Church is.....

Church brings up so many images for people. I'd be crazy to think I could describe all of what they might be, but I'm sure some of these ideas are close to the perceptions of some.

1. A place to go.
2. A lot of stuff to do.
3. An organization to belong to.
4. Something entirely irrelevant to both one's secular and spiritual life
5. The beginning of one's spiritual life.
6. The place where one's friends are.
7. The place where some really cool experiences with God have happened.
8. The place of some deep hurts.
9. A gathering of believers.
10. A place of sweet unity or bitter conflict.

I've been really struck with the idea lately that church is more a state of being as the result of something as opposed to something to do or somewhere to go. Things to do and places to go are certainly a part of my emerging image of church, but aren't the basic definition of it.

I look at the statement of Jesus where he said that where at least 2 people are together, he's there. Then when I look throughout the New Testatment, I find that so often the church is related to being a body where Jesus is the head and believers are different members of the body. While I've grown up with that analogy, it's striking me in fresh ways that the church is a body-a living organism. If you don't have a head, you're not alive. So the key to church is individuals having Jesus as head of their lives, then they are automatically a part of His body and thus His church.

It's like when I was born into my family, I automatically was assigned the family name. It's not something I earn, go to, do or anything. It's something I am.

So when at least two believers assemble together, you have church just as much or more than you would during a weekend "church" service because church is the result of Jesus as Lord and being in fellowship with others to whom He is head and Lord.

If church as you've known it has been far from what you'd hoped, I invite you to ask God to begin to reveal to you His real church and what He's doing in and with it.