What is church?

When you hear the word church, what comes to mind? A building? Something you should do on a Sunday morning? The style of worship? The order of worship? Time to fellowship with others? History and tradition? What mom and dad do? In other words, what characterizes church to you?

These characteristics, among many others, have been going through my mind for quite sometime now. Not that there is a specific right and wrong way to conduct a worship service on a Sunday morning, but it is easily seen the wide variety of ways that services are conducted today. Yet, with the variety of churches today, it begs the question: "What is church"?

Over a year ago, I was given a opportunity that I thought I would never have in my life, let alone an opportunity that I never thought that I would accept. God lead me to become involved with a small group of believers that was working towards planting a church in a local community. "Me, Lord?" the question went through my head a lot. I had always hoped for a church closer to home; though I loved the church I had been attending, the drive was time consuming. Church planting was never on my radar, mainly because I didn't think that I would ever be involved with starting a church.

During this whole process, I have found that, for me anyway, the most mind boggling aspect is figuring out what church is. In many ways, everyone that is involved with the church plant, has been shaped and learned from previous churches that they had been apart of. As much as that has brought them to where they are in their faith, most of that is left behind as we all come with an open mind to create atmosphere for a body of believers to grow in their walk with God. Yes, there is a denomination that we are affiliated with, but that mainly provides the foundation for us to build off of.

When we look to scripture, there isn't much to find about what church is. The Apostle Paul wrote many epistles to many New Testament churches, but he never talked about what church should be. He gave a charge that the Word of God be preached accurately, he gave words of encouragement to struggle churches, he gave warnings to churches of how to keep Satan out of the church, he gave instruction on how to chose church leadership, among many other words of wisdom to new churches. But he didn't say there was any one specific way church should be coordinated.

I often reflect back to Acts 2:42 "And they devoted themselves to the apostle's teachings and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers." I like this verse because I feel it explains the foundational reason for the church very well. Weekly worship services are vital to a believer's walk with Christ, I firmly believe that a person cannot truly be a disciple of Christ without fellowship with other believers. Therefore, a body of believers coming together, studying the Word of God, creating community and fellowship among themselves, and praying together. Is that not what church should be about?

From my little vantage point on earth, I look out and see how divisions are being created in the church as a whole and I am disheartened. I understand the reason behind denominational differences, but that doesn't mean I have to be in favor of them. I feel that all, myself included, need to get deeper into scripture and fine tune our beliefs and wisdom to reflect the truths of the Bible, not just what the Pastor said on Sunday morning. Instead of being bumps on a log and falling asleep in the pew on a Sunday morning, we need to be attentive and desiring the Holy Spirit to transform our lives because of what was heard and sung during the service.

I'll end this with the words from a brother in Christ of mine, "Don't just go to church, be the church."