A great series I enjoyed writing that I wish I continued was about the church. And it started with this post, Why a Building?:
I think my initial hesitation about the whole building thing came when the church building craze started my last year of high school. My church decided we need to add a $2.5 million addition on to our building. I didn’t realize we were outgrowing the original building in the first place, and now they wanted to add on. And in adding on they wanted it to look really nice, which is understandable since the current building looked quite nice. But I thought to myself $2.5 million is a whole lot of money, and it just doesn’t seem necessary.
Little did I know over the next few years practically every church I went to was doing a building campaign. Some of them really needed it, others I wasn’t so sure. We attended one church for a while and then they started a building campaign for a second building and they where putting an indoor waterfall in it. That was it, I was gone.
Then at some point I started thinking… Why the heck do we need a building anyways? I mean we all live somewhere, why don’t we meet in our homes? It seemed to me that’s mostly what the early church did. I mean, it’s true we couldn’t all pack in to hear the really good preachers, but since when is that what it’s all about? Some would say that’s what small groups are for, to meet in smaller communities in our homes and stuff (I’ll address this later).
I’m not saying church buildings don’t have a purpose, I’ve just started questioning if they are really necessary at all. I mean is it feasible to do the things we do in a church building in our homes instead? And what about bigger events? Is it possible to do those in a place other than our own building?
One of my main concerns about the building is that seems to be all we spend our money on, or talk about spending our money on. The main time you hear about making tithing pledges in most churches it seems is usually related to a building campaign. And then the church goes into debt to purchase the new building before they even have all the money.
That was just a rant of sorts, I really should fine tune it a bit, but there it is raw.
The conversation that began from that post was great and it continued into a brief series entitled, Considering Church.
I’m in agreement. We don’t need church buildings. WE are the church, it doesn’t matter where we meet. Buildings seem to be too big a distraction and too much of a drain on our finances. Not to mention the fact they seem to keep us stuck inside four walls, when we need to be out in the world. Ya know?? And private homes seem so much more in tune with the early church, like you said. I can’t imagine Jesus ever sitting down in a big fancy church. (shrug) He was way too busy putting himself out there among the people, living the gospel, furthering the kingdom.
Just my two cents.
Peace,
Jamie
House churches are a beautiful thing.
Enjoyed reading this article. Thanks!