vacationing at the airport

I have been thinking a lot, lately, about church. Not just recently, but for a few years, now. Not my church, specifically, but more so the concept of church. What it is intended to be. What it should look like. How it should function. How much of what a church does is based on Christ's intent when He established it, and how much of it is based on what man's traditions have made of it?

It's a big subject to ponder. Bigger than this blog post.

But, here's the thing. My family doesn't currently have a church. We made the very difficult decision to leave the church we have attended since moving here, and we are "on tour", searching for a place to call home. My "church tour" has led me out of the box a bit. I have always attended a certain kind of church, that does things a certain way. While I'm not compromising any of the doctrines on which I stand, re-thinking church has caused me to explore churches that I would likely have been closed-minded to just a few years ago. They are mostly similar, but different than what I am used to. A few years ago, they would have had to be just plain similar.

Getting to my point, I visited another such church for the first time this morning. It was a few blocks from my home. Zachary wasn't feeling well, so Jen stayed home and I went with just Dylan and Lily. We slipped in the back a few minutes before the worship service began. I'm not sure the church itself is quite what we're looking for, but the pastor's message stuck with me.

He spoke about what the church should be. My ears perked up. It wasn't necessarily anything extremely profound, but a great reminder and in line with my recent church musings. He asked the question, "Is our church designed to fit our needs (those who worship within the walls), or to bring those outside the walls to know Christ?" He shared two examples to illustrate his point.

First, he compared the church to a Haitian mission project that he had been a part of. The project was to bring water to a particular Haitian village. The project raised funds to drill a well to bring fresh drinking water to the people of the village. The well was drilled. The people came to the well. The mission then put a wall and locked gates, a compound of sorts, around the well to protect it. The people for which the well was drilled were then isolated from the water. So, the mission put a pipe to the outside of the wall and they would turn on the faucet at certain times of the day to allow the villagers to get the water they desperately needed. The pastor made the parallel to the modern church. We build our nice, comfortable buildings and we worship in them, almost as though it were an elite club designed for its members. We then turn on the faucet every so often to distribute the Living Water to those outside our "compound".

Secondly, he likened church to an airport. We say we go to the airport, but nobody really goes to an airport... we go through it. The airport is not our destination. He asked how many had ever gone to the airport for vacation. Not through it to get to vacation, but actually vacationed at the airport. Ridiculous, right? The point he was making is that "church" is not a destination. The people of God are the church. Instead of going "to church" often, perhaps we should pass "through church" often on our way to becoming and living as the church.

I'm a visual kind of person. I liked his illustrations and I was challenged by them. So how about you? Are you vacationing at the airport, or passing through the airport? (Or, has it been a while since you've even visited an airport?)