The Doors of the Church Can Never Be Shut

The door of the church can never be shut. The church is not the building, it is the people.

They met where they had access to in the first century without erecting any building.

The gap between the practice (tradition) of the church and the teaching if the church (scriptures) must be bridged.

While we thank God for the building, we must also recognise that as the day approaches the church (the people) should be helped to separate the essentials from the non-essentials.

If the buildings are shut down even with the backing of the law, the church will only get more powerful.

The virility and the visibility of the church is not in the buildings, it is in its spiritual impact. It is not in the transformation of landscape, it is in the transformation of lives.

Reading Richard Wurmbrand books (https://amzn.to/2V0qUM9) in the 80’s made me to know that there is a reality beyond the comfort we fight for; and that without formal buildings the church can thrive. The exploits that happened even behind the iron curtain made me to know that the gates of hell can never prevail against the church.

If all you have been exposed to is the stained glass windows and the luxury of meeting place; if that is what we think makes for worship; if we consider that comfort is what Christianity is all about, we are very well deceived. Tradition is rather controlling.

Read about the church in China and you will be truly educated. More people have come to the Lord after the public meeting came under the control of the state and the real church went underground.

The luxury and the gratifying teachings we have established as standards were not in consideration even in the early church. Comfort has made sermon subjects that should be unpopular with the church rather popular.

If we think straight, we have lots if questions to ask. It is excesses or tradition that normalised the thinking that it is a ministry when it hasn’t built a structure and a church when a structure has been erected.

True standard is seemingly veiled.

Paul trained some people in the school (Hall) of Tyrannus and they turned the subcontinent upside down. Most of the churches were in the homes and within the community. The church was more organic and less institutionalised.

It needs not be in Jerusalem nor in a special building. God is Spirit and His worship happens in spirit and in truth.

Let’s get real. The doors of the church can never be shut.

#selah