Faces of Beauty 1 -
all for Abba

(this and other wonderful devotions may be found at http://www.heartlight.org/.)

Church Museums, by Steve Ridgell

I enjoy visiting museums and I like church buildings. I never realized
I could get them confused until a visit to Spain. I saw amazing church
buildings with incredible architecture. They were old, and their
history was incredible. There were monuments and artifacts from
centuries past. It was overwhelming. They were featured stops on the
city tours. So I began asking the guides about attendance today. Some
of them no longer had worship services. Some of them had small rooms
partitioned off for current members. In most of them, there were more
tourists during an average day than worshipers on a given Sunday.

There are a number of lessons to learn about why churches become
museums. Who was it that forgot their purpose? Who lost sight of the
mission? Who lost sight of Jesus? Did each new generation fail to make
their faith genuine and personal? Were they more concerned with church
buildings than building a church? Did the church building become the
church? These are valuable questions and worth asking.

But I want to say a word to any of you who may be thinking about Jesus
and church. Do not confuse the building with the church. Church is
people. It is community. It is family. A church may meet in a building
large or small. It may meet in homes. Or in a coffee shop. Or a school.
You may visit a church building… but you are invited to become part of
a church.

Church is a living organism, not a building.

So if you want to visit a church building, I can tell you where there
are amazing museums. But if you are interested in being part of a
living community as the family of God, then I can help you find that
also. Write me at steve@hopeforlife.org. Or join our blog discussion at
http://www.hopeforlife.org/.