What is "Church?"

This is a quote of a quote. A friend of mine posted a quote from Francis Chan on Facebook the other day and I thought it was very thought provoking. "If "Church" is not a building, then why do we call it that? If we really believe that "Church" refers to all people that God has redeemed, then why are we using the word for so many other things?"

Right now our Church is going through a building project. It is very exciting to see things resurfaced and things modified to be more modern. (I dare not use the word change, so modify works better.) During this time people in the Church body do naturally focus more on the building. Initially I did not think this was a bad thing. I mean we want to have a nice building and all but where is the point were it becomes to much. I think that point is when people from all over the body, not those designated for the project, give their input and opinions on what should or needs to happen.

This gets to my point, if we refer to the Church as being the building, we will care more about what happens to it then the people in it. If we were to use the word Church in reference to the the people of God, there would be less opinions about the building. I know that I have been guilty of this many times in my life.

I do care about what the building looks like and how it is precieved when a new person walks in but when this becomes more important than that new person, I feel, we have a big problem. I am very thankful that the people in our church care more about people that do not have a relationship with Christ than the building we meet in. The fact that we are making our building more inviting to a guest than what we want or desire. This is very cool to see and means so much to me. I commend those working on our building project and those who are willing to "change" for the advancement of His Kingdom. That is what "Church" is about... People.