WHAT IS THE CHURCH?

Photo from Unsplash.

The word “church” is a word that many people have heard before and have some association with. Maybe they are a Christian, maybe they know someone who is a Christian, maybe they associate the word more generally with houses of worship, or with congregations that worship together, or with certain programs or social services, or perhaps with a sense of fear or shame due to prior experiences with church or Christians. In any case, many, many people have some sense of what the word “church” means. 

But what is the Church?” What do people mean when they add a “the” and a capital C? Are they referring to some connection that all individual churches have? Some collective of which all local churches are a part? Some bureaucracy that governs them? Can you have church without the Church?

The Episcopal Church defines the Church as,  “...the community of the New Covenant…” (Book of Common Prayer pg. 854). 

What does that mean? What is the New Covenant? How does it define the Church? Hopefully by the end of this article you will have a better understanding of these questions and more. 

What is the Church?

The Church is the inheritor of Jesus Christ’s mission and ministry on earth. The Church began on the day of Pentecost, when according to the Book of Acts, the disciples of Jesus were gathered in an upper room waiting for something to occur. Jesus had promised them that he would send the Holy Spirit to lead and guide them in their work of ministry. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down on the gathered disciples and appeared on their heads as tongues of fire, and they began speaking in many different languages. The Church was born on that day as the disciples began to preach and teach to the many different groups of people gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost. From that day on, the Church began to grow, which of course brought growing pains. 

As the Church grew over the next several hundred years, there were many setbacks. From division among the disciples of Jesus over who could be in the Church and who couldn’t be, to Roman persecution, to heated and costly internal theological fights and more, the Church saw firsthand what St. Paul and the other apostles learned and taught—that the Church is both the hands and feet of Christ on earth and a community of deeply flawed, sinful people. It is a living entity that is always changing, and hopefully always growing.

After a few centuries of planting churches, forming traditions, and resisting empire, the Church, in large part thanks to Constantine the Great, became identified with power, officially becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire by the mid 300’s CE. 

From that point on, the Church became institutionalized with the power of the state backing it. Two major “rites,” or ways of being Church, evolved: the Roman (or Western) Rite and the Byzantine (or Eastern) Rite. These two branches of the Church continued to evolve and diverge to the point that by the year 1054 CE, the Eastern and Western branches of the Church separated in what is known as the Great Schism. They remain separate communions (church structures) to this day. Fast forward to the late middle ages and the Enlightenment, and the Western Church splits again by way of the Protestant Reformation. Since the Reformation, many other denominations and ways of being Church have continued to splinter off, to the point that there are now thousands of different churches in the world. 

What does any of this have to do with God?

At this point, you may be asking yourself, “What does any of this have to do with God?” and if you’re thinking that, I would agree with you. At first glance, all of the schisms and all of the Church’s associations with the Halls of Power may seem off-putting. But nonetheless, God is still present and active in and through the Church, and it is still the means through which God has chosen to gather folks into God’s family and God’s reality of love and justice, an idea that can be described as the New Covenant. 

Covenants can be found throughout the Old and New Testaments in the Bible and describe a relationship with God. The New Covenant is the idea that with Jesus a new way of living our life with God has dawned. Instead of the many different laws and such that defined one's relationship with God before Jesus, now all that one must do in order to be a follower of Jesus is to love God and love one's neighbor as oneself. 

Through the New Covenant, the Church and all of its members are a part of the Body of Christ. In our baptism, we are buried with Christ in his death and raised with him into his resurrection. Our baptism is our entrance into the Church and into the mystical body of Christians that span from the time of Jesus all the way into the future.

The Church receives its spiritual authority from Jesus. In many churches, the tradition of the laying on of hands and of the apostolic succession (1) is a tangible link to the original source of the Church, Jesus himself. 

Even so, it is up to us as Christians today to discern, with the help of the Holy Spirit, what we are to do as the body of Christ raised up for the sake of the world. 

What does this mean for us today and going forward?

So what does all of this mean for us today? If we are members of the Body of Christ, what are we supposed to do? We are called to go and be the hands and feet of Christ in our world. That means loving others unconditionally, being with the downtrodden and oppressed, pronouncing God’s blessing, and worshipping God as a community of believers.

Over the last year, the pandemic has made many institutions reimagine what their role in society could and/or should be. The Church is no different. Throughout the Church laypeople, clergy, congregations, governing bodies, etc. are and should be rethinking what the Church’s role and mission should be in a post-pandemic world. 

Maybe that means that fresh expressions of church will be planted in non-traditional settings. Many people who are looking for community, and may be interested in exploring spirituality down the line, are not going to come to a worship service. The Church needs to go to the places where people are.

One such place is the internet. What would a competent, compassionate, and intentional online Christian presence look like? 

These are just a couple of areas that the Church—members of the Body of Christ—will have to discern in the coming weeks and years. 

I believe that our understanding of the Church after we take stock from the pandemic will be much more in tune with the Church that Christ desires: a place for love, discipleship, and spiritual renewal.

So what is the Church?

The Church is found in casseroles baked by church ladies and sent to a family dealing with tragedy or illness. The Church is found in the faces of children entranced by a Bible story. The Church is found in the voices of choir members as they sing the descant of “Lift High the Cross.” The Church is found at the soup kitchen serving meals to the homeless. The Church is found gathered around the altar and the font celebrating the holy mysteries of our faith. 

The Church is the Body of Christ anointed to do God’s will in the world. A community of imperfect misfits trying to follow a perfect way of love in the person of Jesus Christ. People who make mistakes, ask for forgiveness, walk with each other and our God, and try to make a difference in a hurting world. 

The Church has been around for over 2000 years. It is up to its members to forge a new path ahead in our own time. The mission is still the same as it was on the Day of Pentecost: to share the Good News of God’s love made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ.