Once we start forcing the Bible to agree with the pain in our past from abusive Christians, we can miss the bigger picture. Let us not fool ourselves. These abuses can occur in the institutionalized church or in a freer form of church. 

A clear church structure was not given in Scripture. I would presume that was intentionally done by God because we would get legalistic and divisive over our interpretation of it. Instead, we are given the Holy Spirit who guides us and works all things for the good of those who love Jesus, the head of the church. The key for a healthy local church is to have the people who gather together living with Jesus as their head. When that is the case, the arguments over structures become meaningless. Hence, a local body can be mega, mini, transient, or some other structure.

We see through the epistles that God works locally. This means that what would be a vibrant community in one area might not connect with the people in another. The church cannot be cookie cutter, but it must be diverse. There are some elements that should never change from church to church, but most of what a church appears as is cultural. Cultural elements can change. It is essential that each local church is under the Lordship of Christ, or the church will just become a comfortable club (usually not social). I am happy to see people connecting to God in exciting ways in different settings. All believers are God's people no matter what structure or non-structure they find themselves living in community with other believers in.

We could have the best structure or non-structure in the world, but without the people who call themselves followers of Jesus really surrendering to His Lordship, it would all be meaningless. It is through surrendering to Jesus and living radically that lives and institutions, including faulty churches, will be transformed into His image. Let's get to surrendering.

More Than the Hall of Justice

On Saturday Mornings in the 1980s, I used to watch the Super Friends starring the Justice League of America versus the Legion of Doom.  Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and other awesome superheroes would go around the world saving the day.  

The thing I loved most about the Justice League was their headquarters, the Hall of Justice. Many of the episodes would begin with the Justice League receiving a distress call at the hall.  They would conclude with some witty moral statement by one of the Justice League members, usually Batman, back at the hall.  Everything centered around The Hall of Justice.

My mom and dad even bought me a Hall of Justice toy and Justice League action figures.  After that, I could conveniently reenact tales of great superheroics where the Justice League of America would stop the evil plans of the Legion of Doom. Those action figures would even take baths with me. Those were good times. I would pretend, like in some of the episodes I saw on TV, that the bad guys would come in and take over the Hall of Justice.  In the end, the good guys always won or the bad guy turned good.

As we grow up, we put away our Halls of Justice. We put our toys in the closet and move on, and our eyes are opened to viciousness of reality.  We see that bad guys do win at times only to die in their expansive mansions built off the hard work of others. We see that crooks, who are smart with the law, can be corrupt but get off Scot free. We imagine that our reality could use a good dose of the Justice League and the Hall of Justice.

Our desire for something better causes some of us to keep pretending.  We like to pretend that the church building is some religious Hall of Justice. When in actuality, the building is only a tool. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman were heroes whether or not they had the Hall of Justice. When they saw someone hurting, they would help. When they saw evil taking over, they would stand up for what is right. 

We need to realize that there is a Church whether or not there is a church building. Those of us who have surrendered our lives to Jesus, live in relationship with one another, and long to bring God’s reality into our reality are the Church. If a storm came into town next week and destroyed our church buildings, as we have seen happen throughout this nation this year, we would still have the Church. We would just no longer have church buildings. That’s a huge difference. One that we would benefit to realize without the destruction of our church building.

When we realize that the building is only a tool, it should help us to bring about God’s will in our lives and in our communities. If our building is not doing that, it should be discarded or reinvented. My father-in-law collects a lot of old tools. Many of the tools have been supplanted by tools that are more useful at getting the job done faster and more accurately. Other old tools stand the test of time. When a tool loses its usefulness, we replace it. It’s almost too obvious to write, but a tool is only as useful as its usefulness.

So what makes the church building a useful tool? If it is not being used as a missions center, then it is not a useful tool. If we are too worried about it looking spotless that we cannot use it to love the poor, then we have fallen in love with the tool rather than its intended purpose. If we spend all of our finances on the tool rather than on its purpose, then it has become an idol.  If we think that going and looking at the tool is our purpose, then we have lost our focus on Jesus. We need to never keep a tool after it has lost its usefulness, even if the nostalgia of the tool makes us more comfortable.  That’s not the purpose of a tool. A tool’s purpose is to help get a job done.

