The Church…? Revisited

Just a few thoughts on my previous post, The Church…?. 

I was doing a word search on wikipedia for church and ran across this picture.  The first thing that caught my eye was the caption, “The church of Saint Simon in Aleppo, Syria is considered to be one of the oldest remaining churches in the world.”

If this church is “remaining”, what exactly does “remaining” mean?

If a building in this condition is still called a church, would you call a modern church in this condition a church?

What do I mean by “condition”?  From all appearances, the church in this picture would be considered dead  –no people, no activity, no outreach, no nothing.

Another thought you may be having is that the building does not make the church, and I will agree with that.

Does it not make you wonder what happened to this building, that from the looks of it, was a beautiful building at one time? What happened to the church?  Where did the people go?  How could such a beautiful building have become a pile of rocks and stones?  

Perhaps the most important question might be, is your church a “remaining” church?  By this, I mean, is it just “remaining” around to do what it has always done with the same people that have always been there? Is your church building beautiful on the outside, but dead on the inside?  

The church should be outside the four walls of the building, in the midst of our communities, tearing down the strongholds of satan, and pushing back the darkness with the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to fulfill the commission that the Church was given. 

Could your church someday be labeled like this church, as one of the oldest “remaining” churches in the world?  As Paul would have said, “God forbid”!