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What about the church building?
Not all Christian believers meet for
worship in a church building . Even in America, many
Christian meet in homes, in rented school rooms, park
facilities, conference rooms, auditoriums, and so on. And
in many other countries, depending on the freedom which may or
may not be extended to Christians for worship and other public
expressions of faith, believers meet wherever they can.
The building itself does not matter.
Some very sincere Christians consider a church building the
"house of God." And this is not a bad thing, really.
But it is better to understand the Scriptures, and to recognize
that we, the people of God, are God's house in this world.
Are bodies, Paul says, are the very temple of God. And the
church is the Body of Christ, and we as individuals are members
of His body.
Is it wrong for people to have a
special attitude toward church houses? I don't think so.
How can anyone born and raised in the United States not see a
church building as a powerful symbol of our Christian faith?
When I see, for example, an empty church building in a small
town being sold off for warehouse space or commercial offices, I
am always troubled by that image. It may not mean anything
at all, other than that the local church has a new building.
But the sight of a vacant church house always brings sadness,
nonetheless.
But other Christians do tend to see
church buildings as nothing but symbols of a religious
establishment that is dead, and not alive at all. Some of
these folks were raised in religious homes where rules and
traditions governed everything, and the living God was not
known. When some of these people finally came face to face
with Jesus, and were born again by the power of God's Holy
Spirit, they saw vividly just how empty and dead religion is
without a living faith.
This point of view is also valid.
We need believers from every walk of life to help all of us stay
on target. Christ is not about religion and symbols, but
about life, truth and spiritual growth. If we aren't
careful, we all tend to slip into rituals and patterns that do
not bring life. Human beings are creatures of habit, and
the reasons behind the things we say and do, and how we do them,
can eventually be lost in just a generation or two.
In the mean time, a local church
must meet somewhere, and a building that is owned and managed by
the church is a very nice thing to have. So long as we do
not lavish money on it when we could be helping people in
desperate need, instead, we may prove to be wise stewards of the
resources entrusted to us by God. The longer a church
building stands, the better the initial investment proves to be.
And if we can also make the building useful in various ways to
the local community, that makes it all the better.
The above graphic may be used by Christian believers in various kinds of
personal witness, for church programs, and other Christian
activities. There is no charge for this use, so long as
the copyright/credit info is included with the image or a link
back to this site is provided.
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