What is the Church?

Do you remember going to church for the first time? Many of you don’t. I think some of you may have been born in the baptism tank at your church. Some of you have been going to church your whole life and it is so normal to you, missing a church service feels weird sometimes.

I remember the first time I went to a church service. I stayed over at a friends house on a Saturday night and his Mom woke us up early on Sunday, took us for breakfast at A&W, which was awesome, and then we went to church for around 9:00. The church was All Saints Anglican Church in Vernon, BC and it was my first time even stepping into a church building. It felt old and run down, and yet holy at the same time. I remember sitting on this super hard pew that was wildly uncomfortable and staring at a board that had a list of numbers on it, feeling very confused. Then we sang songs that had a weird timing and music compared to the Metallica cassettes that I often listened to at that time. I don’t remember what the priest said, but I remember what he wore because it was so weird to me. It was a long white robe with a green shawl and gold accents. I hadn’t seen anything like that. Most of all, I remember the feeling of strangeness that I had being there, of being a fish out of water.

A few years later, when I was a young adult, I started going to a different church with different friends. It was in this baptist church of maybe 100 people that I found my place. I loved going to church, but not to actually listen to the preaching, but to be part of the community - to see the same people week after week. After I gave my life to Jesus, I became a volunteer youth leader and really pressed in to the church and honestly, I fell in love with it. That’s one of the reasons why I knew God was calling me to be a pastor. About 8 years ago, I was the pastor of a small church in Saskatchewan and one Saturday night, I drove to Regina and visited a cousin of mine, who is a country singer and was performing that night at a bar. As I stood there in the bar with my glass of Coke (the drink, not the drug) in this bar I found it interesting that I felt the same fish-out-of-water strangeness there that night and the next morning, when I was in church and ready to preach, I felt a sense of belonging. God has switched it for me: where I once was an alien to the church and, honestly, more at home at the bar trying (and failing) to pick up girls, now the church was my family, my home, and the bar was where I felt alien.

We have been looking through our statement of faith as a church - which is easily found on our website if you haven’t seen it yet - and this week, we are going to talk about the church. My hope is that you, whether you are here with us in the room or you are watching online, might fall in love with it like I have and maybe you might consider pressing in with more participation - more leadership, more serving, more connection. So let’s read what we, as North Park Stratford, believe about the church and pray.

“We believe the Church is made up of all believers, who are adopted into the family of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to worship God, build one another up, share the gospel, and promote justice and love in the world.”

Pray.

We are going to start our conversation about the church by talking about what the church actually is. In order to help us understand what it is though, we should understand what it is NOT.

The church is NOT the building. Lately, like some of you, I have been working from home a lot. I like it - it’s way easier to get a snack. But because I am not here in our building 40+ hours a week, I often get asked the question “are you going to be at the church?” And it is an innocent question and a terminology that most people use. We call this building “the church.” But this building is not the church and the danger of calling the building the church is that it overemphasizes the importance of the building, making it sacred. But I do not think that this building is sacred. I think it is a tool for the church to use to bring glory to God through our worship, through our community events and through our gatherings. The church is not the building.

The church is NOT the worship service - Welcome to church. When is church? Are you ready for church? Where are your pants, we are going to be late for church. How many times have we all said things like this? What we mean by church in this case is the worship service - our regular gathering on Sundays. And like the phrase “going to THE church”, the phrase of “going to church,” although said inocculously, does redefine the church from what it actually is. The church is not the Sunday worship service.

So what is the church? The church is people. The New Testament was written in ancient Greek and the word they used for church was “ekklesia”. It’s a combination of two words: “ek” meaning “out of” and “kaleo” meaning “to call.” So the church are those who are called out of something. Now the word “ekklesia” didn’t just have a religious meaning; it was used to mean any gathering or assembly. That means there might have been the “church of bbq pit masters” who gathered and discussed various dry rub recipies. Or maybe the “church of the Merlot maniacs” who pretended to gather as a book club, but instead just drank wine until they started crying together. I don’t know. But the church was any group that gathered and met.

