MattGlover.com

Yesterday saw the official opening of “the Factory” - the community facility provided by the people that make up my church. It’s not a particularly unusual space. A few years ago we sold everything we had to establish a facility to meet more of the needs in our suburb, plus help us to better resource mission and ministry. There’s an indoor kids space, indoor soccer, outdoor basket ball, space for the skaters, heaps of multi-purpose rooms for different groups to use and a whole lot of stuff that we’re only just beginning to dream of.

Nevertheless, when I show people through the facility, I still get the same question over and over again. They ask, “Is this a church?”

The answer is no. It is not a church. The sign out the front says, “The Factory - A Community Space Provided by Mitcham Baptist Church.” The Factory is part of the mission of the church, but it is not the church.

In my mind, that’s a really important distinction. We always say that the church is the people, but then fall quickly back into the Christendom mode of thinking of the building as ‘a church’. It takes an extra effort to break that thinking, because it is so ingrained in our traditions. Some go to the extent of getting rid of buildings altogether to meet in community gathering places that already exist. There’s certainly a place for this and something we are also exploring (meeting in gathering spaces, not selling the building again!). But when there is a desperate need to provide space for people that have none, then buildings can play an important role.

Jesus didn’t stop people going to the temple or synagogue. He was more concerned about what happened once they were there. If it wasn’t being used as God intended, then the tables were turned…

The more I think about it, the more I realise our evening gathering (mainly young people) did a remarkable thing on the day of the opening. It was a big day of celebratinon, so I had thought we would not meet in the evening or simply show a dvd or something if we did. Happily, I was over-ruled (I’m getting used to it…) and instead of meeting in the now official Factory, we piled into cars and headed off to the beach to watch the sun set. We sang a few songs, heard a short message for the first Sunday of Advent from one of the guys and said some prayers. Very simple.

One line in a prayer, though, has stayed with me. Somebody said, “Lord, help us to remember that although we have a nice new facility we can worship you anywhere.” Gathered on the beach, with the cold wind biting and the sun setting in the background, I thought that this was truely my church. My brothers and sisters drawn together for the purpose of following and serving God.

The official ceremony stuff was great. The celebration lunch was great. But somehow, the gathering on the beach seemed to make it all even better.