Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25).
Say the word church to many people and you’ll evoke cavernous spaces, pews, even steeples. I grew up in the church, and it’s true: I remember the buildings. But they did not call me into faith. Instead, it was the people, the songs, the prayers, the stories, the meals, the love, the shared commitment to those beyond the group, and Christ working through all of these, which gradually beckoned me into the Jesus-centred life.
Perhaps you have a similar story. Yet our idea of church has been horribly distorted by centuries of Christendom, which has erected great buildings and called them church. But while church may happen in them from time to time, the buildings are not church, and nor are the institutions surrounding them. In fact, not once in the Bible does the word translated as church refer to a building. Nor is it a tradition, a membership roll, an intellectual commitment to an idea, an entertainment, or a closed group.
Instead the ekklesia (the word we usually translate as church) means assembly. More precisely, it’s a group of people temporarily gathered for a specific purpose. In the New Testament, this purpose usually involves worship, discussion and the sharing of food and other resources, but how this actually happens varies greatly from place to place.
Some groups gather daily in the Temple and in private homes (Acts 2:42ff). One group meets weekly alongside a river to pray (Acts 16:13). Disciples in Rome seem to meet at all different times so that those who follow a seven-day week, and those who do not, can nevertheless gather (Romans 14:5).
Indeed, the ekklesia meets in many different configurations, times and spaces, just as we at Sanctuary met in many different ways and places over the years: in the hall, on Zoom, in private homes, in gardens, around bonfires, around meal tables, even in the carpark from time to time.
As for what the ekklesia does — it varies! But for the most part, there is singing, praying, welcoming newcomers, listening to scripture and interpreting it through proclamation and dialogue, eating together, feeding the hungry, collecting money to share with the needy, working out healthy forms of administration, and commissioning people to spread the word with others; and in this list you will recognize many elements of our own gatherings.
You might also notice that, in these activities, people are not spectators but participants. Indeed, we don’t go to church; we gather in order to be church and engage in the Christ-centred practices that are the purposes of the assembly.
So church is flexible, variable, and contextual, and its expression doesn’t depend on a building, a liturgy, or a professional. Professionals, liturgies and buildings can be helpful, certainly, in facilitating the gathering and focusing the group on worship, discussion and acts of generosity and service. However, all that is really needed for church is for a group of people to gather in Christ’s name for the purposes described above.
The big question for the people of Sanctuary is whether or not they will continue to gather, that is, to be church: and if so, how. I know some of you are anxious that how we meet now may not continue. There is grief in this, of course, but don’t be afraid! The church is not an institution, and we are not required to prop up any particular form of gathering. Instead, our task is simply to find a sustainable way — our way — to gather for worship, discussion and sharing food and resource. So I encourage you once again to pray and to use your holy imagination, as we wonder how to be church with integrity in this time and place.
Shalom,
Alison
Emailed to Sanctuary 12 July 2023 © Alison Sampson, 2023. Photo by Ben Duchac on Unsplash (edited).
Alison and the whale 