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What is church to you?  Is it the building?  Is it the place of Sunday "worship"?  Is it family?  I am not talking about small groups, do we "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." (Rom. 12:15)  In a mega-church we can't do it.  We can't say that we are family?  Let as re-thing the "thing" we call 'church.'

Peace

charl  

Source: LK10.com, article by John White How do you know if you’ve been to church? Is it when you go to a meeting in a building with a pointy top? When a preacher gives a sermon? When there is a choir/worship team that sings? When you get dressed up in your Sunday clothes? When there is a bulletin and an order of service?

Dear Church,

How do you know if you’ve been to church? Is it when you go to a meeting in a building with a pointy top? When a preacher gives a sermon? When there is a choir/worship team that sings? When you get dressed up in your Sunday clothes? When there is a bulletin and an order of service?

Perhaps it is an indication of how far we have come (or strayed?) when we realize that none of these things is even mentioned in New Testament descriptions of church.

So, how would someone know if they had been to New Testament church?

The longest teaching about actual church gatherings is found in 1 Corinthians 11:2 through 14:40. Seven times in this section (11:17, 11:18, 11:20, 11:33, 11:34, 14:23, 14:26) Paul uses the word “sunerchomai” which means “to come together, to assemble.” “When you come together for church, here’s what it should look like...”

There are a number of behaviors that Paul expected would happen when church occurred. For now, I want to focus on the two that are found in 12:26. “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

“Every part suffers with it”

The word literally means, “to feel pain with”. 

Paul is comparing the church (the Body of Christ) with our physical bodies. If our toe hurts, the rest of our body feels the pain. If one person in the church is hurting (physically, emotionally, relationally, etc.) then every (not some, not most) other part hurts with it. In a parallel verse (Rom. 12:15) Paul commands the members of the Body to “weep with those who weep”. The word used here means “to sob or wail” and implies a loud and public expression of grief (see Matt. 2:18; Mark 5:38,39; 16:10; Luke 7:13; 8:52).

“Every part rejoices with it”

Exactly the same idea is conveyed regarding a member that is honored. Every (not some, not most) other part of the body (Body) rejoices with it. That is, they “feel joy with them”. Same word in 1 Cor. 12:26 and Romans 12:15. The Hebraic meaning wrapped up in the word for joy “is not so much a private emotion as it is the enthusiastic response of a feasting company…This joy is an expressed joy: it is expressed in glad shouts, in praise, in laughter, and in enthusiastic commitment to God’s ways.” (Richards, p. 361)

How do you know if you’ve been to church? The answer depends on whether you define church according to American culture or according to the Bible (which we say is “our authoritative standard for faith and practice”). How much do you suppose God cares about how we define “church”?

One last thought. These two verses (1 Cor. 12:26 and Romans 12:15) force us again to the conclusion that church in the Bible was almost certainly a small group of 10-20 people. (This is consistent with the fact that there are no churches mentioned in the Bible that do not meet in homes. That’s a double negative which means that every church mentioned in the Bible met in someone’s home.)

God, who is the ultimate family man, sees church as an extended family, not a large mass of people. Sure, there are times when several house churches get together but the essence of church was one extended family meeting together. How can we say this? Because the Father clearly expected that everyone who was suffering/weeping would be suffered with/wept with. And everyone who was honored in a given week would be rejoiced with.

What if a church really was a family. And what if that family really was safe and every member could be honest and open their heart. Out of a group of, say twelve people, how many would need to be “wept with” in a given week? How many would need to be “rejoiced with”? When a group gets so big (more than 20? more than 12?) that this can’t be done, does it cease being church?

Every Sunday morning millions of people go to a meeting that we call church. How many of them are weeping or rejoicing inside? How many of them leave “church” and no one has wept with them or rejoiced with them? How must the Father feel about this?

What do you think?