This means that there is something special about what Jesus says in the book of Matthew. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus is the first one to use the word church in the New Testament. This is what it says:

Matthew 16:18 NIV

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Did you notice what Jesus said there? He said, I will build “MY” church. We aren’t just some random gathering of people; we are those who have been called out by Jesus to enter into his Kingdom. That’s who the church is. It’s not those who attend a church service on Sunday. It’s not those who family identifies as Christian, but you don’t even know what that means. The church is the people who have put their faith and trust personally in the life, death, resurrection and the eternal sovereign reign of Jesus.

Within the Bible, the term “church” has three distinct references. The first reference is the local congregation - like us, here at North Park Stratford. We meet weekly in this space as those “called out” by Jesus. An example of the word being used like this is found in Acts 11:25-26

Acts 11:25–26 NIV

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

The second reference of church in the Bible is the regional body of local congregations. Like “The church of Stratford” might be used to describe all of us who attend North Park Stratford, Bethel, McLaurin Baptist, Zion Lutheran, etc. or the “Church of Ontario” might describe the collection of local congregations from Ottawa, Toronto, Thunder Bay, Fort Severn, and more.

Acts 8:1 NLT

Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen. A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria.

The third reference for the church is the universal church - which consists of all the believers of all time in all locations. That would include the apostles, the desert fathers, the Christians of the middle ages, the reformers, and us today.

Colossians 1:18 NIV

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

The church is local, regional and universal and you are a part of that. You are part of the community that includes Christians from the first century middle east - like Peter, Paul and Mary (not the band - well, maybe the band, I don’t know)and flows through the ages and throughout the whole world until now. You are also a part of the regional church of Canada, of Ontario, of Huron-Perth and you are a part of us, here at North Park Stratford - and I am so grateful for that.

We have looked at what the church is theologically, but in order for us to understand it better, we should look at from the perspective of the metaphors that describe it in the New Testament.

In some places, the church is called the Temple of God - again, not the building but the collection of God’s people is what Paul means is the temple of God. In others, it is described as a body - showing us it interdependence. We all need the church. I need you to help me become more like Jesus and you need me to help you grow to be more like Jesus. That’s how this works. You can’t fully be who God has created you to be in a relational vacuum -you need the church. Just like a body needs different parts to function, so too you were made for community to help you grow.

Another metaphor for the church is we are Bride of Christ. This imagery is why the church is often personified as a woman. We are God’s beloved. His love for us is so intense, he became human, lived a sinless life, died for our sins so we could be washed clean, and was resurrected to give us eternal life. And one day, he will come for his bride again.

While all these and more are biblical metaphors for the church, in our church’s statement of faith, we have held on to the one that describes us as a family. A couple of weeks ago, Abby, Rebekah and I went to the drive-in to watch a movie. I hadn’t been to the drive-in for at least 18 years. We went and saw the latest in the Fast and Furious franchise, F9. It was ridiculous, of course, but since it came out, the internet world of memes has been flooded with images mocking the emphasis on “family” that this movie series accentuates. Family is the motivation for most of the “plots” of these movies. But, despite being a little heavy-handed with the “family” mantra, I do appreciate that in these movies, family is who is sitting at the table, not who you are related to.

Ephesians 2:19 NLT

So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.

When we surrender our lives to Jesus, we become members of God’s family. And you know what families are like: some are healthy and awesome, and some are broken and dysfunctional. Sometimes you have that loner nephew who is hard to talk to, or that crazy aunt with all those conspiracies. And if you aren’t sure which one is the crazy one in your family, then chances are, it’s you. Family is messy at the best of times but, except in the cases of abuse, we don’t leave our families when life gets hard. Healthy families sit at the dinner table together and talk about what’s going on. They share their struggles and their joys. They talk about movies and sports and God and politics and the weather. They play games together and they do activities together. That’s a picture of life in the church. We should be people who eat meals together (when it’s safe to do so) and talk about summer plans, about social justice issues, the weather, sports and what God is teaching us lately. We need to be people who pray together, who study God’s word together, who challenge each other, who love each other. We need to do activities together and play games together. We need to serve our community together and we need to go on walks with each other. We need to do these things because that’s what families do and we are a family.

