White Wave Manifesto: The House of God

(Our "Restoration House")

·                     All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:45)

.·                     Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; (1 Corinthians 6:19)

*          Thus says the Lord: "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool' what is the house which you would build for me, and what is place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and all these things are mine," says the Lord. (Isaiah 6:1-2a)

Stephen quotes and exegetes the Isaiah passage (above) in Acts 7 and is promptly stoned to death.  And even today, the suggestion that the church can be healthy without a building, in many circles, is met with stony anger.

Our family lives in an older home in an older neighborhood. It seems that the domicile is in constant need of repair. A friend has christened it, "Restoration House." The name is not quite as cool as "Wuthering Heights" or "Misselthwaite Manor", but it is apropos.  There are, of course, the immediate needs...a leak in the sink, and a back door that doesn't work right, and a water heater that doesn't heat water.  And there are the needs that we know are coming and we pray won't happen today...an ancient furnace that needs replaced. A sewer line that is crumbling with the weight of fifty years of earth.  It takes a lot of time and energy to keep up with the Restoration House.

It also takes a lot of time and energy to keep up with the house of God.  And that isn't a bad thing, until it begins to erode the main thing.

Sometimes, when I am working on the bathroom or even mowing the lawn or cleaning up the kitchen, one of our sons will come in and ask, "Daddy, will you play with me?" The miracle is that they keep asking even though they know the usual rejoinder, "I'd love to, buddy, but I have to finish fixing the chicken coop."

We do the same thing in church. We get busy painting bathrooms and vacuuming the carpet and cleaning the windows. We replace gutters and we plant, weed, and water the front flower bed. And there is nothing wrong with these things, until they erode the main thing.  "Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourselves." (Luke 10:27)

Our relationship with the house of God can just as easily become a substitute for God as our relationship with our house can become a substitute for our family. I've sometimes wondered what would happen if we were to sell our churches.  What would happen if we were to sell our homes? In the short-term, there might be flashes of anger and tears of disappointment.  Stones might be thrown.  But in the long run, my suspicion is that neither the body of Christ or my own children would suffer greatly. In fact, we might just rediscover the main thing.

Church Stopping. Less Doing. More Being.