three
questions
Someday someone is going to ask you three
questions: Do you go to church? Where is your church? What does your church do? Your answers to those questions say a lot about what you think of church.
Typical Answers:
Q. Do you go to church?
A. Yeah, I go to church. I go most Sundays when I’m in town. I get a lot out of it and it helps me stay
focused on the important things.
Q. Where is your church?
A. My church is at the corner of 8th and Elm. It’s a really pretty old building.
Q. What does your church do?
A. Oh, we’ve got something for everybody —– singles, kids, students, couples, senior adults. You can check out our website and see all the activities and opportunities that our church offers. There’s something going on everyday for somebody from Bible studies to exercise classes!
CCF Answers:
Q. Do you go to church?
A. It’s not really that I go to church —– I am part of the church. The Bible calls the Church the Body of Christ and the Family of God. So it’s not really something you join or do; it’s something you are a part of.
Q. Where is your church?
A. It depends on when you’re asking. If it’s Sunday morning at 10:30 our church is in Market & Merrill Center next to El Acapulco Restaurant and Cantina. But if it’s any other time, our church is spread out all over Central Arkansas — in homes, offices, classrooms, on factory floors, in courtrooms, hospitals, restaurants and the like. Wherever our people are that’s where the church is.
Q. What does your church do?
A. Well, I’ve already told you that our church does lots of things like teach in schools, work in hospitals, raise families and a lot more. But once a week we cease from our “church work” and gather together on Sunday to worship God and hang out with each other for a little while. We think Jesus wants us to keep most of our doing in the real world where it does the most good.
“The Church is not an institution as the word is popularly understood to mean, i.e., a bureaucracy concerned with getting a job done. When the Church is thus spoken of by what it does rather than by what it is, it is reduced to a mere factory or academy. Some aspects of the Church’s mission may call it to serve as a ‘teaching forum’, a ‘soul-winning center’ or as a ‘counseling clinic’, but these things do not constitute the nature of the Church. Her being is not defined by activities, but by communion with Christ and the [family of God].”
Jordan Bajis
Common Ground, p.119