THE CHURCH HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
Hey guys!
For anyone who happened to watch my video on ‘mission’ a few weeks back, I mentioned ‘Cara’ - our Church plant in Craigavon. (If not, no problem – basically I’ve been a part of Cara since it started four years ago.)
We had spent around 6 months gathering together for our Sunday services in a the Lightwell Centre in Drumgor, whilst holding our prayer meetings and kids and youth ministries in a Community Centre in Ardowen. We were so excited when the opportunity finally arose for us to move everything from Drumgor to Ardowen, so we could have all our church ministries under one roof.
So on Saturday 8th June 2018 we began the big move – transporting our lights and sounds systems and cleaning the building from top to bottom. Freshly painted, sparkling clean and installed with a new stage and sick pallet wall – the place was looking well. We all left feeling exhausted but happy with our cool new church building.
On my drive home, I received a call telling me that a friend (who struggled with alcohol abuse) had gone missing. Thankfully, after a few hours of searching, he turned up and I returned home. However as I got back in my car, I got a call about another friend who was threatening to commit suicide. To cut a very long story short, we sat with him in his house trying to reason with him, but unfortunately ended up with us having to call the police after he tried to make his way to a nearby bridge. We waited with him at the hospital, until he was finally released at 5am.
Over the next few days, I was processing a lot and felt myself burdened by a number of questions. Was my focus in the wrong place? Had I lost sight of what ‘the Church’ is meant to be? Was I guilty of thinking that our cool new church building (fancy stage, lights, pallet wall and all) was what was going to change people’s lives? Had I got it all wrong? I felt God convict me through the Holy Spirit, challenge my wrong ways of thinking and correct my mindset that had become warped somewhere along the way. He gently reminded me that the Church have always been called to go into the world, and not sit back and wait for the world to come to them.
*Just to clarify, there is absolutely nothing wrong with decorating church buildings and making them as awesome as they can be. But I don’t think that’s where Jesus’ focus would be. The Bible tells us that His focus was always on the lost, the poor, the sick, the lonely, the broken. So why should ours be any different? If I’m being brutally honest, there were other places I’d have rather been at 5 o’clock in the morning than with my friend in hospital (my bed). It was just a bit of an inconvenient interruption to my plans. But perhaps that’s exactly what ‘Church’ looks like. Real. Messy. Inconvenient at times. It dawned on me that it’s less about committing to one or two ‘Church-y events’ a week and more about a daily commitment to follow Him whether we feel like it or not. I felt God remind me that it’s people over programmes – always!
I love how John 13:35 puts it simply – ‘Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.’ To me that says the Church looks most like The Church when it’s loving others.
I’m sure we can all agree the last few months have been a very weird time. Covid-19 has managed to cause havoc in every sphere of life, churches included. It would be easy to be disheartened by the millions of churches that have had to close their doors around the world. Our physical bodies may have been locked up, but thank God our spirits never be! Time and time again throughout history the Church has advanced in the face of adversity, persecution and challenges of every kind. Why on earth would 2020 be any different?
It’s time to remind ourselves that the church is not a place, but a people. Not a building made by human hands, but a body that’s living, breathing and active. It’s not a time to passively sit around until Emmanuel reopen their doors - let’s not let a temporary buildings closure stop us from doing what God has called us to do and being who God has called us to be! I hope you have been encouraged that there is an invitation for YOU to be the Church, here, now, today, right where you’re at. Let’s commit ourselves to being His ‘hands and feet’ and watch His Kingdom come like never before in our homes, towns, cities and nations. COME ON!
The church has left the building.
