What in the world is "church"?

When I started telling people about us church planting in St. Louis I noticed two common questions. The first commonly asked question we receive is, "Where in St. Louis will your church be?"and the second is, "What type of church will it be?"

First off, these are fair questions to ask! But I have been asked these two questions enough that it has caused to me stop and ask, "Why are these the first questions that pop into people's minds when they think about "church"? I believe the short answer is that our cultural understanding of "church" has been reduced down to a certain time and place with a particular set of shared rhythms and values exercised by a community. In other words, we have been trained to think about church as something we go do, for an hour or so, that aligns with our personal preferences (amazing music, high/low liturgy, good sermon, children's ministry, etc).

But what if our understanding and practice of "church" is but a sliver of the actual thing? What if we are missing out on something truly remarkable and even life changing?

I plan to write a series of posts on the nature and practice of the "church" over the next several months. I hope to wrestle and reflect on, "What in the world is 'church'?" But until then I have a few questions for you two reflect on...

1) What comes to mind when you think about "church"?

2) How would you describe "church" if you could only use the Bible?

3) Has your perception of the "church" changed since Covid-19 started? If so, how?

We have wrestled over these questions ourselves the last several years, which has ultimately led us to envision what we plan to do in St. Louis. We certainly do not have everything "figured out". But our lives have been radically changed since being introduced to a different way of thinking about church.