What is Church?

Image by Helmut H. Kroiss

My earliest memory of church was getting my ear pinched to the point of tears, while sitting in a pew, scared to death of making a sound. My heart still smiles at this as I have always wondered how Dad could reach his arm around Mom with the speed of a serpent and strike with the same accuracy. I’m pretty sure he learned this tactic from his dad because I know my sons can relate.  Anyway, I have many memories from church and most still put a smile on my face. You see, outside of immediate family, church was our life, our joy, our sorrow, and sometimes real heartache. “Church” is where we grew up together with fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and folks I called Aunt and Uncle who were strangers just months earlier. In an even deeper way, church was “family” too.

Church was “family.” 

Please understand, Dad built the building (with many members helping in the construction) we called Faith Baptist Church, and we were there faithfully every time the doors were open. Dad was the music leader and sang in a quartet for years. I swear we were the last to leave and lock the doors after every service, but that’s really not where I saw Jesus change lives. Faith Baptist Church is where we heard the Word of God preached, but it was at our kitchen table at home where it was lived out.

I mean, it was a rare Sunday night that there wasn’t at least a handful of people eating at Mom’s apple dumplings, talking, and sharing about the message and how God was speaking to them. It was here that I saw people sharing their lives together, talking about everyday challenges and hardships, sharing tears and laughter together. It was here at home that prayers filled the rooms and life’s victories were won. It was here that I realized the adults in my life were babes at the feet of Jesus. You see, Dad included us kids in his worship of God, where life meets the road, and I got to see a Jesus with skin on, you know what I mean…Real. I was learning how God changed the lives of others, not because of what Dad said or did; I know with an assurance that it was only God’s grace that brought many through the storms of life, but it was Dad who invited folks together in our home, and it was here that I could be an eyewitness. It didn’t end on Sunday nights either.

It didn’t end on Sunday nights either.

Every Tuesday night during the school year, Mom and Dad hosted a Young Life Club in our living room. In fact, Dad designed our house so that both the living room and the dining room, filled with high schoolers, could look, and listen to the leader standing in front of our fireplace, in what you might call our family room. I know…amazing…right, but what was truly amazing is that there were over two hundred kids in our house at one time, listening to our Young Life leader, Doug talks about Jesus feeding over five thousand with five loaves and two small fishes.

Then on Thursday mornings, Mom would cook breakfast for a dozen or more kids in order to share God’s Word and answer questions before heading off to school. You know, I didn’t think I was ever going to share this with anyone, and it’s rather hard for me to explain now, what it meant to me then, to walk the halls in high school and overhear other students talking about “Aunt Helen and Uncle Pete,” knowing that was my mom and dad.

Yeah, I learned what church is: it’s the unconditional and limitless love for others that encourages the hearts of all. Only Christ’s kind of love can do this, and it’s only when we yield ourselves to His will that others will see Jesus with skin on.  By the way, where do you go to church?