Building, though important, shouldn’t be focus of faith

The Rev. Beau Abernathy, pastor, CrossPointe Church, 4120 Clinton Parkway (Bishop Seabury Academy):

What a great question! The short answer is that all of life, not just Sunday, is to be lived as an act of worship to God (“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31). God, being a God of beauty, delights in giving us aids – like creation, beautiful buildings, etc. – to help us in worship.

This question is like asking a mechanic, “How important are wrenches to auto repair?” The reply would be, “Wrenches are very important – but the wrenches aren’t the focus; a smooth-running car is.” Buildings are tools God can use to help us connect with him; but buildings are not to be our focus. God is. While God as our worship focus is a matter of the heart, our physical environment (the tools we use in worship) can help or hinder worship.

A Samaritan woman once tried to debate Jesus on the best time, place and style for worship. Jesus replied that these external issues are not as important as why you worship, how much of yourself you offer to God when you worship, and who you worship (see John 4).

Our focus is to be loving God and building people – and we use whatever tools (including buildings) God gives us to facilitate this (Matthew 22:37-39)! We have worshiped with God’s people in 14 different locations in the two churches God has used us to begin in Lawrence. Some buildings have facilitated an easier transition into sacred moments than others, but all were used as God-given tools in worship – when we approached worshiping God with the right heart.

– Send e-mail to Beau Abernathy at beaumerna@sbcglobal.net.

Church is less about bricks, mortar than people of God

The Rev. David Livingston, associate pastor, First United Methodist Church, 946 Vt. and 4931 W. Sixth St. (Hereford House):

Every Sunday as I leave worship, people will say “See you at church next week!” What’s ironic is that for the past eight months we have held worship at Hereford House in preparation for the completion of our church on the west side of Lawrence. Hereford House may be a great restaurant, but it isn’t a church building.

Our culture has come to equate the word “church” with the word “building,” but our tradition and the Bible teach us that the church is not a building, it is the people of God. The church is present whenever two or three Christians are gathered together. What is important, then, is not where we worship, but that we worship. For us, that means worshipping at a restaurant in addition to our church building downtown. For John Wesley, the founder of the United Methodist Church, that meant leading worship in a field as coal miners finished their work.

It actually is possible for a building to be distracting from the purposes of the church. We can build monuments to ourselves instead of places where people can come to know God. If we find ourselves paying more attention to how nice the altar looks than hearing the sermon or praying a prayer, then our church building gets in the way of our experience of God. If we spend so much money creating a house for the church that we feel like we have nothing left to help the homeless, then we can’t fulfill God’s command to love our neighbor. Details like where we worship do not matter to God. What ultimately matters is how we love God and our neighbors.

– Send e-mail to David Livingston at david@fumclawrence.org.