Do you remember the childhood game where you fold your hand with your fingers locked inside and you steeple your index fingers? You would say, “Here’s the church and here’s the steeple.” You split your thumbs apart exposing the other fingers saying, “Open the doors and here’s all the people.”
It’s a lie. We’ve been lying to ourselves and our children. It’s not the church. The church is not located by a steeple. The church is the people. For too long we’ve been defining church by the people we can collect inside of a building.
If we want to reach our post-Christian culture we need to open the doors and release the people. We should begin with open hands. Here’s the people. Here’s the church. And then we unclinch our hands and release the people to go into the world and be the church.
This week we will attempt to have both a wise understanding of our times and a wise understanding of God’s word to talk about decentralizing the church.