Your Church Is Not The Church

Yes, you read that title correctly. Your church & my church is not The Church, that is if you define your church as that building you go to every Sunday to sing songs & study God's Word. However, I find myself automatically responding to the word "church" by thinking of a building or location. I envision the church I grew up in, the sanctuary, the Sunday School classes, my youth pastor's office, & the slide I fell off of when I was like 5. But that's not the church, & neither is that place you go to every week.

The truth is that while that building is used for a very holy thing, it's still bricks & mortar, wood & nails, wiring & plumbing. That building, that property is not the church. You are The Church & I am The Church. In the New Testament the word translated as "church" is the little Greek word "ekklesia" & it simply means the gathering. Throughout Scripture God's people are the key, not a place or a location. The Old Testament speaks of the "assembly" & the New Testament speaks of The Church, but the core truth is the same.

"The Church Is God's People Not The Location Of A Building."

If you think this is not a big deal, you couldn't be more wrong. Jesus launched the movement of Christianity & The Church when there was no building for them to meet in, & it grew faster than they could keep up with properties & facilities. In fact, it grew so quickly that it drew the not so nice attention of people who wanted to stamp it out, so gathering in a central location actually became a very dangerous thing. In fact, in many places in the world things haven't changed that much. The Church is the gathering of God's people around Jesus, His resurrection, & our mission. If you have a building, that's great, but it's not The Church. You are & that means you have a mission that can't be contained by the walls of your buildings or the boundaries of your property. You & I have a mission that is global in scope & eternal in significance. 

So remember church doesn't just happen when we gather on Sunday. It happens when you take the mission with you to work. It happens when you live out the transforming power of the Gospel in front of your family. It happens when you go to another believers home for small group or when you pray for a friend in their hospital room. When you & I, The Church, embraces our mission, we reconnect to the movement Jesus launched 2000 years ago when He said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, & you will be my witnesses...to the ends of the earth." But when we reduce church to a place, we'll limit our ability to really fulfill our call as God's people.