Church Outside the Box

Several years ago, I can remember driving past signs stuck in the ground advertising Graystone Church. I went down the road trying to figure out where the church was since I didn't remember ever seeing one on that road and I never could find one. Then I realized that it was in a warehouse. After finding that out, I can remember passing those signs on another day and thinking that I would never go to a church in a warehouse.

Apparently I was a church snob. Worse than that, I was boxing up the message of who Jesus is and what He means to this world by confining Him to what I considered church to look like, a nice brick building with a steeple. 

A year later we were invited to that same church. And we went. We went to church in the warehouse. It wasn't that bad. In fact, it was pretty good. We visited again. And again. The discovery I made was that God isn't in the brick, He isn't in the pews, He isn't in the plush carpet or even the steeple. And that isn't what makes the church. The church is the believers, the people, pursuing Jesus in every day life. You can take away the exterior, and still have the church. All you need is the Holy Spirit and a handful of believers. 

Although I was raised in church, the past three years I've spent pursuing Jesus "outside the church" has been the time that I've grown the most spiritually. I'd say, I've grown more in three years than I did in the previous 27. 

Now, the church that was in a warehouse has a proper brick building- although no steeple - and I'm ok with that. What's even better, is that today I find myself going to the local highschool to attend church each Sunday, the location of the newest extension campus. The old me would have turned up my nose, but the new me, can now see that deconstructing the church building doesn't mean that Jesus has changed, it just means that the hands and feet of Jesus are reaching into the community a little deeper, a modern take on the Great Commission. 

Jesus doesn't need a building to change lives, He just wants willing hands and serving hearts to do the work. And I'm pretty sure it's not a steeple He is worried about, its the people.