Church is not a building.  It is not a Sunday service.  If you took those things away, would you still be part of a church?  Or would your church experience disappear? If it would disappear, then the stark reality of your church life is that you are not currently part of the Church. You are just part of a social, or anti-social, meeting that happens on Sunday mornings. You are just going to church when God wants you to be the Church. God has so much more in store for you. May you find the strength to go after His will. The world would benefit from a Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman, but they are just pretend. It is time to stop pretending. What the world really needs is you, empowered by the grace of God through Jesus. That is the tool that will make a difference.

Man-Made Barriers Between God and Man

Historically, people have put barriers between themselves and God. This seems to be a natural response we have to encountering the greatness of God. When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, their response was to have Moses speak to God in the future and relay the message to them rather than them encountering God directly (Exodus 20:18-21). God always desired a direct relationship with His people; however, His people have constantly refused.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:21-24).

We build barriers between us and God through establishing designated places to experience God (we call them church buildings), setting a clergy class between God and us (we call them priests, pastors, and ministers). By doing this, people have created a God and religion that they can just do on Sundays rather than seeking to live the life of Jesus in the here and now. What God wants is to dwell in us and help us every moment of every day. We need to worship him in spirit and in truth, every moment of every day, rather than just on Sundays or when it is convenient. By pretending to confine God to a building and placing another person between God and ourselves, we miss out on the greatest blessing that God has designed us for: Knowing him, being in a relationship with Him, and bringing about his will.

The amazing thing is that the passage actually states that God seeks people to worship him in spirit and truth. He is seeking us. He’s not confined to one location. The idea of building Him a temple to “confine” Him in was King David’s idea, not His. No wonder when we seek Him we will be found. He’s right there just waiting for us to notice him.

Psychologists have done studies on how we typically see what we expect to see or we don’t see things we do not expect to see. But this principle of seeing what we expect to see or not seeing what we don’t expect to see impacts us spiritually. If we are not expecting to see God, then we will not see him. Our perception is influenced by our expectation. The Bible teaches that God is seeking us. It also teaches us that if we seek him, we will find him. He’s not confined to a building or confined to speaking only through this book or clergy. He’s among us, out here in the park, in our workplaces, in our yard, when we sleep, in our house, in our bathroom. God is there with us if we are willing to see him. We don’t need anyone besides Jesus to go through to encounter God, nor do we have to be in some specific “sacred” place.

Questions concerning abandoning the sanctuary

Wow. After Mr. Anonymous created some activity yesterday, I hope today will be a little more calm. I said, "Tear down the church buildings," and we got more debate over showing the youth group Twelve Monkeys. Life never ceases to amaze me.

I will deal with the thoughts that people brought up in their responses to the post yesterday.

I want to clarify one of my thoughts before beginning. Buildings aren't the main issue here. The main issue is being loving. More often than not it seems that the building gets in the way of us being loving in tangible ways. That is why it is being brought up. The question we need to ask is, "How can we be as loving as Christ wants us to be?" If having a building is part of that answer, then we need to have a building. I think most of the time we just build buildings because that is the default.

Sam wrote, "On the one hand, worship is about giving God glory, and His presence is not confined to a building. On the other hand, a structure built by years of sacrifice as an offering of love to God is an awe inspiring thing."

I understand the feeling. I think building a church and everything we do should be an act of worship to God. But I am reminded by Martin Luther that we are things we are clearly called to love our neighbors and enemies and not to worship God in other ways:

"Therefore since you have received enough and become rich, you have no other commandment ot serve Christ and render obedience to him., than so to direct your works that they may be of benefit to your neighbor, just as the works of Christ are of benefit and use to you...Observe now from this how far those have gone out of the way who have united good works with stone, wood, clothing, eating and drinking. Of what benefit is it to your neighbor if you build a church entirely out of gold? Of what benefit to him is the glitter and the ceremonies in the churches, the priests' gowns, the sanctuary, the silver pictures and vessels? Of what benefit to him are the many candles and much incense. Of what benefit to him is the much chanting and mumbling, the singing of vigils and masses? Do you think that God will permit himself to be paid with the sound of bells, the smoke of candles, the glitter of gold and such fanices? He has commanded none of these, but if you see your neighbor going astray, sinning, or suffering in body or soul, you are to leave every thing else and at once help him in every way in your power and if you can do no more, help him with words of comfort and prayer. Thus has Christ done to you and given you an example for you to follow.

