What is a Church?

To what can you liken a church? This was a survey question posted by a good friend of mine and fellow pastor. It caught my attention and made me think more deeply about it. It's really a question worth delving into. Just wanted to share to you my thoughts on it.

For me, the church can be likened to a beautifully done stained glass window. It's made of bits and pieces of fragile and broken glass, of different, imperfect and irregular shapes with contrasting shades and colors most of the time from the opposite ends of the color wheel; meticulously put together by a very skillfull glass artist to reflect one perfectly unique, cohesive and detailed design which brings pride and joy, glory and honor to its maker.

Just like a church. A church is composed of fragile, broken, different, imperfect, unconventional, unique people sometimes having totally different backgrounds, perspectives, attitudes and personalities, but then are brought together and held together by the blood of Jesus Christ to create a beautiful tapestry of differences, interwoven by the sovereign master designer, God Himself.

And this, for what purpose? To reflect Him and His love amidst eachones' differences, and to magnify Him for all men to see. In that way we, as a church, can bring pride and joy, glory and honor to Him, the creator of all things; the true light that shines through our imperfect and broken lives, to reveal great beauty amidst the imperfections and differences.

It is He, Jesus Christ, who builds and holds the broken pieces of His church together, to create a masterpiece beyond that which this world has and will ever see. A masterpiece that points ALL, back to Him.

Colossians 1:17 (NASB)

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.