What is the Church???

"I can worship God better in the woods then I could in a church."  No you can't.  I guarantee you that the people who say this nonsense aren't worshipping God anywhere!  The notion that the church is the people and not a building is true.  The word Church itself literally means an assembly.  An ASSEMBLY!!!!  As in more than one person, maybe in the woods, coming together!  Individualism is bad for your faith. 

I bring this up now because I think there is a real danger at this uncertain time for people to think that they don't really need the church and they can do it on their own.  Last weekend as I was preparing to host our Sunday morning worship service I noticed some people took the time out of their not so busy Sundays to criticize clergy for hosting online services.  One person even had the chutzpah to actually say that anyone who couldn't worship on their own has a weak faith.  No Karen you have the weak faith (said person's name wasn't actually Karen). 

For us as Anglicans worship is incarnational.  It is the coming together of individual believers to make up the body of Christ.  "Where two or three are gathered there will I also be."  To not do that is rightfully traumatic for us, because that's not who we are as a sacramental community.  We need each other, for better or for worse, because in our coming together Christ is incarnated among us. 

Sure we are individual people.  But the church, being the people, isn't equivalent to me on my loan island being a church unto myself.  The church is rightly understood to be the church, when it is assembled together.  ASSEMBLED together. 

This of course is a problem in every day life too.  There are a number of people, some Christians and others not, who believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to them independently of the church (Assembly) and so they go off and do their own things.  That's not what Jesus had in mind when he talked about His bride, or called his apostles and gave them charge over the faithful.  Jesus' intention for us is to live in community.  To assemble together.  To be the church. 

That's hard right now and I get that.  But we need to diligently work at it.  We can't allow an event like this to tare the body of Christ into pieces.  Instead we have to allow it to bring us together.  And I've seen that coming together in remarkable ways.  Even in my own personal life. 

As all of you know I've recently taken a parish in a different diocese.  I've not been there long so I've not had a change to connect with the diocese on a wider level.  This nightmare that we are all living through has changed that.  Now I could have just said, "I don't need the diocese.  I'll do this on my own."  But the bishop has been spectacular and I really couldn't be doing this without his leadership.  Even if that leadership comes in the form of a pat on the back and a reassuring, "Hey you're doing a good job." 

The bottom line is that we were made for community, by a God who is community, and to isolate ourselves from the community of the faithful is sin.  Not in a crime and punishment sort of way, but rather in a missing the goal sort of way.  When we fail to exist in community then we fail to do what God has made us to do.  So don't fail!  Be the body!  Assemble!  Its who we are.  Even if its just a small group or even online.  That community is absolutely central to who we are.