Church, Part 1:

I've been thinking about what it means to be part of a church. So often when I think of the word "church," I think of a building. Remember that game you played as a kid where you interlaced your fingers and said, "Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors and here's all the people!" and wiggled your fingers around? That's how we often learn what church is, a building with a steeple and people inside.

My church growing up had a big silver dome on top, not a steeple. It had two large stained-glass windows in the sanctuary. One of the windows was an angel with outspread wings. This window faced outside and would cast colors all around when struck by the sun. The other window, my favorite, was an image of Jesus, looking regal and kind. There were other people in the picture, too, although I don't really remember them now. Someone kneeling, I think, near Jesus' feet. As a child and teenager, I used to sneak into the sanctuary when it was empty and stare at that window and pray. Just looking at it made me feel that strange melancholy beauty that choked me. It was especially potent at night, when the window was illuminated from a light outside. The sanctuary was quiet, full of the smells of the old building, the organ pipes, dust, the hint of the pastor's cologne. And there was Jesus, shining out of that window, beautiful and full of grace. To me, that was church. It was a solitary moment between me and a stained-glass Jesus.

In my early twenties I joined a church that had no permanent building. We were nomads. We were always meeting at different places: other church buildings that we rented, parks, conference rooms, and auditoriums. We worshipped God wherever we could, in one large group, in smaller groups in living rooms, one-on-one in places like the mall food court. We had no organ, no pulpit, no pews. We had each other, and that was about it. This is where I learned that church is not a building. It is a group of people. It is a body, one that stretches all around the world.

Here's what the Bible says about this body in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

There is a whole long section of 1 Corinthians 12 that I mean to study in depth, to try to understand what it means to be a part of this body. But for now, I want to just look at these first two verses. This passage lays down the metaphor of the church (meaning Christians all over the world) being a body. As believers, we may be different, we may be spread out all over the place, but we are a part of a unified body. I like the idea of us having one Spirit, working in us all.