Monday, September 21, 2009

What is a church?

While I have attended church pretty much my entire life, I am not sure that I had ever spent a significant time trying to define what church is. Of course there were the divinity school definitions and the traditional understandings, but without experiencing working in the church, I just never thought to think about it. It was just church.

And therein lies the problem. One incorrect definition of the church is that it is an activity. Treating church as an activity means that you don't really have to have a connection to the church. It is something that you do, and probably feel guilty if you don't do. It is another thing on the calendar rather than the place where you long to be all week. I think many of the people who see the church as an activity do so because they were trained to see it as an obligation. You went to church just like you went to school or worked for the PTO. What happens here is that activities are harder to prioritize. If church is equal to another thing we are involved in, it's 50/50 on what we will choose to participate in. Plus, the church is ongoing, there is always next week or next month.

Another incorrect definition of the church is that it is a club. I like belonging to things that give me identity. When I was in a fraternity in college, it felt good to wear the shirts or sit at the special tables in the cafeteria. But if you were to ask me what the point was of being in the fraternity, I don't think I would have an answer. There was no goal or purpose, it was just a place to belong and spend time with friends. That can't be what church is about. If it lacks purpose or a goal, why go? If there is a sense that we exist for ourselves so that we can belong, then it might be a great club, but not a church. If it annoys us that new people get in, then we are in trouble. The church is meant for a purpose. It is a means to an end, whereas so many times we have approached it as the end. The church is a tool designed by God to save the world, not to give us a place to hang out.

So what is a church? After spending almost a year working in one, I have come to the conclusion that it is a community of change agents. In the world of social activism people often speak of change agents. These are the people who encourage towns to help with the problem of homelessness or the people who design recycling programs. Change agents see a problem and seek to change it. Christians are called to be change agents, and the church is the community in which we find support, guidance, and fellowship. The community part may be as important as the change agent part. The truth is that sometimes it takes all of the change agents working together to accomplish a goal. When I see Christians who have no community, it pains me because they have missed half of their calling. It is so common to see people who pour their lives in to creating change or ministry, but fall apart because they don't have a community to support them or they feel like they are doing it all by themselves. I believe that the churches who create the biggest changes are the churches who embrace community as well. Not only do they use cooperation to change the world, but these types of churches also pull people to them because they have two primary things that people want: a place to belong and a place to have purpose.

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