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.