What is the church?

I have been a slow painful process of being wrecked about what the church is. I would have to say that years ago I thought that the church was what happened on Sunday mornings. Really, that was church to me. It is not that I didn't think that you needed to behave in a Godly/Christlike manner all week, I just thought the communal expression of church was the Sunday morning service. Even coming into ministry that was my most prevalent thought. The tension has always been that Sunday morning was supposed to lead us a people to be Godly/Christlike and massively influence the community we are in in Christ's name. Oh yeah, massively....Positively.

A speaker last week repeated an expression I have heard several times, I heard it again anew. If I was to leave my community, if my church was to leave my community who would care? Who would miss me/us? That is it. The degree to which we are the cup of water, the jacket, the shoulder to cry on, the rescuer from abuse, the pathway to the Creator is the degree to which we are the church. I tend to think that until that is noticed we might as well shut our cake holes about what we believe, it's rubbish to those who do not see it in action. Yours truly being the worst of all offenders.

I am preaching this Sunday morning....