GATHERED or SENT? What Is The Church?

“Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25) 

“Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15) 

As were many of you, I was disappointed last week when we had to make the difficult decision to suspend in-person worship and events in our buildings once again in light of the continued high incidents of virus in our community. While I have no doubt that it was the right thing for us to do, it was frustrating, nevertheless. Yet, as we prayerfully discern how best to again re-open our facilities, it has caused me to do some heavy thinking, praying, and studying about what it really means to be God’s church.

Many of us grew up learning a children’s song that goes like this: “The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is a people. I am the church. You are the church. We are the church together. All of God’s people, all around the world; yes, we’re the church together!” (#558 in the UM Hymnal). While I know that most of us intellectually know these words to be true, when we think about “church,” many of us nevertheless still tend to think of it in terms of the worship services, events, activities, and things that take place in and at our facilities. While that is certainly the meaning behind the Hebrews 10 passage above (“don’t neglect to meet together…”), at the same time there has always been a healthy tension in Christian faith and practice between the church being a GATHERED community of believers, and the “Great Commission” calling of Jesus in Mark 16 to be a community which is SENT into the world to share the good news.

Over the last 10-15 years, there has been a increased recognition of the need for the church to do and be the latter (a SENT community) – not necessarily that this takes the place of being a GATHERED community, but just that we have perhaps grown so complacent in our “gathered-ness” that we have failed to “go” or allow ourselves to be “sent” into the world.

Consequently, today’s health crisis has forced the truth of this reality even further – with our buildings and facilities effectively closed to being able to gather in person, we have had to not only re-think what “gathered” means, but to consider more ways to be the church in the communities and neighborhoods where we are “sent” and actually live. Does “meeting together” in heart and spirit for online worship, Bible study, and fellowship count as “gathering”? I think it does, but in a way we’ve never had to consider before. And remember: the early church itself did not meet in its own buildings at all, but in homes and spaces where people lived. Isn’t that precisely what we’re seeing a return to today? Our buildings may currently be closed for a season, but we are not now (nor throughout this crisis have we ever been) “closed” as a CHURCH!

In many ways, at least until this past February, the church in America (including our church at McKendree) was a PHYSICAL church with a digital presence. But today’s crisis has forced us to prayerfully consider that the church of the future (indeed, even of today) must be a DIGITAL church with a physical presence. If that’s true, then perhaps “being the church” is not so much defined by “getting back” to in-person worship in our facilities, but is more defined (or at least is AS defined) by our work and presence in our communities and neighborhoods once again! Don’t hear me wrong – I want to come back for in-person worship as much as anyone. But at the end of the day, if we can’t do that right now (or even for a while), it doesn’t mean that we can’t still BE God’s church!

Instead, the two scriptures above remind me that “being the church” is about being both a GATHERED and a SENT community of faith – neither is more important than the other. But if, over time, one has predominated the other (as perhaps it has), then God may be using our situation today to bring this back into balance by helping relieve us (involuntarily) of the notion that “church” can’t exist without our buildings or our in-person worship services.

Again, I love the praise and spirit that’s present in our in-person worship services, and I love the fellowship and camaraderie that takes place when we are physically together in the same spaces. But in this season of virtual worship and virtual fellowship, perhaps our focus for now should be on recapturing the importance of being a SENT community – on how we can BE God’s church in the communities and neighborhoods where we live!

I don’t have all the answers to know exactly what all that looks like, but I trust that God will guide us to figure it out together, if we will but remain flexible, patient, and trust in the Holy Spirit constantly to remind us of what the church is truly about! Always know that God loves you and I do, too!