A People or a Place?

A People or a Place?

Growing up in the deep south for much of my young life, I was very conscious of going to church. I recall all of the times I felt dragged, bribed, threatened, and warned by my well-meaning parents. To me it just didn’t click: an hour on Sunday, and if you were really spiritual, you would also go to Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Today there seems to be much discussion of this question: “What is the church?” Valid question! I have been having many discussions lately over this subject with seekers and serious church-goers as well. In our western context of church we have always seemed to focus on defining things and then carrying them out. We seem content with going to church rather than being the church.

Let me state that I believe that Jesus loves the church, regardless of her expression. For many, the church is a place or building that we frequent. For some it’s living rooms, and for others it’s cafés and coffee shops. Whatever your expression might be, it is apparent that the church in the west is in a paradigm shift. Now, this article is not some kind of reaction to fear, or a last days article, or even “life is over as we know it because there is a democrat in the white house”. This is a simple plea to rediscover the mission of Jesus in the world. (Church and mission, you say? Aren’t those 2 mutually exclusive things? I don’t think so.) Let’s just look at Jesus and His words about this sensitive subject.

Most of us, from our cultural upbringing, define church as a place. However, when defining church, Jesus uttered these words from Matthew 16:18:

“I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it”.

When Jesus used the word “church”, what was he saying? Well, He was defining a people, not a place! The word Jesus used was the word “ecclesia”, which simply means “the called out ones”. Isn’t much of the Bible defining a people called out for a purpose? As Charles Spurgeon says, we experience 2 conversions: “the call to come out of the world” and “the call to go back into to the world”! When it comes to church and mission, we see this whole way of life lived out in Jesus Himself. He took 12 men and basically sent them out to do church with the people they came in contact with. As I write this article, I sit at my office, which is a coffee shop in Southern California. I spent the morning with a young man who is very proficient in studying buddhism, I prayed for a young middle-eastern girl who had an eye infection, and I visited with some friends from the Fox Theater who recently asked our LifeQuest core team to cleanse their building from evil spirits. My point is that when all we do is define church as a place, we lose our passion for mission. Defining church as a people who are touching lives and seeing change happen brings liquid motion. When we embrace the Jesus model of church, we come in contact with all kinds of people. When Jesus entered the church of modern day Jerusalem in Luke 4:18, we see in Jesus the passion for church and mission.

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,[a] To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
These verses contain a revelation of the people of God on mission.

1) We are a people of presence. (The Spirit of the Lord is upon us.)

2) We are a people of proximity. (The poor, the broken hearted, the captives, and the blind are our target audience.) Know anyone like this?

3) We are a people of proclamation (To preach the gospel)

In this passage from Luke 4 we see Jesus upsetting the status quo by challenging the church of His day to leave the comfort and security of their 4 walls and touch lives. Instead of defining ourselves by a place, maybe we need a fresh and easy connection to a hurting world to rediscover church.

For the Quest,
Mike