When church becomes that thing that you go to, instead of that family you belong to, then of course you will only participate when it benefits you and is convenient. But we are people who have been adopted by God into his family. He has looked upon you, imperfect as you are, and chosen you to be part of this family, with Him as our father. The challenge for each of us in this is to reject the principle of consumer Christianity, which is concerned for what you get and how good the show is and to embrace the church, imperfect and flawed as it is, and love it just like Jesus does.

“We believe the Church is made up of all believers, who are adopted into the family of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to worship God, build one another up, share the gospel, and promote justice and love in the world.”

Any group could be described by the first two parts of our statement - a shared belief and a familial love for each other. But what sets the church apart from any social club, from any friend group, even from other faiths, is that the church is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Last week, our friend Madison Eckert preached a great message about the Holy Spirit, which, if you missed it, you should definitely check out on our YouTube page. The Holy Spirit is God who dwells, not far away in another realm like heaven or in a particular place like Jesus did, but in our hearts, leading us towards becoming more like Jesus. In our statement here, we list four things that the Holy Spirit empowers us to do. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but it is a helpful reminder of what we, as a church are supposed to be about.

Empowered to worship God

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer has been quoted as saying, “What is worship? Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that Majesty which philosophers call the First Cause, but which we call Our Father Which Are in Heaven.”

The Spirit works in our hearts so that we can authentically worship God. Authentic worship is focussed on God, not on you, and definitely not on what others think of you. Authentic worship is thankful, not critical. Authentic worship is both personal and corporate. Authentic worship is humble before God, not demanding. Authentic worship is a response to the work of God from the heart, soul and mind; it is not found in singing along during the church service while you are distracted and detached.

And speaking of singing, it is tempting for us to define worship by singing, for that is a definite part of it. But there is so much more to worship.

We worship God with our communion celebration every month. We worship God in prayer, both personal and corporate. We worship God through confession of sin. We worship God with expressions of thankfulness. We worship God with our holiness and so much more.

Hebrews 12:28 NIV

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,

The Holy Spirit empowers us to worship God. He also empowers us to build one another up

Empowered to build one another up

1 Thessalonians 5:9–11 NIV

For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Just this past week, we had the last of our Wednesday night bible studies on Zoom, where we went through the book of Philippians. It was a great study and I was challenged deeply through it. When we do another one, you should come. Anyways, this past Wednesday, I felt so encouraged and built up. People from our church testified how God was answering our specific prayers for their family. As we were talking about Philippians 4:8 and choosing to think about good and godly things as a pathway for peace, someone shared how they stopped reading and engaging with the negative comments on social media and how they experienced peace because of it. I thought, what a great idea. I was challenged by this person. The Holy Spirit was empowering her to build me up, and, I believe used me to build her and others up through this study.

For too many people, the church has been the place of judgment, legalism and hypocrisy. But the church is the place where you should both be built up by others - where your community prays for you and encourages you and supports you - and where you can be used by God to build others up as well.

Edward Clowney mentions three ways that we should build each other up:

Build each other up in the KNOWLEDGE OF THE LORD - not just information, but to trust God deeper.

Build each other up in the DOING OF GOD’S WILL - the Christian life is more than just attending a church service - it’s about keeping in step with the Holy Spirit and doing what God says to do.

Build each other up in BECOMING LIKE JESUS - the goal of our Christian life is dying to ourselves and shaping our character to be like Jesus.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to worship God and to build each other up. He also empowers us to share the Gospel.

