When did you last go to church? That's an easy question for most Christians to answer be­cause it is usually going to be 'last Sunday', unless they have been ill or absent for some other good reason.

Looking around at notices for public guid­ance I see some which pander to my quirky sense of humour. Driving along the road I often see the notice: 'Heavy plant crossing'. In all my years of driving I'm still wait­ing to see an oak tree lumbering across the road ahead of me, or if that can't be classed as a 'plant', a marching line of gladioli would suffice. Then there was one I used to see on the rear entrance to our local Deep Pan Pizza restaurant, when the management was trying to discourage peo­ple from entering that way: 'This door is alarmed'. I never did discover what frightened it. Apparently it's no longer alarmed so we can pass through once more without frightening it further.

Then there is the ubiquitous notice: 'Disabled Toilet'. Who, I wonder, disabled it? It's not going to be much use until it's enabled again. Of course, we all know what is meant by this. It's a kind of short­hand for: 'These toilets are for the use of disabled people only', so nobody gets confused and perfect communication ensues. It would be far too clumsy to write all those words on a sign, so, 'Disabled Toilet' does the trick perfectly well.

Back to my original question then: 'When did you last go to church?' You see, this is in fact a form of Christian shorthand which has be­come so enshrined into our language that we all buy into it unreflectively. You can't 'go to church'. The 'church' is not a building. The building is where the church meets but in no way is it 'church'. The church, as we all know once we stop to think about it, is the people, the members, the saints, the elect, call them what you will but it is people not bricks and mortar. The photo (left) is of the building (now de­molished) in which I grew up as a Christian. My question then should have been something like this: 'When did you last meet with the church?' not 'in church'.

Is this important? Well, yes, because once we start letting the shorthand of 'going to church' get into our reflex language patterns the building begins to assume a significance far beyond its true and proper function. The building should be no more than a convenient place for the saints to gather to re­member the Lord's death as He appointed. It is noth­ing more than a tool to be used for the benefit of the saints and should simply help them implement the form of witness they would like to conduct. Before the advent of specially built buildings for this pur­pose, i.e. in the first couple of centuries of the church's existence when the saints met in houses, there was never going to be any confusion of a building being 'the church'. Thus Paul could write, for example, to 'Archippus our fellow-soldier and the church in your house' (Philemon 2). Once special build­ings were constructed and became associated solely with the work and witness of the church, they began to assume an aura, a mystic holiness, a spirituality of their own, a concept of being 'the House of God'; a shrine or sanctuary, a Christian temple, or whatever, depending on how far people wanted to develop these concepts, Church buildings today are fre­quently treated with such holy reverence that they have led believers back into Old Testament concepts which have so entrapped and enslaved them that they have almost come to forget the freedoms Christians should have in Christ.

I was busy driving along a country road and, turning on the car radio, caught some of the service from Ely Cathedral for those tragically murdered girls, Holly and Jessica. The priest leading it focused at the start on the magnificence of the surroundings and what they had stood for down the centuries. I've seen Ely Cathedral from the outside but never visited it, yet I have no doubt it is magnificent and those en­tering will be overcome with the beauty, atmosphere and majesty of a building built to honour God. Such edifices seem to exude godliness and holiness and people can almost 'feel religion' in them. This, to many, is 'The House of God'.

That cathedrals were built by men who gave of their best for God, and often it was a magnificent best, is readily admitted. That it is sometimes good to 'feel' the presence of something greater than man and be compelled to bow the knee in honour, is also admitted but, just a minute, God never told Chris­tians to build Him anything physical to honour Him. That was for the Old Covenant. Cathedrals, parish church buildings, Methodist and Baptist chapels, etc., are nothing more than the best men can imagine to honour the Lord (and sometimes not even the Lord but one of His servants in whose names they often dedicate them).

Once this is done, on either a cathedral or chapel scale, we usually slide back into Old Testa­ment thought-forms and lose some of the gains made in Christ. 'Temples' have been erected and the tem­ple trappings soon follow. 'Temples' need a priestly class to run them. Clergy and laity therefore arrive. Altars, though totally unnecessary in Christianity, appear and splendid instrumental, 'temple' music ('loud organs His glory forthtell in deep tone'), natu­rally ensue. People start going to 'The House of God' to meet God

And if we think that 'we' don't fall into these Catholic traps, do we never think of the room where we worship in our purpose-built buildings as 'the sanctuary'? Do we never have a specially carved ta­ble, most often on a raised dais or platform, on which we spread the almost sacred elements of bread and wine each Lord's Day, like an altar? Do we never feel that we must tiptoe around the auditorium, and that we must not let children ever run around there because it's dedicated to God, and that we would never allow the youth club to play badminton in the sanctuary? Of course not!

Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned because, amongst other things, he had the audacity to tell the Jews: 'The Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands' (Acts 7:48). And Paul told the Athenians that: '"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man."' (Acts 17:24). So where does He dwell? He dwells in us! We learn that we are now the temple of God both corporately as His church (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) and indi­vidually (1 Corinthians.6:19). Well we would be, wouldn't we, if the church is the people and God dwells in His church? We do not need to go to a building to be in the presence of God; we need to walk and talk with Him as an ever present reality. We do not need priests to present our offerings and prayers to Him for we are a royal priesthood, said Peter (1 Peter. 2:9). He also wrote: 'You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.' (1 Peter. 2:5). God dwells in His people and we can access Him through Christ as priests any time, anywhere, living our whole lives as 'living sacrifices' by presenting our bodies at all times as 'holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship.' (Romans 12:1). Christians don't need bricks and mortar to access God. Bricks and mortar usually help us compartmentalise our faith and our commitment. Christianity, true Christianity, is a total giving of the self, walking 'hand-in-hand' and talking with God all day every day—and that's an awesome thing to contemplate. Compartmentalis­ing our faith is much more comfortable, therefore we prefer our church buildings.

So, are purpose-built buildings where the saints can gather to worship on Sundays wrong? No, of course not. The early Christians met in homes, (and sometimes in catacombs), but it's not always practi­cal to do this today. The problems arise when the building becomes viewed not as a tool to serve the needs of the church but as 'the church', and therefore a 'holy' place, 'The House of God', the 'house of prayer', in that area. Then it becomes what it should never be and never would have been had Christians always continued to meet in houses. (Nobody meet­ing in our home would ever confuse it with some­thing 'holy' to be tiptoed around in for fear of upset­ting God.) The grander the building the greater the risk but even the simplest of church buildings can help us fall into the 'temple trap' to a degree. They needn't, however usually they do.

So, 'When did you last go to church?' Be careful how you answer for you might have already bought into the 'temple trap'!

Graham A. Fisher

Copied with permission from the editorial in the 'Christian Worker' - Volume 35 Number 10 - October 2002.