These are the two things in which a Christian is to exercise himself, the one that he draws Christ into himself, and that by faith he makes him his own, aprropriates to himself the treasures of Christ and confidently builds upon them; the other that he condescends to his neighbor and lets him share in that which he has received, even as he shares in the treasures of Christ. He who does not exercise himself in these two things will receive no benefit even if he should fast unto death, suffer torture or even give his body to be burned, and were able to do all miracles, as St. Paul teaches in 1 Cor 13ff. "

Sam continued, "On the one hand, the money saved by not building a church could be spent on ministry and meeting needs. On the other hand, the example from the OT of bringing your best and creating an temple inlaid with gold and precious stones might have a place somewhere."

It might. But I also see the trasnsition of the temple. In the old covenant it was the physical building. In the new covenant it became the body of believers. That might play somewhat into a lesser emphasis on a physical building.

Sam concluded, "In my experience, the church does a poor job of money management and allotment. We spend more on paper plates and cups than we do on feeding people. We spend more on A/C and heat than on housing the homeless. In fact, we probably spend more on communion crackers and juice than we do on some vital ministry. Thus you see why I am torn. The building and the cost of the church is high and many people benefit. But what about all those who don't?"

Good thoughts. As I said in my intro, I think there can be room for a building and all the other extras if we are are loving our neighbors and our enemies like Christ told us to. If we aren't feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or housing the homeless, then our buildings stand in rebellion to the call which we have as the body of Christ. If we are doing those fundamentals, then there is room for the extras. Unfortunately, we usually place the extras above the fundamentals and the necessaries never get done.

Mike wrote, "Dude who wrote that first post....what a crack head!!"

Mike made me laugh. But I also think Mr. Anonymous probably had a good point. His methods and anonymity made the point get glossed over. But his point is for another day. Let this be a lesson to not be anonymous on the internet. People don't like that. (Linda, I can tell it is you when you are anonymous because of your writings. I just wanted to let you know that I am not pointing a finger at you.)

Linda wrote, "I think in an ideal world, it would be great for churches to meet in various places and be able to put the money towards other uses besides rent, upkeep, payments on a building, but we dont live in an ideal world."

I have always been an idealist. I will strive towards the ideal. If I fail, I will be where everyone else already is. But if I suceed...

We, as a body of believers, are called to embody the kingdom of God. We are to show the world what people who claim to follow God are to look like. We are the light. We can never settle for second best as long as the first best is a possibility. We are a people of hope. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people of God's choosing. Let us strive for the ideal.

Linda continued:

"And at this point, most fellowships...even the small ones couldnt hold everyone from that church in their home."

That might be true. But here is where I diverge. If being larger prevents us from being the loving hands of Christ in this world, then we need not be larger. We need to understand what God wants his people to be. Once we do that, we shape our structures to achieve our calling. We don't let our structures and institutions shape our calling. If that means we need to have more churches rather than large churches, then that is what we must do.

"I know you advocate homefellowships and homechurches...but I think people of the age of my mom(and even of my generation that love the traditional church surroundings) would be hard pressed to let God shatter that stained glass as they stepped into something different."

I understand that is a problem. I don't have the answer for it. I do think that holding on to a tradition that is holding back the church from being what it is intended to be is wrong. However, I don't know if we can clearly say that it is wrong yet. I guess that is what I am working through in my head. But if the church is called to something greater than what we currently are and we refuse to reach that because we are in love with the traditional structure, then shame on us.

Troy wrote, "Doesn't the Bible say that we shouldn't borrow; that we should owe no man? I'm with you (for the most part) about what we could do with that money. Kind of turns your stomach to know most of it is tied up in buildings/utilities and trivial things."

Why, yes it does. Interesting that we ignore that for the sake of expediency. We feel we are supposed to have buildings, so we will break a teaching of Scripture to do that. This kind of leads into what I want to talk about yesterday (It was originally planned for today). But I'll leave you guessing on what that is.

