August Blog

“I am the Church, You are the Church, We are the
Church together!” (UMH 558)
Growing up, I remember we had numerous songs and nursery
rhymes to describe what Church is and how we experience God
in the world. My favorite one was, “Here is the church, here is
the steeple, open the doors, and there are the people”. You
would open your hands with your fingers wiggling through to
represent “the people”. This might sound familiar to you.
Growing up, I supported this. Yeah! We are the church with a
steeple. Yeah! We are Inside worshipping God. But as I got older,
I started to have a problem with this. Do the people have to be
inside the church? Jesus’ biggest teaching for us is to love God
and neighbor, and we cannot reach our neighbors if we are
always inside the church. I think that is one reason why Jesus’
ministry was so successful. There was not a physical building
where people came to worship him. Jesus and the disciples were
out and about in the community, teaching in people’s homes,
encountering one another in the wilderness, meeting people
where they are, so that they could understand a little bit better
who he was. “We are the Church” is one of my favorite hymns.
It’s a newer hymn (1972) and was written when the definition of
church shifted as it does every so often. It showed the
inclusiveness, action, and community that happens when
churches leave (not abandon) their space and go out into the
world as we are called do on the day of Pentecost. I encourage us
to be the people of the church that goes outside of its walls to
build community. I call on us to extend our hands out to be the
church to all people because we are the church, whether we are
inside or outside the building. We have a steeple that connects
us to God and one another, and we are the people that God has
called to be the church in all places, spaces, and times.
Let us be the Church together!