What is church?

Ask most people in the street “What is a church?” and they’ll probably point to the nearest tall building with a spire.

That’s what most people think church means: an imposing building to which they come for happy events like weddings and baptisms, and sad ones like funerals.  They may even come into it weekly for to meet with Christians and to worship Jesus. But for most people church is the imposing building.

Of course the building doesn’t have to be imposing. I once visited a church that met in a converted supermarket. Another time I visited one that met in a coffee shop. They ran the coffee shop Monday to Saturday and moved the tables out of the way for Sunday. Sadly, they still charged for coffee. But these sorts of buildings tend to be the exception rather than the rule in the West, so for most people the word “church” conjures up something imposing, thick stone walls, high ceilings, a steeple to draw your eyes heavenwards.

But in the Bible, the word church is totally different. The Greek word that gets translated as church today is ekklesia ( ‘a gathering’) and in the Bible it has three different meanings, none of which were a physical building (the early church had no buildings –persecuted people don’t have time to build imposing buildings).

1. The first meaning of ekklesia is never translated as church, because it is a gathering of citizens. In Greek and Roman culture – being a citizen wasn’t an automatic right, so the word has a sense of separateness about it; for example, although most people living in a Greek or Roman city were citizens, some residents, for example, slaves and foreigners were excluded. You can see an example of this sort of ekklesia in the Bible in Acts chapter 19, when the citizens of Ephesus call an ekklesia in the amphitheatre to decide what to do about the annoying Christians who are living in their city, and it nearly leads to a riot.
2. The second meaning of ekklesia is what the theologians call the “local church” or congregation. This is a gathering of Christians in a location, usually meeting in someone’s home. And again it has a sense of separateness about it: based around whether you were a citizen of the Kingdom of God or not. It amuses me to think that as the citizens of Ephesus met in their ekklesia to work out how to deal with the annoying Christians, the annoying Christians were probably gathered as a congregation (ekklesia) to pray and to seek God’s guidance as to how to respond (in the end the disciples prevented St Paul from going to the amphitheatre in case the crowds killed him!)
3. The third meaning of ekklesia is what the theologians call the “church universal”. This is the gathering that all Christians everywhere in the world and throughout history look forward to: the time when all those who have trusted in the risen Jesus for salvation are gathered around him in heaven. That’s the way St Paul uses it in Ephesians 1:22,

God placed all things under [Jesus’s] feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.”

And those are the only three ways the Bible uses the word church: in other words, in the Bible, church is never about the building, and it’s always about people. But if that’s the case, how did the word church come to be associated with imposing buildings? It’s time to blame the Germans! The English word “church” comes from the German word kirche which finds its origins in the third century Greek phrase kuriakon doma (house of the Lord). Quite how and when this German meaning crept into English is unclear, but it’s similarity to an ancient Anglo-Saxon word circe meaning circle (usually a stone circle for Sun Worship) would put it as far back as the fifth century.

So “church” is a Germanic building, and also the Bible’s way of describing local and universal gatherings of Christians. But just to complicate things, there’s yet another meaning – which we don’t find in the Bible but we do find in culture: what we call The Church Visible. This is more about the institution of church, and encompasses both local gatherings (ekklesia) and their buildings (kirche) But it’s also the legal and institutional framework that holds all this together. And it even includes people who may well not even be followers of Jesus Christ– the Church of England does try its best to be an equal opportunities employer!

As you might have guessed The Church Visible necessitates that there is also a Church Invisible, but thankfully that’s really just another term for the Church Universal.

So what is church? Well clearly it’s far far more than a building! Personally I like the definition my wife is fond of, “The church is what’s left after the building burns down.” In other words, it’s all about people and God.

To find out more about the ekklesia meeting in a kirche near you visit www.hopechurchfamily.org/gatherings!