I DON'T GO TO CHURCH ANYMORE

I stopped going to church because it created a problem when I did. I kept bumping into myself. How on earth do you keep bumping into yourself? I have heard people bumping into each other but not bumping into yourself.

Normally you would be quite right. Normally you can’t bump into yourself. But when you “go to church” you are guaranteed to bump into yourself as I did.

So lets unravel the mystery that is not a mystery.

The reason that I kept bumping into myself when I “went to church” is simple. You can’t ‘go to church’ because you are the church. How can you go to something that you are?

Jesus came to replace ritual with relationship. He came to put his spirit in people not a building. He came to make our bodies temples of the Holy Spirit. He came to make everyone a priest. Everything that he does he does through us, not through a building or a programme.

His connection with earth is us, his body, which he is the head of. He doesn’t need any buildings, priestly class or rituals to make happen what he wants to happen. The only thing that is necessary for Christ to fulfil his purpose of putting the devil under his feet is you and me, a crucified self that is committed to his plans and purpose.

And that my dear friend, constitutes the church. Take me away and we do not have a church. Get rid of you and we do not have a church for the simple reason the head cannot function without a body.

You have heard the term if you live in Australia “a headless chook”. Jesus is a "chookless head" without a body. He is a “chookless head” without you and me. that is why you can’t go to church, because wherever you are, you are the church. The church, or the “ekklesia” is a group of ‘called out ones’.

All you can do is meet with the body of Christ as a member of it. In the New Testament Church they met in homes. Today we usually meet in specialised buildings that are somehow ‘sacred’ and they get called ‘a church’.

You can meet with your mates at the ‘footy’ but that is not the church. You can meet with your neighbours at the garden club, but that is not church. What makes it church is the fact that those gathered are born again and gathered in the name of Jesus. It is his name that gives it the authority it needs to function as ‘church’.

That is why you would keep bumping into yourself if you ‘went to church’. Because you are the church wherever you are gathered with others of like mind.

Instead of the sign outside the building saying “Much Binding In The Marsh Baptist Church” what it should say “This is where the Much Binding in the Marsh Baptist Church meets”.

Words are powerful and just changing the sign outside can change the whole mindset of the members of the church. They become a body instead of a religious organisation that meets in the MBITMBC. That is short for “Much Binding In The Marsh Baptist Church’. I am sure you will agree it is easier to say MBITMBC. Probably easier to say “that lot over there”.