BUILDINGS

Buildings hide us away from the people out there. Every Sunday morning and at other times we huddle in our specialist buildings that we consider essential if we are going to have a relationship with God. What they actually do is keep us separated from each other and separated from those outside the kingdom of God.

In most specialist buildings, they are designed to keep people outside from looking in to see what we do and how we do it. In other words, it tends to be holy huddle that you are not invited into unless you are part of the club.

I believe that one of the reasons why the New Testament Church was so dynamic is due to the fact that they didn’t have buildings. Their fellowship and activity was conducted in homes where the people were on a daily basis.

Frank Viola in his book “Pagan Christianity” says that Christianity was the only religion that was born without sacred objects, sacred persons or sacred buildings. The Christian faith was born out of homes, courtyards, along roadsides and in living rooms.

In other words, where the people were which is the embodiment of that verse that says where two or three are gathered together in my name, I will be in the midst.

It doesn’t say “Where two or three are gathered together in my name in the church sanctuary.”

Although the mainline churches seen to be oblivious of the fact or are trying to deny it is happening, the home is replacing the edifice as the meeting place for the saints.

Society is built on the family structure and the home is where the family resides. What better than to build the church on society’s foundation, the family and the home. Taking them out of the home and putting them into a public building is not building the church on the family and the home.

In fact, the ritual and religion that parades as Christianity in the edifices that we build are probably one of the main reasons why members of families give up Christianity once they reach their twenties. What goes on in the “church” is not relevant to them any more.

However, they don’t give up on their family and home because that always was and still is relevant to them. It is their haven from the machinations of a secular society that is trying to convince them that God is dead.

If every so called “church” building was shut down, life for the Christian would go on because they still have their families and their homes. In fact, their quality of life may improve dramatically as they no longer have to serve a system that in the main keeps them from knowing God.

Most of the time, this system is good at helping us to know about God, but not to know him in the same way that we know our father, mother, brother, sister etc.

Perhaps we need some homing pigeons to rescue us from those things that are a replacement for the real deal.