Empowered to share the gospel

If there is one thing the western church today does poorly, it is sharing the gospel. Most Christians are too nervous to do it, most churches don’t teach people how to do it, and too many who do it, do it by yelling at people what they believe, instead of listening and conversing. I don’t do any commenting on social media that isn’t directly sent to me but occasionally, I like to open a bottle of wine, make some popcorn and go through the comment section on a controversial topic on instagram. Recently I got lost in the weeds of a post and some person commented an inflammatory statement about how God isn’t real. That’s not what bothered me though. What bothered me was how unkind and ungracious the Christians were who responded to her. In their attempts at evangelism, they didn’t ask a single question, they belittled her belief and they rammed their doctrine down her throat. As a pastor and a Christian, it was embarrassing. No wonder many in the western world have disdain for the church.

But, as the church, the Holy Spirit empowers us to share the gospel. We believe that there is no need more important than someone’s spiritual need of a relationship with Jesus. It is our primary mission of this church - not because we want to have a big church, but because we want as many people to experience the saving love and forgiveness of Jesus and to enjoy him forever.

John 14:6 NIV

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Romans 3:23–24 NIV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

We desire everyone to enjoy the light and life that relationship with Jesus brings and so we are called by Jesus himself, to share the good news about what He has done.

Matthew 28:18–20 NIV

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Evangelism is not supposed to be left to the “professionals” like me. It is meant to be something that every Christian does because of their love for God and their love for others. So listen to the Holy Spirit and he will empower you to be what the bible calls an “Ambassador for Christ,” sharing the good news to the people in your life.

Empowered to promote love and justice

Lastly in our list, the Holy Spirit empowers the church the promote love and justice. Jesus himself commands us,

Matthew 5:16 NIV

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

We believe that one of the roles of the church is to love our communities and promote justice as both these traits - love and justice are rooted in the character of God. Because God loves us, we need to love others. Because God is just, we must act in justice for others. And while I could list all the ways that North Park acts like this in London and Stratford, the truth is that the western Church is grappling with all the ways that we have failed to live that out lately. The residential school system, which was a partnership project between the government and churches - sought to destroy the Indian in every child. It’s mandate was to eliminate Indigenous culture and it killed thousands of Indigenous people in the name of God and of Canada.

v The church has acted unjustly towards women, silencing and shaming them while men of power cover up and protect their own. And many of the churches that didn’t do those things failed to speak up against such atrocities. We have been complicit with our silence.

But, and I can only speak for myself as a pastor and leader within our organization, I want to do better. North Park is learning how to use our platforms to better speak against these evils and speak up for those who have been marginalized in our society. We have and will make mistakes, but we are trying to do better. And we want you, as individuals to both partner with us to promote love and justice in our communities and we want to you do so on your own as well because the call to promote love and justice isn’t just a call to the organization, but to each of us who follows Jesus.

“We believe the Church is made up of all believers, who are adopted into the family of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to worship God, build one another up, share the gospel, and promote justice and love in the world.”

I love the church. Even though it is sometimes messed up and broken, it is also loving and amazing. It has given me a people to belong to in 4 provinces over the last 20ish years and I have seen it be used by God to transform lives. I love the church because Jesus loves the church. We are his bride. And I think being a part of a church is essential for spiritual growth in your Christian life. Everett Ferguson, in his book “The Church of Christ: A Biblical Ecclesiology for Today” says, “In these gatherings of believers, the community becomes conscious of its identity as a people gathered by the grace of God, dependent on him and honouring him, separated from the world, and united as the body of Christ.”

So what are the take-aways for us from today’s teaching? I would suggest

Continue to prioritize being a part of the church for you and your family. The more that you press in, the more of the benefit of the church you will experience.

When church becomes difficult, remember, we are the family of God and so let’s talk about it.

We are a people who are empowered by the Holy Spirit to worship God, build one another up, share the gospel, and promote justice and love in the world. So, worship God. Build each other up. Share the gospel and promote love and justice. Simple, but not easy.

Let’s pray.