Today’s post is written by Joshua Wilson.

Raised in Miami, Florida, Josh loves strong coffee and arepas. After moving to Gainesville in 2005, Josh fell in love with area but still roots for any and all Miami sports teams. He started to work with the Trinity UMC Youth Group in 2008 and loves it. His favorite things are hanging out with his sons, painting, and practicing to qualify for the US Olympic curling team (if there’s one thing he can do, it’s sweep).

What is Church?

“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.” ~ the internet

I recently visited the church I grew up in…or maybe I didn’t.

I started attending Sunday Services when I was in sixth grade. My dad wasn’t into religion but said “you gotta have morals” so every Sunday morning, he would drop me off at the church down the street from our house. I sat with Mrs. Horton, a little old lady who taught English at my school. She called me her “church child.”

I eventually started to go to youth group, not because I really wanted to go but because a friend practically twisted my arm. Doug, the youth pastor, was an artistic, guitar playing, slightly ADD role model. Long hours talking about real life began a search that led me into ministry. He also turned me on to hair gel, bolo ties, and puffy shirts…not my finest look, but, hey, it was the 80’s.

At youth group, I met people who would have long and lasting effects on who I was. And this is where my concept of church was starting to be formed.

My history with this church continued on through adulthood, eventually working there as first a youth ministry intern and then Middle School Youth Director. I got married and had both of my children baptized there.

So when the Trinity Youth Group traveled down to the Keys for a weekend retreat, I contacted my home church and arranged for us to stay overnight in their youth building. The next morning, I woke up before everyone else and walked around the grounds that witnessed so much of my becoming who I am.

The buildings stood empty as I walked through them. Nothing had much changed but I couldn’t help but feel that the church I grew up in wasn’t there.

And maybe it was never there.

What is church?

The church is not a place. If anything, it is a people making a place. If you have ever played cowboys, astronaut or pirate or whatever else when you were a kid, then you understand the idea of making a place. No matter where you are, just a bit of imagination can transport you to your lonesome prairie, your rocket, your pirate ship or your deserted island.

So, church is a people, dreaming about a place, imaging a place into reality…a place where we are family in the truest sense, accepted and loved. We all yearn for a place of rest and hope, a place to know and be known by others…heaven on earth. So, the church is a people trying to make heaven a reality on earth.

Sometimes, we get it wrong. Well, a lot of the time we get it wrong. Maybe even most of the time. But at our best, the church is a cathedral made of people, a chapel of arms and hands, feet and heads, a people who together form a house in the shape of healing and grace that was first shown to them by God.

The church I grew up in wasn’t there on that morning in South Miami. That’s good news. Because when those buildings are long gone, the Church will still be standing. When Trinity UMC in Gainesville, Florida is long forgotten, the Church will still be standing.

Ephesians 2:19-22 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the  apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being  the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Today’s guest post on what is church comes from Dr. Janise McNair, PhD, ECE.

Background/Bio
I have attended church since childhood. Not the same church, but always a protestant church. I started out in a Methodist church, then my family moved around a bit and we attended the protestant church service on different military bases. While in college, I attended a Baptist church, and now I’m in a Methodist church again. As far as other religions go, I have enjoyed learning about the experiences and importance of other religions through close relationships with friends of various international backgrounds. But through it all, I have pretty much stayed influenced by the long line of churchgoers in my family that have had a positive impact on my life and the lives of others.

What is church? Well, that’s a difficult question for me. Or maybe I should say it is an easy question with a very long, complicated answer. For me, church is so many things and also a few, very specific things. I wondered, should I write about THE Church, a church or my church? I struggled with where to begin and where to end. I decided to begin here. Church, for me, is a gathering place that helps prepare me to go out and do good things. The church gathering is a chance to set myself away from the busyness and noise of my life and to sit and think about how I’m doing, how I can improve, how to pray for/mourn/celebrate with others and how to be inspired to do something more. Church is turning off the cell phone, not checking email, not answering the door, not thinking about the grocery list or the next meal or the next deal or the next call. Church helps me focus on the right things.

Church, for me, is learning about scripture. The Bible is an ancient document from the Middle East, written by men, translated and canonized by the elite, and reproduced thousands of times, but it is a document that has taught me so much about human nature, the human spirit and God. It teaches me in ways that challenge me, but also in practical ways that influence how I relate to my family and how I relate to my community. It’s good. The more I learn and understand how things work, the more I’m able to figure out how to do the right thing, and also to figure out when the church is not doing the right thing. I enjoy being in a church where I’m taught by people who have studied scripture in a lot of detail with a lot of context. I love to learn from people who have a life experience with the scriptures that gives a personal perspective to how they apply it to life in general, and to their own lives in particular.

Church, for me, is also an opportunity to worship together. First, let me say that I think worship can happen anywhere. It can happen in my car while I listen to or sing a certain song. It can happen on the beach, when I see the majesty of a sunset. It can happen in a small group of people who have gathered to pray for someone. It can happen in a huge gathering of noisy people who are all praising God. I think it can happen any place under any conditions because Jesus is everywhere accessible, ready and willing to connect.

