What is church?

I have been in discussions about this question for all sorts of reasons. Most of these because I claim to have "left church".

 As a rule, I would tend to mean that church is a gathered groups of people who would self-identify as a church group. This would then include all the groups and meetings that come from this. But of course, this is a structural definition - the building or organisation as church. Many would argue - with good reason - that church is more than this. Church is people not organisation or building.

So, if church is the gathering of people in the name of God, what does this really mean? Does it mean that that those who cannot, for whatever reason, "gather" cannot be part of the church? Does this not, in fact, still focus on the centralised organisation of a church meeting?

There are those who argue that meeting and engaging and discussing matters spiritual online is also part of church. In truth, this is where I get my spiritual insight from. Is this church? If it is, then twitter is church - because there are a number of us who engage spiritually online - many of whom are members of a more traditional church. If twitter is church, and facebook, and whatever other social networking tools, then pretty much everyone goes to church.

What is more, everytime I talk to someone, this is also church. All of my engagements are part of what church is. It ends up by meaning that church is not clearly defined, because church is anything I do as a Christian. I cannot get away from church, because all I do is church.

So it is meaningless. Because, if everything is church, then church is nothing. Church is "being a Christian" - so if I were to argue that the church organisation is meaningless, then surely I am right, because I don;t need to attend an organisation to be part of church.

Then, of course, the other side comes in. The quote "let us not give up meeting together" is quoted with regularity. The argument then is that by not attending an organisation that calls itself church, I am missing out, and the rest of the church structure is also missing out. I am being disobedient by not attending a "church".

I think we are in real danger of making "church" meaningless, because the more traditional church structures are failing. Rather than really considering how to address the problems, the answer seems to be "lets extend the meaning of church, so that it is not a problem any more". But that doesn't work. The truth is that the traditional church is declining.

The answer is not to make everything we do be church - the answer is to abandon this concept of "church" as anything organisational, as something to "be a part of". The answer is to accept that, for some people, being a member of a church (however you want to define it) is not something they want to be or accept as something to define them.

Why is the idea that Christians who are not part of The Church so disturbing? Maybe because for so many people church is Christianity, and the idea that they might be different - that the church may actually be irrelevant to faith - is very disturbing, very challenging.

Lets be clear, if your faith and your Church involvement are identical, then your faith is in the Church, not in God.