Where Have We Gone?

After reading one of Christine Caine’s, a powerhouse author and writer, books, I was reminded of a trip I took to New York last September with my girlfriend and her family. It was my first time in the Big Apple and thus I had to see every single thing that it could offer. This included the infamous Time Square, a giant M&M store, Central Park, and the breathtaking St. Patrick’s Cathedral. While I absolutely was enthralled by Central Park’s beauty, little could compare to the high lofted arches, and the golden, ornate decorations and designs that were elegantly crafted and infused into the walls. It must have taken years upon years to build a cathedral as sublime as this. It must have taken the laborers hours of hours of back breaking efforts to lay each brick. Brick by brick, they toiled to build the cathedral that has stood solidly throughout the ages. Why? Why would they spend their lives slaving to make this creation?

They didn’t build the cathedral to build a church; they built it to house the church.

So where have we gone? 

Where have we gone that now hundreds of people pass through these wooden doors as tourist and not as a community of worshippers? Where have we gone that now hundreds of years later the work of the builders has gone more towards making money than making joy a reality to the bleak hearted. When did this place stop being a place where people gathered to worship God and instead become a center for visitors to gather?

I doubt the brick layers were ever concerned about the stones and mortars, or that their main concern was even the four walled building that they constructed. They got out of bed and hit their work day after day after day in hopes of creating a place for a community to encounter God and see His work at play in the lives of the people of New York. It was and still isn’t about the building. They built it as monument to God’s glory not as a testament to their own ingenuity.

Sadly this story seems to be the predominant story concerning Christianity nowadays. More and more churches are becoming defined and known as a certain building rather than a group of people seeking to love their neighbors as themselves.

The Church has and always will be about reaching out to others.

It’s time for the Church to leave the building.

Merely,

Chris Gerac

"And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way" Ephesians 1:22-23, NIV