Church Without a Steeple

Change is gut-wrenching.  If it ain’t broke, why fix it?  So just how broken (or broke) do you have to be before you embrace change?

One of the earliest hand games I used to play was the old “Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people.”  If it has a steeple, it must be a church.  Of course, churches MUST have steeples.  How else would you know it’s a church?  It’s traditional!

Since when?

The earliest followers of Jesus met in Jewish synagogues, then in homes, then in catacombs.  (Eek!  Americans are so uncomfortable with death.  We avoid it, don’t want to talk about it, and deny its inevitability for us personally.  But that’s a whole other topic.)

The church I now belong to first met in a bar.  (What other building is vacant on a Sunday morning?)  We now rent space in an orthodontist’s building.  (Oh, yeah.  That’s not used much on Sundays either.)

We intentionally plan NOT to own a building.  This will free up our time, energy, and money to concentrate on Jesus’ charge to us:  take care of my sheep.  There are so many to be fed, both locally and around the world.

But how will we BE the church in a building without a steeple?  To quote the Peter Scholtes song, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”  And we’re working on it.  Discovering it as we move forward into new territory.

Marcy Corneil
Journey UCC