What is church?
June 4, 2007
Question 6: What is church?
Past “What is…” Posts:
Question 1: What is the gospel? | Response
Question 2: What is truth? | Response
Question 3: What is evangelism? | Response
Question 4: What is prayer? | Response
Question 5: What is theology? | Response
[For more information on what to do with this post - go here and here.]
Tags: Church, Ecclesiology, Emergent, emerging-church, Presbyterian-Church-(USA)
Posted in 
Adam Walker Cleaveland: I am a 28 year old 
June 4th, 2007 at 11:49 am
The community of people, living and dead, who are trying to follow God in the way of Jesus.
June 4th, 2007 at 11:57 am
You get two definitions from me, because they are constantly warring for my emotions:
1. Church is a group of people who have organized themselves in order to spread the Word of Christ, and who try to be the Kingdom of God today.
2. Church is an organization where a small number of people with large egos and control issues attempt to use personal political power to control the actions, behaviors and beliefs of large numbers of other people.
June 4th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
People always ask me, “Where do you go to church”? I say, “How can I go to what I am”? We are the church. We are the bride of Christ. People committed to loving people. We are servants of Jesus Christ. Yes, dead to ourselves, or at least trying to consistantly kill off the old man, and living for Jesus. That doesn’t mean we ram anthing down the throats of others. It simply means, living like Jesus lived. Church is not necessarily a group of people who agree. I think it’s simply folks who love Jesus and find common ground as we search out our maker and try to understand His word and what it truly means. Church is a place where you can ask the difficult questions and not worry about everyone thinking, you’ve fallen off the deep end.
June 4th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
In addition to what Rick said above, church is hope — or rather, should be hope. When I attend a service or a gathering of Christians — be it a study or a bbq, I want to come out with a renewed hope in God’s promises and for the world. I believe 100-percent that we as disciples can bring heaven to earth — if only for a moment at a time. Without the hope and renewed faith that I receive from “the church” (church = people), it’s hard to be anything but a cynic. However, when I do receive that renewed hope I can become Jesus’ hands while the person next to me is his feet, and the person next to them the eyes of Jesus, and so on. So, now, not only is the church hope for me, it is the hope of the world — in a pass-it-forward sort of way.
June 4th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
I think there are two questions being answered, one being, “What is church?” and the other being, “What is the church?” To the former I say that in the language of our society it most commonly means worship. To the latter I agree with Rick and Huw. I only disagree with Mark on the small point that the church isn’t necessarily organized.
June 4th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I quoted the following from David Wilcox’s “Waffle House” to my confirmation students this past Sunday because I think it says a lot about church. Make of it what you will:
When you run from your home
When the silence of sorrow won’t leave you alone
When you are out there this late
Be it heart break or highway or some altered state
When it’s time that you slow up
And wrap both your hands around your cup
And stay until the feeling goes
As long as there are broken hearts and dreams
And all of that highway in between
The Waffle House will never close
June 5th, 2007 at 12:37 am
Church: “ekklesia” from “ek” meaning “out of” and “klesis” meaning “a calling” resultantly meaning “a calling out of.” What/Who is being called? What/Who is/are it/they being called out of? Why is/are it/they being called? And to do/be what?
June 5th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Travis, that’s something great to think about.
So what or who is being called?
I think the who is me (us).
Why are they being called?
That’s tougher to answer.
I think I’m being called out of myself, my little world, to serve others and lead them to Christ/God/Holy Spirit.
I used to believe that meant bringing people to A Church.
I don’t believe that anymore.
I think it’s to bring them to the father which will introduce them not to a club or place, but to the true church which is relationship with Him and His people.
To do What?
To share the good news that we can have relationship with God.
Isn’t that what Jesus did?
Let me say something on a personal note here.
I’m so tired of people who think they’ve got the gospel and Jesus nailed down.
They get a little knowledge, try a new program, and away they go.
I used to be one of them.
How much time I wasted being part of the club and not part of the church.
I think there are many, many believers out there participating in religion who have no idea what relationship is like.
