Do you ever remember putting your hands together and saying, “This is the church and this is the steeple, open the door’s and here’s all the people.” I thought about that a few weeks ago as I was preparing to teach Lesson 3 of the Perspectives course, YOUR KINGDOM COME. At the same time, I was preparing for our house church gathering and had planned to focus on the question, “What is Church?” What does it mean for us to BE the church together. I realized while that old children’s poem, with the fun hand motions, while cute and fun, was disturbingly UN-Biblical. So, I wrote an alternative version and shared it with the Perspectives classes in Branson and Harrison and also with our house church gathering. A bunch of people asked me if I had a video link of it - I didn’t. But I do now! Here it is (and the poem is below the video).

This is a building, it may have a steeple, but it’s not the church, the church is God's people.

A people redeemed who take up their cross, who follow their Savior no matter the cost.

And live with God’s love for the wounded and lost.

They’ll gather in huts or under a tree, in underground caves down on bended knee

You’ll find them in prison and orphanages and out on a mission in far away places,

They gather in homes where families enter, or out on the streets, or big shopping centers

In conference rooms, coffee bars, even cathedrals,

and sometimes… even… in buildings with steeples.

the church is certainly not what you meet in, but the people who Jesus set free from their sin.