We are the Church

This guy moves to the big city. He finds a nice church, and he goes the first week, and he wears the same clothes he wears to church back home. Nice pressed jeans, a good looking shirt, his best boots and a nice jacket. Bible in his hand, he goes in, sits down in a pew, and no one comes near him. They sit in other pews, no one shakes his hand.

He enjoys the service, and when it’s over, the preacher comes up to him, and says, ‘I see you’re new here.’ And the guy says, “Yes, sir, I am.” And the preacher says, “We’re glad to see you here, but I think before you come back, you need to ask the Lord what’s appropriate to wear to a church like this.”

The guy says, “Thank you, preacher, I will.”
Next week, same thing, he comes in his best clothes, looking about the same, and no one talks to him. Service is over, and the preacher says “Glad to see you’re back, but I thought you were going to talk to the Lord about how to dress.”

The guy says, “I did. I said ‘Lord, what’s the dress code for that church?’ And the Lord said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve never been there.’”

There’s a saying that if you go to Church, so everyone can see your new hat, that’s exactly what you will get. You will go to church, and everyone will admire your new hat, and a few people will probably wait until you leave and say that’s the stupidest looking hat they’ve ever seen in their life, and you will sit in the pew, and the music won’t touch you and the prayer won’t touch you and the sermon won’t be able to get past all the feathers and flowers wrapped around your head. But everyone will see your new hat.

There are some places where I go to church for the music, and I love the music. I sing all week. And there are some places I go to church for the fellowship. I have good friends there and I feel the love. I even go to a Krsna temple once in a while to dance and sing and I feel such joy there. There are only a few places I go to hear the message.

And none of these things are wrong. Well, the hat thing probably is.

I stumbled upon these verse recently. I don’t do a lot of work in the Old Testament, but I found this and I really liked it.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Now I am not an Orthodox Jew, I do not wear a phylactery on my forehead or have a mezuzah on my door. I had to look those words up.

But figuratively, I want to have His name on my forehead, on my hands and on my door. I want people to recognize my visage, my face as Christian, I want my hands to do Christian work and I want my house to be a Christian house.

You know, most of the churches I attend are not churches at all. One is a dining room, another a rec room. But because we meet there, because we gather in fellowship there, because we pray together there, those places become holy, they become sanctified, and people who walk through those rooms receive blessing whether they know it or not.

You can make the place where you are, the area around your desk, your home, the same way.

When Jesus talks about the church, He means what I call the church with a small c. There were no buildings yet, no organization, just people who believed, who wanted to believe, who were ready to believe.

We are the church, no matter where we are, or what we’re wearing. We are the church and we become what people think of when they think of Christians. Both our fellow Christians and those we are trying to reach.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. Matthew 18:20