Churches: Buildings, People, or Something More?

This is from a friend of mine who’d like to remain anonymous. I found it very interesting, what do you think?

For the past two years, I’ve met with a group of guys for a small group Bible study.  It came together as a group of friends I knew from college and developed into my friends, their friends, and people who found out about us from other people.  It’s a really eclectic group consisting of everyone from a friend who has taken a voluntary vow of poverty to another friend who considers himself a Messianic Jew.  One of our members is Baptist and another is a Methodist youth minister.

Over the past few months, we’ve  been studying the book of Acts and looking at the nature of the early church.  This week, it all came to a head when one of my friends asked, “What is church?”  That’s the question we spent the remainder of the night discussing.  It’s also the question that’s been rattling around in my head for the past year or so.

My first real encounter with this question occurred when I was studying Quaker history.  While my username might suggest to the reader that I am a Quaker, I’m really more of a fan of George Fox with certain Quaker leanings.  I find it really hard to reconcile the teachings of George Fox with some of the liberal Quaker groups that exist today, but that’s an issue for another day.

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Take from www.revelife.com