Here's the church....here's the steeple...

Open the doors and there are the people....or not.

Remember that little diddy when you link your hands together with your fingers inter-locking turning downward, and using your thumb and pointer fingers as doors, you move the doors aside and thrust your downturned fingers upwards to show "the people" in the church?

When we drove past the church in the first picture in downtown Winnipeg, the church had been made into an inner-city day care. Not even sure if they hold services anymore. But the church had been rendered into something else, something different to be of service in God's name. A safe place for people to bring their children while they work hard to make a living to raise those children. Even if "Sunday Services" no longer exist each week, the "service" continues on, in another manner....and in God's name.

Perhaps churches these days are heading in a direction that calls for a new and improved structure of service to God. Churches began with wonderful intentions. An ediface climbing high into the atmosphere, climbing high to reach God and praise him in this way, making a statement to the surrounding area and countryside that this was a place where one could come and find rest and comfort and direction, a place where one could meet God, where it would feel like it was a place that was out of the ordinary, a place of freedom and solitude. And it was...and probably still is.

While I still love these structures, it seems that there are so many more important issues out in our communities these days that perhaps could use one of these "structures" as something more valuable in God's sight. Where people's physical needs are met, with food and clothing. Where people can come in and be accepted, no matter what they have or don't have. Where people find a sense of justice and healing. Where they find that, yes, there is a God because I see it in the people here in this structure, people that actually care about me as an individual and who provide for my needs.

We cannot live in our churches like they are an island, set apart from the realities of life. We need to integrate them into usable, workable, life-giving enclosures where all are welcomed and given help and all are loved equally.

Am I being idealistic? Perhaps.

But the church in the above photo had that same vision too.

May God give us all a new vision for his work.