By Geoff
Pittman
By Geoff
Pittman
It's a catchy phrase to talk about building our church, but what does it mean? How do we do it?
A construction company can have all of the materials, workers, plans and vision; but if nobody can take those materials and put them in the right places, nothing will happen. If you have bricks but don't know how to lay them right, the walls will exist only in your mind, or if they do start to rise, they'll quickly come falling down with no stable structure.
As builders we will first need some basics in how to build. Let's take this phrase apart and see what we're talking about when we say building our church.
To accomplish anything worthwhile we've got to start with ourselves. Michael Jackson made it plain when he sang about starting with the "Man in the Mirror." Change must always start with us first. So many times when we kneel to pray the Holy Spirit quickly shows us any sin we need to repent of first, before we can even start to pray for others.
We don't move on to pray for the nation, our families or our friends until we've first established that right connection between ourselves and God. Almost the same goes when we think of building our churches. Since we are part of this church and want to help build it, it only makes sense to start where we have the most influence.
Let's look at our own relationship with God. How are we doing on a day-to-day basis with our Jesus-life? Things to start with are daily prayer and Bible times; feeding time with sermons or books; and matching up our actions with our beliefs. That sends a big ouch to most of us, right? This is where we start though. We don't look at what others are doing or not doing. We don't see anything at first, except Jesus, and our need to be closer to him.
Also, when we say, our church, it shows ownership in the meaning. No longer are we talking about a church that we go to, as if it were something separate from ourselves. Now we are speaking of something that we are connected to, something we feel a part of and even some responsibility toward. To see the connection more clearly we've got to first find out just what a church is.
When we talk about church what's the first thing that comes to our minds? Is it the building we meet in? Is it the pastor, programs or pews? What is the church? If we take away the building do we still have a church? What if we take away the pastor, and then the choir, and the worship leaders, and children's workers, and ushers and elders? Do we still have a church?
We are the church. It's not the building, or structure, or programs or meetings. It's the believers like ourselves that are the church.
Knowing this, when we think of building the church we need to get out of the old mind-set of looking at the service and how good it is. We talk of being a church builder because we help out with the different programs, or we come up with good ideas of what to do next, or we see the need for a better worship and we make it happen.
What can end up happening is that well-meaning church builders go to their pastors with a long list of bad things that need a good fixin'. We come back from camp or another experience with all kinds of new ideas of what we need to do in our church.
We see the hymnals and suits of our congregation and remember the chorus and jeans of the other place and we start building. We remember the 50 programs and ministries of some other church we'd been to, and if only we had all of those, our church would be a fine house of God, so we start building. This usually doesn't result in churches that are now built, but instead pastors who are worn out, members who are frustrated, and churches with lots of stuff, but no substance.
It's only when we see the church as the people, that we can really start building. It's those people who need all of our effort, time and energy poured into them. It's those people who are the church waiting for us to start building.
"You ... like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5).
We are those bricks that are stacked up to make this spiritual house. Want to build the church? We've got the foundation. The foundation to start building is in our personal relationship with God. He is the Rock that we build our house on (Matt. 7:24). After the foundation is laid, we start laying bricks. Where do we lay them, though? Just anywhere will not do.
Years ago when the walls of a building were being built, the cornerstone represented the starting place in the construction of a large and important building. Where the cornerstone was placed decided the angle of the other walls. If the cornerstone was no good, the entire building would be messed up.
A lot of times we try to build our churches using the wrong cornerstone. It might be because of social convenience, or immediate needs, or many other reasons. Some of those other cornerstones we build on might not even be terrible, but if any of them are born out of human effort and desire alone, they won't last. Those in the church will not be built as they should, the angles of the walls will be off balance, and when stormy weather comes, the whole building will shake and may even collapse. Our cornerstone, however, is not like that. Our cornerstone is Jesus.
Jesus is the perfect cornerstone--flawless, eternal and solid. He can withstand the storms of life, is strong enough and cut just right to hold us all up at the perfect angle. We must start by connecting the stones to him, then everything else will fall into place.
Our connection with all of the other stones is born out of the connection we all have with our cornerstone Jesus. Our relationships with others in our church are built first on our common relationships with Jesus, and it's from that relationship that we continue to build. To start building our church we base everything on Jesus, and bring everyone to a solid connection with him.
One brick by itself doesn't make a house. We aren't meant to walk this Christian life by ourselves. God's way is the way of community. He calls us his body. A body works together and does not try to do away with any of the parts. It's in our connection as bricks (or stones), which are in turn connected to the cornerstone, that we begin to build the church.
Here is the secret to building our church. It is done through relationships with each other. It's the investments of time, energy and heart into the lives of the other believers.
We are not builders by merely taking leadership with programs, starting activities and working to get things going. Those are good things, but they are merely decorations. It's the people involved that need to be built up. Minister to them, care for them, share the love of Jesus with them, and we will construct a fine building.
Think of people in our church we don't know. Most of them we see week-to-week, could probably tell their names and maybe even where they work, but do we know them?
Who from our church do we spend time with outside of the weekly service? Even a lunch or dinner after the service would be a good start. Then move it up a notch, imagine hanging out with some of the other people you see at church. We are all different and involved in different things. Do we love these people? Do we want to help build our church? Which of us will take the time and get our hands dirty as we invest in other people's lives?
We can bring our church to a closer relationship with Jesus by making a closer relationship with others and ourselves through the common bond of Jesus.
We don't know if we're any good at loving one another until we start to be around one another. In building up the people, we will in turn be building our church. In doing that, we'll earn our official certificate to be a licensed builder.
Let's start building!
Geoff Pittman is a pastoral intern in Lexington, Kentucky.
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