Sometimes when we repeat a true statement too many times, we begin to forget the ways in which the statement might be untrue. One such statement is this: “Church is not a building.” How many times have we heard it without pausing to think about what we are saying?
Of course, it is true. Church is a community of believers, a group of people who share a common faith and work together to practice and share that faith in their wider community.
But this truism is also untrue, because church is a building. If you were to ask a passer-by on a busy street of your town or suburb where you might be able to find the local Seventh-day Adventist church, the second most likely answer—sadly, after “I don’t know”—would be to give you directions to a distant (usually) back street where an often-ageing building waits patiently for the next Sabbath morning.
A church building is a symbol of the church’s presence in its community. It is a public expression of the church’s mission and ministry in this time and place. Of course, the group of people who comprise a church does not necessarily need permanent or even regular premises to function effectively as a church community—a faith community should not be dependent on real estate—but neither should we dismiss the opportunity and resource that most established churches have in their church buildings.
For church members, a church building in the context of healthy church life should have a sense of home. A church building is a sacred place primarily because sacred things happen there as one of the key venues for the shared time and happenings of a community of faith and the regular worship of God. And landmark events in the life of families and the broader church are also often church based, including child dedications, baptisms, weddings and funerals. This solid reality should be respected by members and non-members alike.
But, while we have a tradition of dedicating church buildings for their specific purpose, we need to be careful that by “guarding” the sacredness of these places we do not limit their sacred use by limiting their usability. To host community events and use the church’s premises as a base in which and from which we can serve our community are also important sacred uses of our church buildings. The building should serve the church, not the church the building.
We should be focused on using the building—both its sacredness and practical possibilities—not on merely maintaining and preserving it, whether it be old or new. And it is in this way that the church that is “not a building”—the people who make up the church community—should also define the building, rather than the other way round.
A few years ago, an article in Architecture NZ profiling the old building of the Mt Eden Adventist church in Auckland (NZ) provided a good example of this. “The uncompromising modern forms of the church are not overly welcoming,” wrote Nicole Stock, “and the church has a hard and imposing glare. There’s more than a hint here of old style, God-fearing religion. . . . [But], it must be said, the generosity of the congregation overrides any grimness of the building.”
It sounds just a little like the description of what a church community should be about offered by the writer of Hebrews:
“Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near”.
Hebrews 10:24-25 NLT
The writer does not urge a church building as part of this formula but in our time and place, especially for existing and established churches, we should not underestimate the role a church building can have as a base for good works in the wider community, and as a venue to meet together and encourage one another. To the extent that a church building contributes to these two aspects of the church’s life and mission, we should value it and even celebrate it as a gift from God and (often) from the generations of faithful church members who have gone before us. Then perhaps we can be less hesitant to admit that, yes, my church is also a building—a solid, physical, practical and sacred presence in our community.
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WRITER: Nathan Brown, Author and Book Editor at Signs Publishing