Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another– and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:25

Several months ago I was taking a doctoral level class at Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, PA. My professor was Dr. Ed Stetzer, the head of LifeWay Research- the cutting edge research and development arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. It was he (and his team) that developed the thought provoking church-wide survey that we circulated in December. He has a PhD in church history and specializes in assisting churches and denominations in reaching their local communities. 

Ed’s the kind of guy that spins off sound bytes in normal conversation as easily as most people put on their socks. He just has a way with words. If you take notice, he’s often quoted in USA today, Christianity Today and even Time magazine as “a noted evangelical authority on the church.” 
One of the thought provoking little tidbits that Ed threw out in our class was this question: “If the political or social climate of the United States radically changed tomorrow so that your church could no longer meet in your building, what percentage of your [church’s] ministry would disappear?” 

Getting snowed out two weeks in a row got me to thinking again about his question. Because for a brief time the environment did radically change and our church couldn’t meet publicly. So what happened to our church? Well, it still exists and thrives because the church isn’t a building and it doesn’t stop being the body of Christ when it can’t meet together for a worship service on Sunday. In fact, I’ve heard more stories of families helping other families this past week than I have in a long, long time. 

Ed’s point (and mine) is that when the primary expression of a local church becomes the one hour that it meets together once a week, things are majorly out of balance. How can we “love one another, serve on another, pray for one another, encourage one another, bear one another’s burdens” and the rest of the 58 “One Another” statements of Scripture in 90 minutes on a Sunday morning? When you think about it this way, the Biblical view of “the church” is really a network of relationships, an extended ‘family’ or community of faith that serves and loves and impacts each other and the world 24/7. 

So what are we to do with the worship service? Is it unimportant? Absolutely not! The Bible encourages us to meet together (Hebrews 10:25) for teaching and worship. Apparently in the early church, as today, there were many who neglected this vital discipline. However, if we think of church solely in terms of “going to church for Sunday service” we miss the primary intention of God for his church- not just to meet in a building, but to share life together and impact the world for Christ. 

So I am truly looking forward to reconnecting with everyone this Sunday. But as we meet together and celebrate all that God is doing, it is with the recognition that our church may have had the most effective two weeks of ministry in our history even though our building sat cold and vacant!