Perhaps my most favorite subject to discuss on this blog is church - what it is, what it isn't, and what it should be. To be sure, the gathering of redeemed saints in a community that reflects the one-ness of the Triune God is something that fascinates me.
 
While lots of the "glass is half-empty" folks tell me that there's "no such thing as a perfect church", I'm inclined to believe that while the people who make up the church may be imperfect, that when we come together in genuine community (whatever that looks like), there is something perfectly beautiful about that, which, I believe, pleases God.
 
But what does it mean to "do church" or come together as the church, exactly? Well, that's a good question. That's why I am asking a bunch of people who are a lot smarter than me to give me their best , short answer to the question, "What is church?"
 
For as long as it takes (a couple weeks at least), I'll be sporadically posting the answers I'm receiving via email from pastors, missionaries, bloggers, friends, colleagues, church-planters, and average Joes and Janes. Here is the first batch of compelling answers to the definition of church:
 
  • Bart Campolo, speaker, writer, and founder of MissionYear:
    Church is such a loaded word that I hardly use it anymore, except to describe that collection of institutions and expectations and habits that never much interested me in the first place. If the folks who wrote the Biblical texts were around now, I think they'd use a different name.
     
  • Roman Gorny, Greek Orthodox blogger:
    Church is the people "called out" of the world; that's the meaning of ek-klesía. Anything else labeled "church" is at best an accommodation to the prevailing culture (as in the expression, "Where do you go to church?"), or a widespread form of biblical illiteracy (as in, "My, what a beautiful church!"), or at worst a form of religious profiling (as in, "I belong to the [fill in the blank] Church."). There is only One Christ, and One Church, undivided and for ever.

  • Chris Reed, Vice President of CTI Music Ministries in Willmar, MN:
    I envision "the church" as the localized fellowships of Jesus-followers around the world who come together for the purpose of forming each other in the image of Christ, equipping each other for ministry and evangelism, and then returning to the world to live out those values in practical reality. I'm not keen on the idea that church is the place to "do" this ministry and evangelism... I think of it more as the context in which we equip and encourage each other to these ends. But the church only fulfills its divinely ordained purpose - to "train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life" according to Matt 28:19 (msg) - when it scatters and intersects with all humanity so that it might bring the light of Jesus there. Coming together is important. But unless it is coupled with a subsequent going out, the church is incomplete in its purpose.

  • Anne Jackson, writer, blogger, staff member of Cross Point Church:
    Church is the Kingdom here. Tangible and transcendent expressions of the character of Christ. Love without walls and fear.
 
What is church to you? Email me if you'd like to join this blog tour-survey-thing. Read part two of this church discussion.