What is Church?

What is church, anyway?  Have you ever met a Christian friend on the street and shared what God's been speaking to you?  Have you ever sat in your living room and sang worship songs with other believers?  Have you ever witnessed to a non-believer?  This is church.  Church is where two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus.


The word "church" is from the Greek word "ekklesia", which literally is "a calling out".  Further description is "a meeting, especially a religious one, or Christian community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both."  Church is all about people, not about buildings.  It is about those who are called out.


So where did the traditional "church" of pews, aisles, one preacher-with-a-message-from-God-standing-in-the-front originate?  In the Jewish temple there was a priest who interceded between the people and God, but God tore that veil at the death of Jesus, ushering in a new kind of religious meeting.  There was no more separation, no more one man speaking to God for the people, or speaking to the people for God.  Then how did we get where we are today in our meetings?  Whatever the roots, I don't believe that what we have today is the way church was intended to be, and it's our fault.

Today, most of us go to church unprepared to worship, unprepared to share anything of value with other believers.  We take an hour or two from our schedules, run in, sit down, listen, and run out for another week.  We just want to "be ministered to" by the preacher and the worship team.  We have a consumer mentality.

In the early church of the New Testament, one would have a song, another would have a word of prophecy, another would have a scripture.  I believe we need to get back to this.  We are still in the New Testament.  Believers need to take responsibility for for hearing from God on their own, and for encouraging one another.

"Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who for my life risked their own necks, to whom not only do I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles; also greet the church that is in their house..." Romans 16:3-5


My prayer today:  "Father, I am helpless.  I can do nothing without you.  I need Your Spirit with me, in me, working through me to do the work You have set before me.  May I be used for Your glory only.  Consume me, Holy Spirit, with You.  Don't let me be a consumer, but an encourager!  Amen!"