Question
Why should we build church buildings, if they are often expensive, if they are not necessary, and if no Scripture commends the practice?
posted by Steven at 9:04 AM
Friday, May 15, 2009
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7 Comments:
I agree.
3:01 PM
well. where else would you hold sunday school potlucks? huh?
3:25 PM
On an aggressive note the ICC thought similarly. They did not "give in" to building a church building until very recently. Those churches that did were semi-looked down upon. I remember thinking as a child going to one of these churches "They have their own building. Whats the deal with that?"
7:27 AM
I don't know. I've grown up in church buildings. I love to sing and learn with my friends in a building. I like to invite my non-christian to church buildings. Historically, people have worship God in buildings, homes, outside, temple. Ah, whatever.
5:56 PM
question: Why does Scraw's blog posts decrease when he's at Summit, despite his Gchat time quadrupling?
7:19 PM
I think that sometimes having a church building is appropriate. Like the building that your parent's church has been working on for a long time seems necessary. Especially since it was the only structure in that neighborhood for awhile. (Right?) Also, taking over abandoned buildings might be a way to get a building.
But maybe I am missing your point. Are you saying that a general meeting place is unnecessary or just the building?
I think extravagant church buildings are definitely unnecessary. But a place to worship the Lord and have potlucks :) might be in order.
Also, God had the Israelites build the Tabernacle that they put up and took down as they traveled for worship and sacrifices. Is that like a church building?
4:37 AM
Hebrews 10:25 (I think) tells the believers to not stop meeting together, as some had begun doing, but to get together to encourage one another. The early church met for prayers in the temple, and in homes. But I don't see that there were written guidelines to how, when and where the meetings should take place. (I could be wrong) I think each culture and situation might need to examine the best way to meet together as the body of Christ. I've seen churches that are empty most of the time, or just expensive buildings to impress people. But I've seen other buildings that are teeming with action all the time. The church that I visited in Argentina was like that--a youth center almost every evening (until after midnight!), adult education classes (in cooperation with the local gov't.), a feeding center (employing 3 or 4 women who previously had no job), an industrial sewing center, again taking advantage of a gov't program that donated the machines, and as a result 6 people had jobs. People also met in homes in small cell groups.
The plan for our present church building is to have the sanctuary be a multi-purpose room--on Sundays the worship celebration, but during the week a gymnasium for the youth to have events and even a primary school during the week. We'll see what develops... The homes in our neighborhood in Mexico are very small spaces, and can only hold about 10-20 people max. for group meetings. And about half of the year it's too cold to meet outside, and half of the year it's too hot to meet outside!
There's a G-12 church (cell-based ministry, Groups of 12) that meets in Nogales, Sonora that rents a large building for their Sunday service. During the week they meet in homes.
9:37 PM
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