Church is Movement

What comes to mind when you think of church? You probably think of a place or a building. I think of the fond memories I have inside the auditorium, youth room, and gymnasium of the first church where I learned and responded to the gospel. The multiple buildings of Cameron Baptist Church are still there on the corner of 27th and C Avenue in Lawton, Oklahoma. I still visit my home church annually, and I’m happy to report it is still full of people. But they are not the same people. Forty years later, the people who assembled in that church building are now scattered all over the world and have increasingly moved on to Heaven. 

Church is not a building

The first time we see the word “church” in our English Bibles is in Matthew 16:8 when Jesus said, “I will build my church.” The original Greek word that Matthew recorded Jesus as saying was “ekklesia.” It appears 114 times in our Bibles.  Ekklesia is formed from two words, “ek”, meaning “out of” and “kaleo” meaning “to call.” So, the word literally means “called out of”. 

The church is simply an assembly or gathering of people called out of something and called into something. You see, church always implies movement. Every follower of Jesus is called out of the world and into Christ. The church Jesus established is always moving.

Compelled by a movement

J.D. Greear points out that over the years over the years a terrible thing happened to Christians’ concept of church. In the Middle Ages, believers began to think of a church as a place that people went to for religious services, rather than a movement built around a mission. 

Interestingly, our English word “church” we see in our English translations comes from the German word, “kirche”, which means literally “a sacred place,” rather than ekklesia, which means “assembly”. By the time we English speakers conceptualized “church, “ we were already thinking of church as a place, not a movement. As a result, people began to think of going to a church rather than being the church. 

Are you part of the movement?

William Tyndale devoted much of his life to translating the Bible into English. Every time Tyndale came across the word “ekklesia” in the Greek New Testament, he translated it “congregation” instead of “church” because he wanted to reclaim the idea that the church was not a place to go, but a movement to join. 

Jesus didn’t come to build a PLACE. Jesus came to start a MOVEMENT. I hope you will think of your church less as a PLACE you go to and think of it as a MOVEMENT that you are a vital part of. The moment we start to think of church as a place is the moment we stall the movement.

Most people never experience church as a movement, only as a building. That is why they eventually can’t find a compelling reason to “go to church.” 

As a church planter, I realize it may be a long time before our church owns a building. But our church can be a part of a movement from day one. Sadly, many churches that own the most impressive buildings are no longer a movement. They died years ago and the buildings are largely empty. 

Carey Nieuwhof makes a good case for why congregations that have died should donate their buildings to thriving church plants. I believe that humble act of generosity would spark a movement of gospel engagement. 

Until then, churches can and will thrive meeting in borrowed spaces. Wherever two or three gather in the name of Jesus, we are assured Jesus is among them. (Matthew 18:20) He is fulfilling his promise to build his church (not his building) by calling us out and sending us back in on mission with them to call others out…and so on…and so on…