The church - what is it?

What is "the church" to you?

John Schwider came by my office yesterday and is loaning me a book to read entitled, "Created For Community," by Stanley J. Grenz.

He reiterates some of the things that I said on Sunday morning as well as adds on to give us a wonderful picture of the church.

Some of the stuff you know.

For example:

I don't need to tell you that the church is more than brick and mortar.

I don't need to tell you that the church is more than a building in which worship services are held on Sundays?

I don't need to tell you that the church is more than the Sunday services themselves.

I don't need to tell you that the church is more than a gigantic organization, a society or a club which we choose to join as we see fit.

You know all that.

What I do need to tell you is that the church is people. That's it? Yeah, that's it.

It is composed of people. Just like you and me.

But not just any people.

A people with the Spirit of God living in them. A people with a purpose to live in relationship with God and each other.

The church is a relational people.

It is not an end in itself. God does not call us out of the world to become cozy little cliques or a "holy huddle."

We are called out to reach out to both insiders and outsiders so that insiders might grow in Christ and outsiders might connect with Christ.

Randy Frazee has written a book called "The Connecting Church." He has a son who was born without a left hand. One day in Sunday School the teacher was talking with the children about the church. To illustrate her point she folded her hands together and said, "Here's the church, here's the steeple; open the doors and see all the people."

She asked the class to do it along with her – obviously not thinking about his son's inability to pull this exercise off. Then it dawned on her that the boy wouldn't be able to join in.

Before she could do anything about it, the little boy next to his son, a friend of his from the time they were babies, reached out his left hand and said, "Let's do it together." The two boys proceeded to join their hands together to make the church and the steeple.

Frazee says, "This hand exercise should never be done again by an individual because the church is not a collection of individuals, but the one body of Christ."