We are going to finish a preaching series this next Sunday about what it means to be the church and not just go to church. "Church" means a lot of things to a lot of people and sadly, it get's misdefined and misrepresented all the time. Someone recently told me they were leaving "traditional church" because the traditional church (whatever that means) wasn't "being" the church. I was intrigued and asked several questions but as with most people what started as a hopeful conversation about what the church should be according to the Bible ended with this person referencing some strange book they had just read which basically said the church should help poor people and meet in a house church type situation with as few people as possible all day on Sunday and share a meal together. On the contrary, the Bible paints a more complete picture of what the church is to be and we need to look there for the whole picture and not just pick and choose what we want the church to be.
Many ideas of church sound good and of course these things can and should be part of the church but this is not all the church is called to be biblically. There are some more credible books on the subject and the best ones are Vintage Church by Mark Driscoll and Total Church by Steve Timmis. If you could only read one, read Vintage Church. It is a great read and a thorough explanation of how the Bible defines "church".
