By P Chong Sun. 5 September 2010
Church is the place for worship
Less so the place for fellowship
Rather than whatever you’ve got!
It was a cold winter’s day that Sunday. The parking lot to the church was filling up quickly. I noticed as I got out of my car fellow church members were whispering among themselves as they walked into the church.
Source: Fine Art Print
As I got closer I saw a man leaned up against the wall outside the church. He was almost laying down as if he was asleep. He had on a long trench coat that was almost in shreds and a hat topped his head, pulled down so you could not see his face. He wore shoes that looked 30 years old, too small for his feet, with holes all over them, his toes stuck out. I assumed this man was homeless, and asleep, so I walked on by through the doors of the church.
We all fellowshipped for a few minutes, and someone brought up the man laying outside. People snickered and gossiped but no one bothered to ask him to come in, including me. A few moments later church began. We all waited for the preacher to take his place and to give us the Word, when the doors to the church opened.
In came the homeless man walking down the aisle with his head down. People gasped and whispered and made faces. He made his way down the aisle and up onto the pulpit where he took off his hat and coat. My heart sank. There stood our preacher … he was the “homeless man,” and the last parishioner to arrive for service.
No one said a word. The preacher took his Bible and laid it on his stand.
“Folks, I don’t think I have to tell you what I am preaching about today.”
It does take an experience such as this to set our thinking
right. All too often, materialism & human become our focus of worship which are hateful to God as idolatry.
If I may say so, as men stray, churches sadly too stray.
Dick Halverton, Chaplain of the United States Senate (Fellowship), puts it in these thought-provoking words:
“In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men & women center on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe where it became a culture. And finally, it moved to America where it became an enterprise.”
Christianity, according to Samuel Wilberforce, can be condensed into four words: ADMIT, SUBMIT, COMMIT & TRANSMIT.
Related Articles
- Of Inflatable Churches and Holographic Pastors (beliefnet.com)
- Liberation theology about helping others (mysanantonio.com)
- Why Christians Must Fellowship Together (brighthub.com)
Paul Chong's Blog 
A church, any denomination, is not the building, nor the organ or piano, nor the pulpit nor the choir (though we are grateful for them). A church is the people who are God’s people.
No one can see God, but God gives the privilege to be His representatives in the world. So a church is known by what the people who claim to be Christians are doing. The church is KNOWN where the actions and the deeds are, yes, outside the church building. But what is more important is not just the doing as the BEING!
CC