The other day the question came up about what is the church? I ask myself this all the time. Church is more than what we see today in America, this institution that has influence and facilitates religious services, it’s more than a building or a place where people gather.

We can look in the book of Acts, the early church and how it was then in early Christianhood. People met in temples and in homes. Jesus met in people’s homes and he had large gatherings. I don’t to get too much into it, because I’m no expert and I have my own frustrations with the Church or how people go about Church and perceive it. However, I will add that church to me can be a glimpse of heaven.

A while ago I posted about John’s McCain’s response about what faith means to him and how he lives it out. This was civil forum that Rick Warren’s church had organized. I was very touched by the story he shared. 

 

vietnamese kept us in prison in conditions of solitary confinement for two or three to a cell.

they did that because they knew they could break down our resistance. one of the techniques that they used to get information was to take ropes and tie them around your biceps, pull your biceps behind you, loop the rope around your head, pull your head down between your knees and leave you in that position. you can manage, it’s very uncomfortable.

one night i was being punished in that fashion. all of a sudden the door of the cell opened, the guard came in, a guy who was just what we call a gun guard. he just walked around the camp with a gun on his shoulder. he went like this and then he loosened the ropes. he came back about four hours later, he tightened them up again and left. the following christmas, because it was christmas day, we were allowed to stand outside of our cell for a few minutes, and those days we were not allowed to see or communicate with each other although we certainly did. and i was standing outside for my few minutes, outside my cell. he came walking up. he stood there for a minute and with his handle on the dirt in the courtyard he drew a cross and he stood there and a minute later, he rubbed it out and walked away. for a minute there, there was just two christians worshipping together.

i’ll never forget that moment so every day —

The aspect of church in this story is toward the end.

“he came walking up. he stood there for a minute and with his handle on the dirt in the courtyard he drew a cross and he stood there and a minute later, he rubbed it out and walked away. for a minute there, there was just two christians worshipping together.”

During that divine moment in John McCain’s life, “two or more were gathered in His name.” That to me, in the middle of human suffering, in the middle of strife, despair, hopelessness, pain, cruelty, loneliness- there was God. That is the church, where believers despite their circumstances gathered in his name to worship Him. Church is a community of believers wholeheartedly and broken, seeking after Him, desperately wanting him. In John McCains’s church, he was truly desperate and truly broken along side another believer. Together in a strange circumstance that I believe God can truly orchestrate, the two men had their Church.

Peace.