What counts as church?

27Jul
by Jon Swanson

Do you need to have a building in order to be the church?

The answer is no.

Do you need ushers? Do you need to take an offering? Do you need carpet? Do you need PowerPoint or projectors or pulpit or pews? Do you need small groups or big groups or one-on-one conversations? Do you need a parking lot or a car or a hybrid car? Do you need flannelgraphs for kids or foosball tables for youth or fair trade coffee for adults? Do you need matching silverware for the dinner after or alliterative sermons for the service before? Do you need a bulletin or a program or a newsletter or a website or a DVD or a bus or a billboard? Do you need stained glass or unstained teeth? Do you need a home or a phone? Do you need two services or three hymns or four Sunday School options or five gold rings? Do you need to be there every time the doors open? Do you need doors? Do you need donors?

In order to count as church, you need God. In order to count as church you need at least one other person. In order to get the most out of church, it is most helpful if that other person is an obnoxious ingrate. Just like in the mirror.

God delights in making church out of obnoxious ingrates. When they discover that they actually get along, actually love each other, they realize that only God could have done it. So they discover God, too.

The reason for all those things at the top that we think are church?

They give us something to be obnoxiously disagreeable about. So that someone else learns how powerful and transforming God’s love is. As they struggle to learn to love us.

22 thoughts on “What counts as church?”

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  5. Nanci Murdock

    Thanks for making us think. I do believe that a GOOD church can create a huge sense of community and support system for those that need it. And structure for families that might not otherwise have it.

    That being said, my rock solid belief is that if you have FAITH, you are your own “church”. And that no one’s faith is more important than another.

    I believe that organized religion has caused much of the societal problems we see now, but faith has never started a single war and is what truly brings us closer to God.

    Whatever that might look like.

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  6. tom

    great line: God delights in making church out of obnoxious ingrates…so true.

    there’s an old sunday school song…we are the church…
    I am the Church, you are the Church,
    we are the Church together.
    All who follow Jesus all around the world,
    yes, we’re the Church together.”

    The church is not a building,
    the church is not a steeple,
    the church is not a resting place,
    the church is a people.
    (chorus)
    We’re many kinds of people,
    with many kinds of faces,
    all colors and all ages, too,
    from all times and places.
    (chorus)
    Sometimes the church is marching,
    Sometimes it’s bravely burning,
    Sometimes it’s riding, sometimes hiding,
    Always it’s learning.
    (chorus)
    And when the people gather,
    there’s singing and there’s praying,
    there’s laughing and
    there’s crying sometimes,
    all of it saying:

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    1. Jon Swanson

      ah Nanci – I agree. organized religion has caused much suffering. And much relief from suffering, to be sure, living in a town where the three hospitals are St Joe, Lutheran, and Parkview (formerly Methodist), and the big free clinic is Matthew 25. And where, I would guess, at least some people are treated for stress-related disorders growing out of not measuring up to some church-related expectations.

      But here’s where I’m probing these days. I agree with the importance of faith and hope and love. But do those stand by themselves or does the object of each matter? Faith in? Hope for? love of?

      Thanks, Tom. It’s the together that is the test. And the point of both failure and grace.

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  7. Garrett

    Jesse – I would say in many ways the current entity we call church, hasn’t spoiled us, but damaged us. We are not better off with the Constantine church we have, but would be if we went back to Acts…

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  8. Bryan Entzminger

    I think it might also be helpful to have a Bible. That alone might give us something about which we must extend and receive grace.

    But, in all seriousness, God, people, and a Bible. Not that there’s anything wrong with the “stuff.” But they’re not the core of the Church.

    Thanks.

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  9. Daniel Decker

    Great post. The 4 walls can indeed be dangerous not just because of what we put in them but for what they keep us from.

    Where two or more are gathered in His name, that is indeed church.

    We’ve complicated it in so many ways.

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  10. Lonnie Thoms

    Sunday I’m speaking and looking at this in a bit different way… Not church, but worship. Worship in so many ways is considered a ‘service” that we do at church on Sunday. However as I read Jesus comments to the woman at the well worship isn’t a location (temple, church…). God is seeking worshippers, people through whom He gets the glory. So whatever we do we do it ALL for the glory of God! Our work is worship. Our rest and recreation is worship. Paul the apostle said
    Our bodies were the temple of God… In the Old Testament the Glory of God would come down in that temple and the people would worship God. If we are a ‘temple’ worship takes place here. We commune with God. The depth of that worship flows into corporate worship. As a pastor and worship leader, Worship as a lifestyle, is a given. For the ‘average Joe or Jane’ Christian, worship is something we do for an hour at church. God wants to be the God of it all.
    Whoops! Got preaching! Hope this makes sense.

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  11. Paul Wilkinson

    It’s a church if they have one of those boards at the front with changeable numbers indicating what hymns they’re going to sing and what the offering and attendance was the week before.

    The early church in Acts had one; look it up.

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  13. Mimi Meredith

    The mark of a really good sermon is when every hearer believes the message was delivered for him or her exclusively. The same is true with a good blog post. Thanks for writing this…just for me.

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  14. Buckeye Dave Shields

    A church is a surrogate family. A group of people sharing in their love of God, praising him and worshiping Him as individuals and as a collective. A group of people who strive for their own and assist you with your spiritual maturity. They are teachers, friends and a support network. They share the good word and spread the good news through benevolence and acts of charity and good works in the name of the Lord. They are mortals who fall short of His glory but strive to please him.

    Where they worship is not nearly as relevant as that they worship… that they honor God’s holiness and His word… that they are faithful and cheerful givers in both tithing and of their time to good works in His honor.

    That’s “A” church.

    “The” church is just where they all meet.

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