The problem is not that we have buildings but that we have substituted them for the meaning of church.
When we examine the New Testament, the first glaring difference between the first century concept and our modern concept of ‘church,’ is that to the early believers the term ‘church’ never referred to a building. The early believers had no ‘church buildings,’ and yet, they shook the Roman Empire with the gospel. They thrived, flourished and had exponential growth of church plants…all without having a single building program or permanent facility.
In the NT account of the expansion of the Christian faith, we are looking at the infancy of the movement. It is easy to explain away the lack of cathedrals and religious monuments, mainly because Christianity was an illegal religion and believers were not allowed to construct buildings for worship within the Roman Empire. But the model they were forced to use brings up several questions: Did their lack of permanent facilities actually enhance their outreach by decentralizing their gatherings? Was the explosion of outreach linked with their inability, both legally and financially, to create the monuments which glorify man? If they had Continue reading “ReThinking Church, Part 2 – Church is not a Building”