Church or church?
Every time someone says the word “church” these days, one has to listen very closely to the intended meaning. There are much smarter people than I writing books on the topics of relevance and evangelism, but I’m not sure the right people are listening. Church plants are sprouting up everywhere proclaiming they’re there for “you”. I’m all for that. But we have to realize that it comes at a price.
It seems that at some point in the future, there is going to a church plant for every individual on the face of this planet. So, my question is, where do we draw the line?
In all of my talk about the “Christian Bubble” one of the underlying themes centers around the definition of church. So many times when we talk about church, we talk about a building. However, even those who aren’t talking about a building, but the people who gather in that building, are still talking about a singular entity, such as the First Baptist Church of Ellisville. We must realize that the church (with a lower-case ‘c’) is simply a subset of the global Body of Christ known as the Church (capital ‘C’).
A local church in St. Louis just held their annual (maybe it’s semi-annual) baptism service where they baptized 300 new believers. I didn’t hear about it until after the fact. How amazing it would have been to participate in that celebration! Unfortunately, that particular event was a celebration designed for their congregation, not for the community.
I’ve heard pastors speak from the pulpit about what great things other churches are doing. Later that week, those same pastors received mail suggesting they shouldn’t promote other churches from the pulpit? What?
When asked for advice about what church to attend or visit in an area, I don’t automatically recommend the one I attend. I try to learn more about what the person is looking for so that I can recommend a church that fits their needs.
Why is it that we get so focused on our own building, congregation or even denomination that we forget about the Kingdom at large?
Individual churches are important for evangelism, discipleship and equipping, but all are simply pieces of the larger puzzle that make up the Church.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:02 am
I often think it’s cool how the computing society (for lack of a better term) has added definitions to existing English words – rather than invent new words to learn. E.g. icon, chat, page, even computer. Of course, some new words are necessary – modem, IM, etc. – but they usually are derived from other words or are acronyms, and are few enough that they are easily learned.
It seems that our society adds new meanings, rather than new words, as a general rule in all areas. Probably the last real explosion of new words was in the Elizabethan age under Shakespeare. Unfortunately, this can cause confusion or a loss of nuance when applied to words like church.
church = building where a group meets for religious activities
church = congregation or group of people who do religious activities together
church = worship service
church = global body of like-minded religious believers
For clarity, I prefer to use terms like church building, congregation, service, church body – but that can come across as ostentatious, so I generally don’t do it.
If we could move towards separate words to help differentiate our meanings, then perhaps what is said would be less misunderstood or more readily received. Until then, we need to take extra care to say what we actually mean.