Biblical wisdom literature often encourages us to prefer one of two offered paths, when there are actually four possibilities. For example, we are told that it is better to have a little money and fear of the Lord than to have lots of wealth and big trouble with it (Prov. 15:16). We are also told …
Wineskin Memorial
As we are preparing for a sanctuary of our own, we have to remember that we are not the only ones doing the preparing. Not only are we preparing in all the ways we know about, so also God is preparing us—in many ways we don’t usually know about. When denominations form, and when church …
Hope Deferred and the Tree of Life
The gospel gathers us, and our subsequent worship consists of what we say and what we enact. We say, we confess, that Jesus is Lord and we believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead. But Jesus said that if we love Him we will do what He said, and the very …
Glory Gift
One of the central things that a place dedicated to worship should do is frame a space that is conducive to true worship, and to do so in a way that does not tend to draw “worship” to itself. With regard to the first, we have to ask ourselves what a Christian worship service should …
Testify or Die
The people of God are the congregation of testimony. We worship and serve the God who intervenes in human history, and we are among those who testify to what He has done. We are to do this with our lives, with our families, and with our collective and corporate worship. We testify, and we are …
Celebrity Chefs and Raw Foods
Architecture needs to be, like all other forms of human expression, honest. There must be no pretense, no sham, no attempts at misdirection. Centrally, when we are talking about the architecture of a church, the honesty must be of the kind that plainly recognizes that God is God, and we are not. When you come …
Rendezvous With the Resources
Hudson Taylor once said that God’s work done in God’s way will not lack for God’s supply. What this means is that we, if we are walking in the will of God, are never short. We always have the resources for doing what we are supposed to be doing. If we don’t have the resources …
Feasting With Strife
As we pay attention to our Christian lives, as we ought to do, we have a tendency to focus on the things we do or have done, as though the whole thing were a matter of bookkeeping in a ledger, instead of taking our actions as indicators or “tells” of what we are turning into. …
Fundraising and Faith
Another aspect of funding a church building is the important element of faith. We often feel like we are supposed to trust God for “spiritual” things, like our salvation, but that when it comes to finances we have to learn how to be “realistic.” Unfortunately, being realistic often means adopting worldly techniques that could just …
Why Build?
Why have a church building? What is the point? What are we trying to do with it? The first reason is one that sanctuaries share with all buildings whatever. That reason is the wind, snow, rain, and so on. God has put us in a world where we require shelter in order to do the …