Friday, April 16

How would you describe your church to someone who didn’t know anything about it?

Would you begin by describing the building? Would you talk about the style of music? Would you describe the various ministries and programs of your church? Maybe you would talk about its’ history and denominational background? Perhaps you would mention the preaching and theological convictions of your church?

Read the following description that the apostle Paul gives for the church…

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 2:19-22

Paul uses images like fellow citizens, family members, and building blocks to describe the church. However, the whole time he is talking about people. It is the people that make up the church! The church is not the preaching or the programs or the music or even the building – it is the people!

We dare not look for a “perfect church”, because it doesn’t exist. Do you know why the perfect church does not exist? Because there are people in it!
I have a friend in ministry who is fond of saying “If you find the perfect church, you better not go there, because you will screw it up.”

The church in which God dwells is not some ideal, universal, invisible group of people who behave as we think they should. No, the church is the local gathering of God’s people with all its cranks and hypocrites, sinners and saints. We are being built together, we are under construction, and we are becoming what God wants us to be by His grace. Whether the local assembly looks the way we think it should or not, it is God’s temple and we are part of it.

Ask God to help you grasp that you are a fellow citizen and a family member with all of the people you sit with, sing with, serve with and share with each week.

Take a few moments to thank God for your church…Thank Him for making you a part of His Temple!

Prayer:

Father, grant that we your people will be a temple worthy of you, and may your Holy Spirit be so at home in us that the world will long to join us in being a people amongst whom you live and work and express your love. – Amen.

Jeff Frazier