Shannon wrote, "I am 90% convinced that when ELCC outgrows this land, that we will not purchase more. There is no way we could do it for less than $4 million. I think the building does serve good purpose, but that just seems like too high of a price."

I do think that our economy and culture, as Linda also noted in her comments, is going to force the church to take a different approach. I think we will be shocked and blessed by the results.

Linda wrote, "Even with not owning a building-generally there are costs to upkeep of some sort, or to be given to cover costs of electricity, rent...or if even if in a home-to help that person with their rent/house payment/upkeep as there would be more wear and tear on a home."

There are costs, but they are minimal, especially if you stick with the house church model. If we see our call to be loving as uncompromisable, then we will never expand beyond the size that we could fit in a home so that we would be able to use all of our money to do the things we feel cannot be compromised. What is the primary purpose of the church? Does having the expense of a building help us to achieve that purpose? I think a lot of the time we try to create growth and experiences through various programs and activities that loving people directly would bring without any extra effort. We need to go back to the basics. Church is not a complicated thing. We are called to be loving. Let's not let anything get in the way of that.

Linda wrote, "Surely not as expensive as owning their own building-but still very much something where there is always a cost-or some money generously given to cover wear and tear and what is used in resources. Not all funds would be freed up to go towards "projects"."

I agree. There is still expenses, but the numbers used yesterday left out the amounts that we currently spend on building maintenance and interest on our loans. This money could easily cover the expenses of doing church differently, so we could use God's money for God's tasks.

Linda continued to write, "I sort of have always seen the traditional church as a light in the darkness, as you ride over a ridge, and when the first thing you see is a steeple or a cross, or even when in the middle of a shopping center...you see a dove or the word "church" among the other shops...it offers a light, a place for those seeking to know where those who know God may gather at a regular time of the week."

I can understand that. Seeing a church does remind one of God. But so does many other things. Seeing the moon, the stars, a beautiful sky, the sun, or a little baby. Taking away the church might just make us have to be more visible as Christians. It might cause us to have to take note of God in the normal things in the world around us.

Mike Hodgman wrote, "Amen! Have church in a field, or a park, or a person's house, then use every penny to do good works. Sure there are positives to a church building, but don't the negatives outway them? Just my opinion."

I would say the negatives of church buildings definitely outweigh the positives. They limit the size a church can grow. They create a mindset that God is more present there than where we eat, work, play, and sleep. I could make a list a lot longer, but I think we get the point.

Thanks for all the input yesterday. I hope that we all can arrive at a better understand of what the church is supposed to look like. I look forward to hearing what everyone has to say about what I have written today.

Watch out for the potholes.

The Chain that Keeps the Church from Flying

After everyone agreeing in the comments with my post yesterday, I was tempted to say something that we would all agree on. It felt good. Then, I decided against it.

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong (1 Pet 3:15-17 NASB).

Peter says that we should live in such a way that those who revile our good behavior may be put to shame. We should suffer for doing right rather than because we have strayed away from him and have begun to do wrong.

Are we focused on having good behavior? Too often I think the church is a place where we are focused upon good words and teaching, but it stops there. We are not a loving outpost revealing a glimpse of the kingdom of God to the world, and the biggest obstacle that prevents us from being that relevant outpost is our financial commitment to the buildings we meet in.

What would the church be able to do financially if it didn't sink all of its money into buildings? In 1990, the churches in America were valued at $232,965,150,000. "Church building debt service and maintenance consumes about 18 percent (this was in 1986) of the $11,672,316,000 tithed to churches annually." (From Going To The Root by Christian Smith.)

