For students of the bible it's no secret that the word "church", which is "ecclesia" in the original Greek, has nothing to do with a building. With the definition of ecclesia being "those called out or called together", church in biblical times and biblical terms was all about the people who came together as followers of Jesus. The church of Christ was the people of Christ, and from a biblical perspective, we have no reason to believe that it should be any different today.
But after 2000 years of apostasies, divisions, schisms, factions, revivals, and even more divisions, for many people the church is a building with a cross on top of it, an organ in it and sometimes a stained glass window or two. Going to church has become a common expression, even if it's not a common activity. But being the church is still novel to most people, even though the Lord's intention seems clearly to have been to establish a church that would be composed of people trying to follow his example. Singing, praying, preaching, and meeting seem to have been successfully established. Forgiving, sacrificing, turning the other cheek, loving our enemies...these seem to have not caught on as much as the Lord directed.
As a congregation, we're very fortunate to have the loving fellowship that we do. We need to rededicate ourselves in many areas, but one thing seems certain, this church is made up of people who don't quit. We're also very fortunate to have been given some nice places to meet as a church. Because of our size and a lot of other history...including a mission statement that mandated sending a lot of money out of Portland to help plant churches around the world...we've never owned our own building. Always tenants somewhere, we've been very blessed and owe thanks to God and a lot of people, the Ambridge folks especially, for taking good care of us.
Now we're in the process of trying out another place to meet. The Sunnyside United Methodist Church on SE 35th and SE Yamhill, is a building we're already familiar with. We've had a couple of services there this past year and regularly help to feed the hungry on Friday nights in a program that's been established there for many years. For the next couple of weeks we will be meeting there, and if there are no strong objections we'll be moving our services there regularly. The money we'll save and the opportunities we'll have to meet more often and add more programs to our HOPEworldwide charity work motivates us to give full attention to this open door which it seems the Lord has lead us to. The location, the pipe organ, and the stained glass windows might even make some folks visiting us feel comfortable. We will always know that, nice as it is, it's just a building. We, the people, have got to be the church where ever we go.
