What is church?

Organising a church is an extremely difficult and complex affair. In order to plant a church one must do no less then find a building, organise furniture, organise a music team and equipment, hire a pastor and staff, write a sermon, create some advertising, organise a myriad of “secondary” services (bible studies, Sunday school etc), and manage a financial system that underpins it all. This is indicative of a misunderstanding of what church really is.

Based on this, it seems most people believe that church is defined as: “an organisation designed to entertain believers”. However, there is no biblical precedent for treating church as either an organisation, or as an event (Sunday service). Another definition appears to be: “a building”. However, this is also incorrect. When God asks someone to build his church he is not asking them to grab a hammer. Unlike in the Old Testament, the Christians were never recorded as designing a building specifically for their purposes, despite the fact the church in Jerusalem had at least five thousand members (Acts 4:4).

In truth, church can be defined as “plural for Christian” (The Greek word ‘ekklesia’ which is translated to ‘church’ literally means a group of people. It is the same word translated as ‘assembly’ in Acts 19:41, referring to a crowd.) A church is merely a group of Christians, as Jesus states, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20). That’s it. No mention of a clergy, an organisation, a building, or a special event. A church is comprised of at least two people. To demonstrate this you can read the New Testament and replace almost every occurrence of the word “church” with “Christians”.

• “To the Christians of God in Corinth…” (1 Corinthians 1:2)
• “…To the Christians in Galatia…” (Galatians 1:1)
• “To the angel of the Christians in Ephesus write…” (Revelations 2:1)
• “Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the Christians in her house.” (Colossians 4:15)

This has great implications. For starters it means that there is only one church. One church in a building, one church in a community, one church in a city, one church in a country, one church on earth. There is after all only one group of Christians on earth, although there are many organisations. In most churches people almost never interact with other churches. They are treated as distinct entities. If you go to the Sunday service of one church you are expected to only to their bible studies, and there events, no one else’s. But this ignores a biblical truth. There is only one church; there are many organisations, but only one church (We resemble the Christians described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:10-12).

It also means that when ever I am interacting with Christians I am part of church. I may be playing computer games, or talking about the weather. But if we are two or more Christians we are church. This is not necessarily a healthy church, but for the time being we are just distinguishing the basics of what a church is; God does not necessarily want us to operate at this basic level.

It also means that Church is not something I go to, or something I do, it is something I am. I’ve stopped doing church and started being church. Church is defined not by where it meets, or what it does, or how it is organised. Church is defined by who it is (or rather whose it is).

“We would insist that a Christ follower is one who follows Christ, or one who has been saved.We would not say that a Christ follower is one who reads the Bible, prays, and uses his spiritual gifts. Though a Christ follower will, in fact likely do these things, it is not the doing of these things that makes one a Christ follower. A Christ follower is identified by who he is (or, stated better, by whose he is), not by what he does. This is true because a Christ follower does not always perform perfectly to a set of standards, yet this does not change his identify as a follower of Christ. Once we accept that a Christ follower is identified by whose he is, not by what he does, then it is possible to see that church (defined as plural for Christ follower) is defined by who (or whose) it is, not by what it does. Two or more Christ followers coming together are church whether they are doing “Christian things” or whether they are watching television. Though a healthy church will do certain things, it is not the doing of these things that determines whether or not it is in fact an expression of church.” (Keeping Church Simple)

When someone asks “What church do you go to?” I hear “What Christians do you go to?” When someone asks “What time does church start?” I hear “What time does Christians start?” These questions make no sense.

Terms You Will Not See In the Bible:“This is my church.”, “I go to church.”,“I am a member of ‘such-and-such’ church.”, “I belong to the ‘such-and-such’ church.”, “I attend church.”, “I was accepted into membership at church.”, “My pastor.”, “Come to my church.”, “I changed churches.”

Terms You Do See In the Bible: “We are all one body…” (Eph. 4:4), “There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism…” (Eph. 4:5), “Always keep yourselves united in the Holy Spirit…” (Eph. 4:3), “You are members of God’s family.” (Eph. 2:19), “For as members of one body you are all called to live in peace…” (Col. 3:15), “…for we are all members of one body.” (Eph. 4:25), “the church in Jerusalem,” “the church in Antioch” (Acts 11:22; 13:1), “let us aim for harmony in the church…” (Rom. 14:19), “Christ and the church are one.” (Eph. 5:32).(House church blog)

Church is just a name for christians. Pure and simple. You don’t need a big building, an organisation, or events to be church. You need it to do church, but not to be church.

This distinction between being and doing church is one we’ll look more into latter.