"Church" as "building"?

John Meunier has some thoughts on church buildings, including a quote from John Wesley:

Let all our Chapels be built plain and decent; but no more expensively than is absolutely unavoidable: Otherwise the necessity of raising Money will make Rich Men necessary to us. But if so, we must be dependent on them, yea, and be governed by them. And then farewell to Methodist Discipline, if not Doctrine too.

Mr. Meunier notes that this statement used to be included in the Book of Discipline (see his post for the source, and for the story of how it came to be quietly dropped).

Reminds me of one former United Methodist who says the issue that caused him to leave the denomination was his congregation's decision to spend $120,000 on a stained glass window. 

Seems like God did use that stained glass window, though -- to transform a poor neighborhood in North Philadelphia through a New Monastic community known as The Simple Way (now called the Potter Street Community because it's gotten so big they have created a different structure to hold it all, including The Simple Way nonprofit).

My congregation is currently building a new facility.  Those who know our history agree we need it, and it's been a long time coming.  It's not going to be anything fancy (the Rich Men of whom John Wesley wrote, few though there were, have left for bigger steeples in neighboring suburbs -- there's no shortage of choice in the buckle of the Bible Belt).  But from what I've heard among the members, nobody wants fancy, anyway -- simply having something functional will be great.

One thing I keep noticing, though: people making reference to "the new church."  The church is already here; we are it!  What we're getting is a building.  

Some would just call my differentiation a matter of semantics, but as both a church nerd and a word nerd, I take the difference seriously.  The moment we think of our church as the building that houses worship is the moment that being the Church begins to elude us.

A friend of mine leading a UM congregation in central Arkansas often uses the phrase "going out to be the church" with his church.  And you know what?  They're doing it.  Adult professions of faith are significantly higher than average there.  People are growing eager to share their faith.  Being the church is building the church, and it has very little to do with bricks and mortar.

Okay, even I've had enough of my sermon-on-the-fly now.  Enjoy your weekend, and try to spend at least part of it with the church (not at the church).

Comments

[Andrew Conard]

Amy - Thanks for the reminder on this issue. I think that it is an important one. I particularly like the distinction between a new church and a new building. I do think that any given congregation has the opportunity to be a "new church" but you are right - it has nothing to do with the building.

[Spencer]

Dear Amy,

For a sermon-on-the-fly, it was a very helpful sermon.

I've been on a rave for a while about the problems we have with what we see, and don't see, and how we get confused (example: we see the praise team and pastor at the front of the sanctuary, we don't see God quite so clearly, we start thinking that the people we can see are the point, and so worship turns into thinking that other people are performing for us, not leading all of us in worshipping the unseen God).

I note that we don't see letter case, either - so when someone talks about "The Church", we hear "the church", which almost certainly is a building with a mailing address, and not the Body of Christ (oops, without letter case, we're in trouble on that one, too!)

Good luck in going out to be "The Church", and thanks for inviting us to go along. Keep the faith.

Thanks especially for pointing us to Shane Claiborne in your sermon - I've already forwarded that link to my senior pastor and congregational lay leader.

Christ lives in you.

Spencer

[DannyG]

Back when I first started blogging I wrote a 3 part commentary on our churches building program, titled "Edifice Complex". It was addressing my concerns over the $12 million cost of the rebuilding of our facility and the problems involved, including such issues as being in a historic district, which severly limited our ability to do anything really different. I ended up voting for the project, because it was a good plan given the limited options, and should leave the church well set for the next 50-75 years when completed. Still, what if we could have sold this downtown plot of land to a business, taken the money, and moved, perhaps to an area not too far away populated mostly with abandoned wharehouses, and built a simple new structure there? There would have been a lot to say for that, where it possible.