I grew up in the club and find it so difficult shedding the stigma that others put on me.
My heart is this….I just want to do what God wants me to do.
But sifting through the years of religious upbringing and guilt makes it difficult to break free.
I’ve been out of the IC for two years now.
I meet with people once a month to “DO” church and it’s great.
But the looks I get from my “Christian Friends” and the rules and regulations I see so ingrained in their lives, saddens me.
I was recently on a blog with some folks who really believe that the original law is still a live and needed. I tried for a while to express idea’s that might show them something else but was basically flogged for my perceptions. I left the blog because I realized some people will never agree with me.
Participating in the conversation was robbing me of my freedom.
I have found a new place to play.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:44 am
The church is me, you, and everything besides the most important reasons why we go there:
–to hear the word; to give an offering/ tithe money; and to win a soul to Christ by watching them give their lives to Christ or by asking them to read and say the scripture Romans 10:9: “If thou shalt confess with thou mouth and believe in thine heart that God hast risen Christ from the dead, ye shalt be saved.”
And I think it will be a bright idea for me to explain why I believe that the chuch is us all and everything:
–our bodies are our temple of the Holy Ghost, in wchich we have many members, including a landfield in us for peace and joy wanters. And in that landfield, there is a fountain of romance between us and God, meaning our personal relationship with Him. That personal relationship starts by controlling our tongues, but after we are of coarse saved already, we are embodied to a will with God, and that is we are the church, and we must keep it in order, but in His name.
So, if we don’t be careful what we speak on our tongues, we are making the LORD look bad because we are the church. Without us, nothing is going on.
“There will be no singing in it, or from someone’s body if they don’t sing right from their diaphram. There will be no joy in it, or from someone’s body if they don’t laugh right from it. And there will be no praise in it, or from someone’s body if they don’t praise from it.
June 17th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I was reading something that struck me this morning.
It was in John 3 and in a book “The Jesus I never Knew” by Philip Yancey.
When we talk about what is church? it will have a different meaning to all of us.
Here’s my thought.
The Institutional church of today, even the emerging church movement, keeps trying to plan it’s next step.
My wife and I did this for a couple of years trying to do “Home Church”.
It never worked.
When I read about Jesus life, I see that there was no real strategy to His ministry.
Jesus’ band of followers had no base of operations, no website, they just wandered from town to town talking about the Kingdom of God as witnesses to what was happening.
Jesus picked unpromising recruits. He invested time in apparent losers. He chose His disciples not as servants or great speakers but as friends.
In the church movements of today, it seems we sometimes look for people who fit our idea of a leader. I’ve watched the new leadership programs in churches that hand pick people who seem to have the right fit and then mentor them.
Jesus didn’t do that.
This makes me wonder if sometimes we, “I” don’t over think my faith.
Rather than trusting God and allowing Him to establish His plan I use human measuring sticks to plan the next step.
This is not to say we shouldn’t plan at all. I just wonder whether we over think it sometimes.
Yolanda: about your comments.
this is not a challenge at all.
Just a comment.
How can we go (to church) to what we are?
If in fact we are the church (two or more) do we really need to go anywhere?
That’s not to say that a church service is not important but sometimes I see better sermons in the people I meet in everyday life.
I don’t have to go to a church to give an offering. I can but I think our lives should be offerings and that can happen anywhere.
And winning souls for Christ happens everyday on the streets, in my workplace, at a bar, or as you said, in an institutional church.
Again, I’m not challenging you and I think what you said was great.
Sometimes over email comments can sound harsh when they are just meant to be a question mixed in with some opinion.
I believe Gods church is important I just wonder sometimes if the way Western Culture see’s the church, is accurate.
August 12th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Question:
on another website the question was raised…..Did Jesus come to show us something better than religion, like relationship with God. And if so, is religion still applicable or dead. And if it’s applicable, what do you consider religious activity that we should hang on to.
It’s just something I’m trying to figure out and thought someone on this site might have some insight.