Church without walls
Church without walls
Have you heard of the song "Making a difference"? I think it's written by someone from a local church. Anyway, the bridge goes, "We will answer the call, to build this church without walls. Let Your glory be shown, bring salvation to the lost, to the lost ..."
My students love this song very much, and I think in some churches where it's sung, it's also a very well-loved song that "evoke" response during altar calls, etc.
My question here is: have we ever ask ourselves what does it mean to build church without walls? What does it mean to bring salvation to the lost?
During my NT class, and my meeting with some college friends, we were talking about this "church without walls" - my lecturer was commenting that nowadays, churches are built not only with high walls, concrete walls, but even having gates with bolts and locks. Well, it's true that we do have expensive instruments that we need to be careful with, but by locking our church and making it somehow "inaccessible" to the public, aren't we building church WITH walls? And again the question is, is there a need to spend so much money on expensive instruments in the first place to "enhance" worship experiences, when the money could perhaps be well spent on outreach efforts or mission works?
Also, we have lots of talk about reaching out to those on the fringe - prison inmates, drug addicts, prostitutes, rebellious teenagers, people with some emotional/depression problems, etc, etc - how often have we accepted them unconditionally when they make a decision to join our meetings? It's easy to get out and distribute tracts and tell them "Jesus loves you", but when they actually make their presence in our churches or cell groups, how ready are we to accept them, WITHOUT condemning them? Do we force our will down their throat - that they have to QUIT living the kind of lifestyle they live because they choose to come to church? Yes, we do want them to GET OUT of the lifestyle that does harm to them, but how often have we taken the time to be patient with them to HELP THEM get out of their problem? Many of them DON'T choose to be drug addicts or to sell their bodies for a living, and so on - it's easy to say, "Get out of it!", but when it concerns their bread and butter, or their life is at stake, what should our response be?
We want them to come to know God, yet we are NOT WILLING to walk through their pain with them - we expect them to CHANGE INSTANTLY, without giving them a chance to walk through their problems, or even we being patient to walk through with them their problems.
Church without walls?? I think we are VERY FAR from that - even if churches reach out to those on the fringe, church members and church programs are far from ready to accept them as Jesus do.
Have we become so RIGHTEOUS that we start to label who's deserving of salvation, and who should do what to become more godly? Who are we to play God when He doesn't even condemn those that He loved? None of us changed instantly the moment we met God, shouldn't we exercise this grace and patience God has shown us to the others too? Maybe we are, or have been suffering from amnesia huh?
Have you heard of the song "Making a difference"? I think it's written by someone from a local church. Anyway, the bridge goes, "We will answer the call, to build this church without walls. Let Your glory be shown, bring salvation to the lost, to the lost ..."
My students love this song very much, and I think in some churches where it's sung, it's also a very well-loved song that "evoke" response during altar calls, etc.
My question here is: have we ever ask ourselves what does it mean to build church without walls? What does it mean to bring salvation to the lost?
During my NT class, and my meeting with some college friends, we were talking about this "church without walls" - my lecturer was commenting that nowadays, churches are built not only with high walls, concrete walls, but even having gates with bolts and locks. Well, it's true that we do have expensive instruments that we need to be careful with, but by locking our church and making it somehow "inaccessible" to the public, aren't we building church WITH walls? And again the question is, is there a need to spend so much money on expensive instruments in the first place to "enhance" worship experiences, when the money could perhaps be well spent on outreach efforts or mission works?
Also, we have lots of talk about reaching out to those on the fringe - prison inmates, drug addicts, prostitutes, rebellious teenagers, people with some emotional/depression problems, etc, etc - how often have we accepted them unconditionally when they make a decision to join our meetings? It's easy to get out and distribute tracts and tell them "Jesus loves you", but when they actually make their presence in our churches or cell groups, how ready are we to accept them, WITHOUT condemning them? Do we force our will down their throat - that they have to QUIT living the kind of lifestyle they live because they choose to come to church? Yes, we do want them to GET OUT of the lifestyle that does harm to them, but how often have we taken the time to be patient with them to HELP THEM get out of their problem? Many of them DON'T choose to be drug addicts or to sell their bodies for a living, and so on - it's easy to say, "Get out of it!", but when it concerns their bread and butter, or their life is at stake, what should our response be?
We want them to come to know God, yet we are NOT WILLING to walk through their pain with them - we expect them to CHANGE INSTANTLY, without giving them a chance to walk through their problems, or even we being patient to walk through with them their problems.
Church without walls?? I think we are VERY FAR from that - even if churches reach out to those on the fringe, church members and church programs are far from ready to accept them as Jesus do.
Have we become so RIGHTEOUS that we start to label who's deserving of salvation, and who should do what to become more godly? Who are we to play God when He doesn't even condemn those that He loved? None of us changed instantly the moment we met God, shouldn't we exercise this grace and patience God has shown us to the others too? Maybe we are, or have been suffering from amnesia huh?
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