What is the church… conceptually?
After a longer than intended hiatus for me to finish up work on my master’s degree, I’m now back to working on this study. The first thing I want to work though is a conceptual look at what the church is. Lots of people would probably think of church as a building… a place that people go for certain spiritual activities or to request help, either spiritual or physical. The assumptions people make about church never cease to surprise me. We had someone call the office recently looking for help moving across town to another location. She doesn’t attend here, but figured it would be a good place to go to find people who will give her a truck and some people for a few hours. While this is a viable opportunity to serve and share Jesus, are churches supposed to sit around and have people on call to do all the little things that people ask for?
It becomes clear very early in our look at this topic that the understanding of church varies depending on your position in and perspective of church. People outside the church view church differently than people inside the church, some in good ways and some in bad. If we’re going to correct some of the misguided understandings of church, which are held by people inside and outside the church, what are we going to tell them in response? If church isn’t about doing odd jobs in the community, what is it about?
The next few posts will look at a very conceptual view of the church in an attempt to lay some of this ground work. Still not sure where we’ll end up, but looking forward to it.
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Brad Palmore
No comment just yet. Just wanted you to know I was here.
Hey, Brad. If you haven’t read Edwin Friedman’s book, “Generation to Generation,” I highly recommend it. Especially in light of your current study and considerations about conceptualizing the church.