Christian Smith created the following scenario:

"Imagine these churches investing all the money from the sale of their church buildings into trust funds and each year spending the earned interest (let us say 9 percent) on missions and ministry. What could churches do with that money? Suppose Christians spent only the interest earned on the invested money (not taking into account money not spent on debt service and maintenance, which could also go into service projects). We could comfortably do the following every year, year after year:

• Support translators to translate the Bible into the three thousand languages and dialects presently without a Bible translation ($135 million)
• Feed five million starving or malnourished people every day ($1.82 billinon)
• Start and fund seventy-five Christian colleges and theology schools in eastern Europe and Russia ($375 million)
• Support three hundred Chrsitian candidates running for office in the Senate and House of Representatives who would work for consistent pro-life ethic policies ($150 million) (I didn't say I agree with every one of these - Regan).
• Send one hundred thousand "tent-maker" missionaries to China to teach English and spread the gospel to their Communist students ($250 million)
• Send six hundred thousand underprivileged children to Christian summer camp ($180 million)
• Finance new water and sewer systems in one hundred thousand Third World villages, eliminatin the caus of many deadly diseases ($100 million)
• Finance fifteen hundred counseling centers to provide low-cost Christian counseling to families and individuals in trouble ($600 million)
• Print and ship to Hong Kong one small library of basic Christian books for each of the forty thousand underground house churches in China, to be smuggled in by "tent-making" missionaries over time ($15 million)
• Fund a Christian environmentalist political lobby to work for the proper care of God's natural creation in government policy ($80 million)
• Supplement the incomes of five thousand neeedy retired ministers ($50 million)
• Build, staff, and supply fifty ghousand Christian elementary schools in Africa, Asia, and Latin America ($700 million)
• Supplement the incomes of one quarter of the 5.2 million handicapped and elderly Americans who live below the poverty line to raise them out of poverty ($4 billion)
• Support severnty thousand church-planting missionaries to unreached peoples to plant and nourish indigenous churches, almost doubling the number of missionarires on the field today ($1.5 billion)
• Offer $10,000 a year of child support assistance to every teenager who is considering having an abortion because of lack of financial support, assuming 25 percent accept it ($1.0875 billion)
• Supplement basic medical supplies to eighty thousand Third World hospitals and clinics ($350 million)
• Give financial aid to cut the tution of eight thousand Christian college students in half ($56 million)
• Finance ten thousand Christian leadership training centers in the Third World ($400 million)
• Set up an interest-free, revolving loan fund to help one hundred thousand Christians every five years finance solar heating, inusulation and/or weatherization for their homes ($800 million)
• Support twenty thousand orphanages in Brazil, providing shelter and food for over one million children ($450 million)
• Send ten thousand Third World Christian leaders to Bible college or seminary ($210 million)
• Finance a Christian peace academy to research realistic ways to reduce international military conflicts and the threat of nuclear and chemical war
• Support ten thousand inner city evangelistic and social action ministries ($290 million)
• Finance theological and pastoral training for eight hundred thousand nonprofessional church leaders ($1.3 billion)
• Provide food, clothing, and basic housing for two-thirds of all homeless Americans today ($5 billion)
• Financially help churches in transition from meeting in church buildings to homes and public halls ($267 million)"

Okay, I know it is a pipe dream. Every church in America won't sell their building and begin to focus on using their money for directly meeting the tangible needs of the church, the community they live in, and the people in need around the world. But imagine if some of the churches did. We could begin to discuss the best ways to use our money in loving ways instead of ignoring the subject because we are too financially strapped to do the things that actually matter to God.

I think it is impossible for a church to love in tangible ways and not change themselves or the world they are loving. I can picture the impact such a church would be able to have on a small community like Antwerp. The town and its people would never be the same. Christ would be revealed through his church and lives would change. This might touch a little too close to home if you are from my church in Antwerp (I really don't think anyone from the Antwerp church reads my blog regularly), but it is something I have been teaching for years. I'm not trying to pick on anyone specifically. Most churches have this problem.

Take a moment and imagine a world where this has been actualized, a world where the church is known as the most loving group of people in a community rather than an irrelevant institution that meets in that pretty building down the road. A world where people know that when they have any sort of physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual need that the church is the place to go to have those needs met. I can see it. I get excited about it. It is the reality I long for. I would love to live in that place, but then I'm pulled back with a harsh thump to reality. A reality where it seems like we aren't even trying to be a light in a darkened world. A world where we're content to use on money on internal maintenance and educational issues and send our service project money abroad. We seem to refuse to get our hands dirty. We live in a church that is ridiculed because we are irrelevant, not because we are loving.

For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong (1 Pet 3:17 NASB).

The church needs to start doing.

Watch out for the potholes.