I Am the Church

How many people actually think that the church is located inside a building?  Most people get dressed up once a week and think they are “going to church”.  But guess what?  If you are a child of God, you can’t GO to church.  You ARE the church…wherever you go, that is where the church is.  This does not mean that we should not assemble together. Hebrews 10:24-25 says “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  We are the body of Christ, and each of has a part in His ministry.  Romans 12:4-5 “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

But, we tend to get so caught up in claiming a place and calling it OUR church.  We say silly things like, “they aren’t going to run me out of MY church” or “MY family built this church”.  Or we become so loyal to a person or leader in the church that we take our eyes off of the real reason we are there.  1 Corinthians 3:1-9 puts it pretty plainly,  “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. “

The building we meet in is a place of worship and a place to serve and to grow, but it is only a building.  We must remember that WE are the church.  May we not get so attached to a building that we forget that Christ lives in US.  We take Him with us everywhere we go.  We are to be His workers every day, wherever we are…not just in the building we call “church”.