Church as a WHO, a VERB, a MOVEMENT

Do you see the church as a WHO or a WHAT? Another way to ask it - do you see the church as a VERB or a NOUN? A movement or a place?

I think it is safe to say that the nature of the New Testament church can best be described as a who, a verb, a movement.

These days though, a lot of people simply see the church as a what, a noun, a place. Listen to how many speak of church: “We go to church. The church is down at the corner of Mulberry and Old Marietta. The Sanctuary is the place where God lives. It God’s house.” We box God into a few church buildings in town.

So how did we go from a New Testament WHO church to a modern day WHAT church?

Most would point to the 4th century, the 300s. Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and the new “state church” was modeled on the political structures of the empire. The church dramatically changed as Christianity went from an upstart persecuted movement to the accepted church of society. The church went from a movement to an institution. It went from being always on the move to become stationary. It went from meeting under a tree or in people’s homes to meeting in huge cathedrals. It went from being a who to being a what, from a verb to a noun.

Ok, so things have changed, but what does that mean? What’s the big deal? The big deal is that, how you envision the church greatly affects how you live out your Christian walk. If church is a what, a noun, the holy place where we go to find God, to visit God and then leave to go out into the world where God isn’t present. All that thinking makes a difference in how we see the world, how we see church, how we see God, how we see our faith journey.

Reading a good bit of the Old Testament, we often see church as a WHAT, a noun. The temple was the house of Yahweh, the house of God. People went on long pilgrimages during the high holy days to visit the Temple.

The New Testament details a church best described as a WHO. First that ‘who’ was Jesus Christ and Jesus was always on the move. He didn’t find the best land, gather up a work crew and build a temple for himself and his followers. In fact, Jesus said, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

Consider the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-9). Jesus takes his three closet followers with him up to the mountaintop and they experience this amazing supernatural happening. They go to this place and they not only experience Jesus in a glorious form, but Moses and Elijah, two great Saints of the Jewish faith, are there as well.

So what does Peter want to do? He wants to build a church! “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings. Come on Lord, let’s get a building committee together and build us a church. Imagine all the people we can get to come here to this holy place. Feels so good here, I never want to leave.”

How does Jesus respond? We don’t know his exact words, but verse nine tells us they came down off that mountain. They didn’t just hang out in that holy place. There was work to be done. They went from the holy mountaintop, back down into the valley. The church on the move! Church as a WHO, not a WHAT. Church as a movement, not as a place.

Even after Jesus, the church remained a WHO, clearly a verb, on the move. The Holy Spirit came to the followers in the Upper Room (Acts 2: 1-12). The Church of Jesus Christ was birthed. The Spirit and the people quickly moved beyond the building, out amongst these people from all over the world. You don’t hear anybody saying, “Oh my goodness, what an amazing thing we’ve just experienced. The Holy Spirit has come upon us. We must memorialize this place. This will be our new temple, the holiest place of all. Let’s go out and invite anybody who wants to know more to come in here.” No, they rush out into the streets to proclaim the good news, to share the blessing with others. Just like the Transfiguration, they left the holy place and went to the people.

Think about the historic names used to identify the church. They have always described the WHO nature of the church: People of God, Children of God, Family of God, Body of Christ, Bride of Christ, Communion of Saints, Fellowship of Believers, Fellowship in the Spirit. All WHO references.

Yet, for hundreds and hundreds of years, Christians have envisioned church as a what, a noun, the place where God is. That somehow God is only in the church. That we must go down to the church building to be with God. That the church building is sacred and holy and that the world is not. The trouble with this is that we end up worshipping buildings and stained glass windows and furniture more than we worship God.

Truth is many wish God would stay in the church. It’s a nice way to box God in. “God, you stay over there and don’t get in our way out here in the real world.”

Just like at Pentecost, the uncontrollable, unpredictable Spirit has burst out. The Spirit refuses to be contained.

I think experience shows that instead of God’s home being in the church, that God has in fact left many church buildings. All across America there are churches empty or nearly empty. In Europe, there are huge, beautiful cathedrals with no people. They are simply museums, sites for tourists to visit to see how folks used to live.
If God’s still in there, he’s awful lonely. Can you imagine God, sitting in these dead churches saying, “Oh, how I wish people would come to me. I want to save them. Why won’t they come see me so I can do my work?”

No, no, no. Jesus is on the move and his church should be as well. Jesus is where the action is and his church should be as well.

You want to find Jesus? Go look in the streets. Jesus is with the hungry, the thirsty (Matthew 25:35-40 “for I was hungry.....). Jesus is in the jails, the homeless shelters, the schools, the women’s shelters, the hospitals, the earthquake zone, the flood plains.

The BLESS vision is based on the New Testament model of church as a WHO, a VERB, a people on the move into the world to meet God there and participate in his ongoing redemptive mission.

Jesus gives us a great example of this when he calls Zacchaeus out of that tree (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus finds Zacchaeus outside the church. Jesus didn’t wait for Zacchaeus to show up at a church worship service or dinner or event. Jesus went after one of the community’s most hated figures. Zacchaeus was a tax collector. He was despised.

Jesus never invited Zacchaeus to church. He didn’t say, “I’d like to talk with you in my office Wednesday morning at ten, so come by the church then.” Jesus went to Zacchaeus house. He met Zacchaeus on Zacchaeus’ own turf, where Zacchaeus would be comfortable.

Finally, notice verse 10 says "For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” Seek out. Jesus went after the lost. He didn’t simply wait for them to come to a building. Jesus is still seeking out the lost and it is why Jesus is found where lost people are…in the world!

Some people (in fact these days, most people) will never come to church. Many people are allergic to church. We’ve got to figure out how we can be church where people already are (coffee houses, schools, YMCA, your workplace, your home, neighborhoods)? You can be the church wherever you are. It’s a lifestyle. See your life as a mission trip. Be the church, be Jesus, wherever you are.

OK, so if church is a “who,” then what is the purpose of the church building? Bill Easum (Leadership on the Other Side) declares, “The church is no longer the place where religious things happen, but the launch pad from which cross-cultural witnesses are sent out into the world.”

We bring people in, train them up and send them out to be Christ to the world. Then, you come back for a refresher, worship, some more training and we launch you out again.

Reggie McNeal says the church is a lot like an airport. An airport can think it’s doing pretty good by getting a lot of planes and people into the hub. But the airport’s mission is not to gather planes and people. The airport’s mission is to have planes taking off as often as possible. The church’s mission is not to gather as many people as possible into the Sanctuary. Like an airport, the church’s mission is to launch its members into service to the world.