Mikey P, one of my best friends from college, was getting married, and I was given the honor of reading during the ceremony. I was so excited to be there to celebrate him and his bride on their special day, and I was so glad that they were going to be wed in the Catholic Church she was raised in. When I showed up to the Church, I was taken aback by the beauty of the place. I wasn’t involved much in the rehearsal, so I had ample time to sit and observe the intricate artwork of that adorned the walls, the stained glass that poured light onto the marble floors, and the lofty ceilings.

The stone pillars seemed to call out to my soul, reminding me of the heavens and the glory of God.

I have always been enamored with the beautiful architecture of church buildings. Not the big box buildings littering the non-denominational spaces of today, but the buildings that aim to draw human imagination towards the heavens. The type of spaces that draw us into worship of a Creator God who filled the cosmos with beauty. These structures made of stone and elements seem to cry out in glory of God. The human hand crafting the stone to reflect God and also bring out the worship found at the heart of these stones.

There are passages in Scripture that speak towards the natural elements speaking, singing, calling out the beauty of God. The one that sticks out in my mind is when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and the people worshiped him. This infuriated the religious class of the day, believing that Jesus should stop this worship, this blasphemy. But Jesus responds by saying, If they did not worship, then the rocks would cry out.

Imagine the scene, if the people has not been gathered to worship Jesus, and the stones along the path opened their mouths to sing the praises of God. It gives understanding that all creation, even the inanimate objects, are ordered in such a way to find their fullness in the being of God, their Creator. All of creation, even the inanimate, in some mysterious way are drawn to worship of God.

Though all creation, even the rocks, worship God, it is abnormal for the rocks to start crying out in worship of God. At least, abnormal in my experience. The rocks begin to cry out when the people do not. In much of Christian culture, we have come to believe that the building is the primary purpose for the Christian Church and not the people. What’s worse, the Christian culture seems to have prioritized the building over even the God whom the people should be praising.

How do I know this to be true? Follow the treasure. Of dollars donated to the Church, on average only 6% of those dollars leave the church campus. The salaries, the building maintenance, the electric bills, the lights and stage, are all accepted as essential to the functioning of the Church mission. But the building was never and is not the mission. Church is equally as impactful and beautiful in a home, in a park, in any space where people gather. Because Church is where people gather, not the building. The Church, through well-intentioned decisions, has implicitly forced people into believing that the building is central to worship, replacing the body of believers.

I think that the building can be a helpful tool to helping people be drawn into a place of worship. But more often than not, the building has become a place of distraction to the true mission of God, and also atrophies a believers’ ability to worship when they are away from the building and the comfort of institutional Christianity. We need to build in believers a resilient Christianity that can worship even in the desert places when they are away from the climate controlled and comfy chairs of a church building.

The aim of the church my wife and I are working to plant is to inspire a passionate people who embody the Church, not relying on a building to worship for us or to signal our Christian values.

Consider these readings:

Luke 19:40 (rocks crying out—affirms creation's praise but in context of people rejecting Jesus); John 4:21-24 (worship not tied to temple/mountain but spirit and truth); 1 Peter 2:4-5 (believers as living stones); Acts 17:24 (God doesn't dwell in man-made temples). These push solutions by emphasizing embodied people over structures.

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