Beloved,
On Monday the EPA broke ground on the church property. Praise the Lord who rules over the hearts of government workers, and has led them to finally show up to deliver us from our lead-toxic soil! But I think we should be equally full of praise to God for the delay. It has been good for me personally to have a month banished from our building before the EPA even began. For it has been God’s school to teach me just what a tremendous blessing our building is.
I’ll be the first one to confess that the church is not a physical building. The church is you and me–the living stones that the living Christ has brought together to comprise His living temple. But that doesn’t mean our brick and mortar building does not play an important role in our life together as a church. My physical house is not my family. If I started to prize this 1,500 square foot dwelling on .75 of an acre more than my relationships with Tessa, Canon, Owen, and Vos, I might have a beautiful house but I would have a not-so-beautiful family. And yet our house is a tremendous blessing to our family. It is the haven in which our relationships unfold and grow, and it only takes a few days of living in a hotel to remind us of what a gift it is. Similarly, it has only taken a few Lord’s Days at CCS to show me what a gracious gift our building is and to grow my sympathy for fellow churches that do not have the privilege of owning their own building. That is not because CCS is not a great facility, but because it is not our facility.
Truth be told, up until the last month, I didn’t think too highly of our building. “It’s just a building, and not a very pretty or impressive one for that matter!” Yes, I know you will tell me that it used to be a lot less pretty, and I have seen the proof of that in the pictures. Yes, I know that God worked mightily to provide for us to pay off our mortgage, and it actually is quite impressive what He did in gifting our little congregation with this place. But all you have to do is take a tour of our property with Jeff Barr, and you will quickly begin to see just how many blemishes and oddities it has. So it has been easy for me to not appreciate our building in a similar way that the many imperfections of my physical house can lead to disdain. Tessa and I want our home to be a beautiful, warm, inviting place. But no matter how much work we do, it will always have plenty of less-than-desirable things about it, and I think that is by divine design. For all its undesirable characteristics serve as reminders that it is not the house that makes the family but the family that makes the house. I’ve been to houses that look like they were straight out of a Pottery Barn catalogue, but the sweetest times of fellowship I have ever shared with others have often been in homes that were less-than-magazine-worthy. Though the home was far from perfect (not a disgusting pigsty, mind you), it played an important role as the context in which we enjoyed relationship. And in a somewhat mysterious way, its imperfections only served to magnify the beauty of those relationships. For no one was focused on the decor; we were focused on each other. So too our little building. All of its warts and wrinkles remind us that it is the church that makes the building not the building that makes the church. And yet the building is the blessed context in which the beauty of our life with God and one another is enjoyed.
So please don’t dismiss me as being unspiritual when I say I really miss our building. I cannot wait to be back with you at 1813 Long Street, and to be there with new soil, sod, and shrubs (how’s that for alliteration!). But I’m also thankful for this time away as it is deepening my gratitude to God for His good gift of our church’s property. I hope and pray your gratitude is deepening too.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick
