Church - Is it people or a building?

In theory we know the answer to this one. It's people, right? But that's not how we act. It seems every church needs its own building. We talk about meeting "at the church". Some church websites even have the building as the main image.

But the idea of Christians having a special meeting place didn't come about until centuries after Jesus - and the reasons were more cultural than biblical. That in itself, isn't bad but what do these buildings do to church?

The authors describe the effect of church design as turning "fully functioning Christians into 'pew potatoes'".

The arrangement and mood of the building conditions the congregation towards passivity. The pulpit platform acts like a stage, and the congregation occupies the theatre.

As an aside, they also mention the huge cost of our building fetish. In the United States $230 billion is tied up in church real estate - costing billions more each year in debt and maintenance.

This chapter challenges us to stop referring to a building as a church, notice how the building hinders the church, and realise that the building should not be treated as sacred.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is to question the assumption that every church needs a building, and discern whether your church would be better without one.

Lyrics to keep men away from church

I recently experienced one of the more man-excluding "worship" songs I've heard in some time.

Beautiful one I love you
Beautiful one I adore
Beautiful one my soul must sing...

Do we really think this helps men worship Jesus? That it's natural for men to speak this way to another male being? Or that beautiful is even a biblically valid term for Jesus? (The answer to that last one is "no" - in the bible that word describes things other than God).

While worship music is not the sole reason for the lack of men in the church today, it certainly does its fair share in making men feel like a fish out of water.

Here's the Murrow test
If you're a man, try singing (or even saying) these lyrics to another man. Your brother, dad or best mate - someone you love, but in a non-sexual way.

Chances are you'll get a weird look in return. This is not a normal way for men to express non-sexual love. The more church sings to God like this, the more men will stay away from church, and from God.

PS. I looked up the full lyrics on the web. The page included a computer-generated Google ad - based on the frequent words in the page. Based on these lyrics, Google chose "Beauty courses" as the most relevant ad. I think that tells us something.

Are we really bible-based?

A man wonders about church - as the pastor proclaims the bible for the basis of everything the church does. What does the bible has to do with dressing up? Sitting in an expensive building for an hour a week? Struggling not to yawn, while his kids sit in Sunday school they hate? Good questions.

Personally, I've wondered similar things. I once commented that all church services seem to go sing-pray-money-preach (the order may vary). I was told that's what Jesus said to do. Thinking about it later, I gave us 0 out of 4.

I can't remember Jesus saying to sing (0/1). Both praying and giving Jesus said to do privately (0/3). As for spreading the good news, the bible records Jesus in short dialogues outside the church. We've gone the other way with long monologues inside the church.

So, why does the church stray so far from the Jesus it claims to follow? I guess that will be explored in future chapters. But for now, the poem The Calf Path is a great allegory.