BUILDINGS

Now that the faith community that I pastor has been without our own facility for 3 months now, it's given me an opportunity to evaluate the role of buildings and real estate in Western churches.  If we ever do have our own space again, I imagine it will either be in partnership with another business/organization, or it will be a neutral space (not a "church") that meets needs, blesses people, or creates a relational environment within our community.  We certainly will not have a designated "religious building" that sits there all week except for a few hours of meetings for church members.

Just this week I received a mailer of a local church advertising the grand opening of their new multi-million dollar facility (complete with a coffee shop, bookstore, massive auditorium, and their own nascar race track - just kidding about the last one).  On the front of the mailer is a picture of the pastor with the words, "Don't have a church home.  We built one for you."

What would happen in a community if the churches decided to raise money for community transformation (to meet the needs of the unreached) instead of accumulating real estate (to meet the needs of the already reached)?

It is time that we focus on the fields, not the barns.  We spend so much time (and $) building nice barns with padded seats, air-conditioning, and the newest technology, yet we have neglected the fields.

What do you call a farmer who builds a barn and then stands in the doorway inviting all of the crops to come in and enjoy the new comfortable structure?  Lazy?  Foolish?

What do you call a farmer who gets his hands dirty in the soil of lost people's lives, cultivating, planting, fertilizing, watering, sweating, praying?  Wise?  Fruitful?

Buildings are not wrong or immoral.  If your church has a building, fine.  The problem is when we function as if the church building is our life source, as though the church's life depends on them.  I know of many churches who died a long time ago and the Spirit has departed, but the building sustains them, serving as an artificial life support.  "As long as we have this building, we're still a church."  They usually don't consider the church completely dead until they can't pay the bills to sustain the building.  As goes the building, so goes the "church."

God dwells inside of us!  We are His temple!

Truth be told, the world is not very impressed with our sacred buildings.  In fact, many other religions have much nicer, more expensive, awe-inspiring temples.

Let the world see something that cannot be reproduced by business, buildings, or any other world religion:  a new life in Jesus!  A transformed life, now that's a "temple" that can change the world!

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