Worship in a church gathering has been a learning experience for me. Some time ago, I used to sit in the pew thinking about what I was or wasn’t getting from a given church service. Even at a good church, I would get distracted when something wasn’t quite what I expected, and that would become the focus of my thoughts. At some point the thought came to me, “God is not sending me to church for what I can get out. He’s sending me to church for what I can put in.’’ So, I tried to approach worship differently. I started to bring worship with me by praying on the drive to church. I prayed for the choir and musicians. I prayed for the preacher. I prayed for the church as a whole. I prayed for my wants to take a back seat for a while so I could experience God’s presence. When I remember to follow this practice, worship in church is always meaningful and moving to me, no matter what tries to distract me.

Lastly, Church, for me, is community. Standing next to other people, shaking someone’s hand, looking people in the eyes and listening to someone’s story. It pulls me out of my universe-of-one and reminds me that the universe might be a little bit bigger than my own problems, opinions, and intentions. I think, in the early church in Acts, the fellowship of believers was not so much about agreement, getting along and doing the same thing, as much as it was about gathering together, learning together and getting through things together. This feeling of community, in good churches, leads to taking care of the needs of the community — service projects, missions, and acts of kindness. The church can be a source of social justice that is as large as a civil rights movement or as small as a free plate of food.

So, Church, for me-THE church, a church, and my church—is a living part of the community. It brings people together to learn about Jesus, to worship Him in spirit and in truth, and then sends them out to serve and love people.

A question that has been going around my mind and in conversations I’ve been having for a while is around the understanding of Church. That word brings different connotations, feelings and ideas. So I invited a diverse group of individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, and ages to write about their own understanding & feelings about Church. That’s all the direction & restriction I gave them. For the next 6 posts (one a week, I hope) we’ll be hearing from these different voices in the hope that we can better understand each other and learn from each other as well.  Let’s dive in!
-Esther
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Our first post comes from Katherine Harris.

Katherine, 24, is an alumna of the University of Florida with a B.A. in Anthropology, and is currently pursuing her M.S. in Health Education and Behavior. Her areas of interest are sexual and reproductive health, self-esteem, religion and health behavior, and LGBT health. She also works as a staff member for a United Methodist youth ministry, and still can’t believe she’s getting paid to have this much fun.
Eventually she hopes to work in sexual and reproductive health education, particularly for women in underserved areas and developing nations. She is passionate about helping girls and women feel happy, healthy, safe, and in control of their own bodies.

Church. It’s a building. It’s an organization. It’s an abstract concept. Sometimes church is a drafty old place with a pitched roof, stained glass windows, polished wooden pews, and velvet runners. Sometimes church is big screens, projectors, rock bands, and pastors in sneakers. Sometimes church is a 10 PM cheeseburger, tucked into a restaurant booth with good people and lots of french fries.

I’ve been trying to write on the subject of church, as prompted, but it’s been hard lately. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to think about it.

It’s like when I moved into the dorms my freshman year and I didn’t know how to say the word ‘home’ anymore. Was home the place I slept at night, or was it my mom’s house, where my bed was still made and I often crashed on the weekends after work? Is home where you park your car, or where you go when you need a safe space? I didn’t know, and it never felt right in my mouth, home.

I’m not really sure what ‘church’ means to me, either. I do know that I don’t think church is a place you go, so much as a place you are inside. It’s when something lines up and it just feels right. Sometimes that happens in a specific building, or during a sermon, or while serving in the community. Sometimes it’s when you’re out in the middle of the woods meditating. You might be surrounded by people when it happens, or the presence of others might take away exactly what it means for you to be in church.

Some days I go to worship and I feel it. Everything lines up, and the words taste right, and I know I’m part of something. Some days I feel most connected when I’m all alone, riding with the windows down, one hand on the steering wheel and the other catching air.

I like to go out to Payne’s Prairie by myself late at night sometimes and stargaze. Technology is amazing—I can point my phone at any constellation I don’t recognize and it will tell me exactly what I’m looking at. Then I can look up the story behind it, the mythology, the eternal and unchanging human experience painted across the sky. That’s church too, I think.

There are two stars in the constellation of Ursa Major, Dubhe and Merak, which are known as the “pointer stars.” If you follow them in a straight line, they’ll lead you right to Polaris, true north. Any time you are lost, all you have to do is look up. It’s all right there, in pieces. Line them up right, and you’ll find your way home.
Maybe that’s church, really, at the core of it—lining up the pieces so we can find our way home. Sometimes they line up in a certain building, or during a particular activity, or with a special group of people. Sometimes it happens when you’re all by yourself. But when they line up, you feel it, and you know you’re on your way. You’re going home.

“When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see everything that made me flying around in invisible pieces. When I look too hard, it goes away. But when it all goes quiet, I see they are right here.
I see that I’m a little piece of a big, big universe.
And that makes things right.”
– Beasts of the Southern Wild