Church Buildings: Friend or Foe?

Sunday morning Shaunna and I had breakfast with some old friends of her mom’s that were in town for the 1/2 marathon. I must say, this was a pretty cool older couple. He is a missions pastor at a church and she works for the city government where they live. As is normal, the conversation over breakfast turned to the spiritual.

As is no secret, I’m not a big fan of a church buildings…especially ones that cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. I’ve got my reasons, but that’s for a different (or probably a previous) post. Though I hold my personal feelings on the topic, I don’t project them or feel that others be in error if they feel a different way. What can I say, I’m slowly maturing in that area…I suppose.

That said, this particular gentleman helped me see the potential of a new avenue of thought on this topic. He said that in some “temple cultures”, like predominantly Buddhist nations, a “church building” is necessary to make it real and credible. After all, that is the culture.

Interesting. I’ve never thought about it like that.

Do you think church buildings are necessary in some cultures and not in others? Could they foster dependency on themselves regardless? Do you think they’re necessary at all? Why or why not? What would Christians do without them?

Technorati Tags: , , ,

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 10:09 amand is filed under Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • http://www.coolpeoplecare.org Sam Davidson

    In terms of culture, in the US, a building brings up issues of ownership, money, etc.

    I think churches could/should take the lead on building buildings that are used more than once a week. Let the homeless sleep there every night. Allow nonprofits to have office space. Let community groups hold meetings. If a church can afford to build, and it the church is to be an agent of help in the world, this is a no-brainer.

  • http://www.chsadida16.blogspot.com Chelsie Harris

    Cool, Sam. Yeah it certainly seems like a no-brainer for a church building to provide shelter instead of ambiance..
    Jeffrey poses an interesting question: “What would Christians do without them?”
    What would Christians do without the distraction of funding, building, and maintaining a structure? Would they pay more attention to the needs around them?
    Church buildings and I have a slight issue because they misrepresent the idea that the body of Christ is the church.
    Buildings also, by their nature, include and exclude. They keep certain people & ideas out while holding “its” people and ideas in. The “our doors are always open” policy doesn’t do much to further love and respect of those outside the walls. Divide and conquer seems to be their mentality-figure out who is in and convert those who are out.
    I know many organizations are stepping out of this mold, and more power to them, but personally, it seems that the church should exist by living its values in the day-to-day, not contradicting them by filling (literally and figuratively) another container. T
    –buildings (and general segregation for that matter) seem to lead dependence away from spiritual and toward the physical…so, I suppose Christians might be more spiritual-minded without the object that makes their faith physically “real.”

  • Maria Grogan

    All of the comments above are very good points. But we live in a fallen world, a sinful world where the ‘perfect’ will never exist–we will only see it exist one day in heaven. People are imperfect– Christians and non Christians. The Lord wants to draw mankind to Jesus. Every person is individual and different–what might work to draw one person to Jesus might not work for another. I know that when I first came to know Jesus as my Savior, we attended a ‘big’ church. I would not trade my spiritual growth during that time for anything. As I grew in my journey, the ‘outer, unimportant’ things (such as a ‘church building’) became less important. But had that building not been there to begin with I may not have gotten to where I am now in my walk with Jesus. Over this past year, the Spirit within me has begun to resonate with the idea that ‘the Church is not a building–rather, it is the people’. With this revelation, the Lord revealed to me that I was becoming prideful of my so called revelation because I was beginning to be critical of mega churches and such. The Lord gently reminded me that the purpose of this revelation was not to become critical of those who don’t view it that way. This revelation was given to me by Him to move me, personally, closer to Him so that then He could work through me to do His will. Regardless of the type of building–whether it be a huge church or a little shack or in someone’s home–God’s Word is clear that he wants us to come together with other believers and Worship Him through His son Jesus Christ. The bottom line is that His goal is for people to know His son as Savior and there are various ways of accomplishing this. But to debate which way is the best takes our eyes off of Him and puts them on ourselves.

blog comments powered by Disqus