Tucking in Tyce and Olivia tonight. Thought it was a good time to probe the progress of their spiritual understanding.
"Is the church a building?"
"Yep."
"So if the church burned down, we wouldn't be a church anymore?"
"Uhhhhh. Yes."
Friends, that is what we call a "gap" in our teaching. Valuable. Needs to be bridged.
To be fair, for concrete-minded children, my line of questioning could have been considered "leading the witness". But my point was to see what Tyce and Olivia's conception of church was. And it is, in fact, a vision of a building where we "learn about God and follow Jesus and tell others about Jesus and sing" (Tyce's words).
So I explained 1 Peter 2 about the living stones and the spiritual temple and the foundation stone and the presence of God showing up in the presence of people who are drawing near to Jesus--aka, church. I explained that the "church" could burn down and we'd still be a church. That the church is a gathering of people who love Jesus and long to follow Him.
And now I'm wondering quietly, would many of the people in "our church" have answered any differently than my kids?
Church as building could often degenerate into "I'm spiritual when I'm in that building."
Church as gathering should mean, "I'm spiritually connected to Jesus all the time and I bring that to the gathering and we call it the church."
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