“The church is not a building; the church is not a steeple; the church is not a resting place; the church is the people.” I learned this little verse as a child and taught it to my children, and, it seems, that it is truly valid today. The church is very present today although it manifests itself in a variety of ways.
To me the church is the aide in a nursing facility who comforts a woman when her family cannot; the anxious grocery checker who keeps coming to work in spite of fear; the singer who sets up a sound system and a stool, grabs his guitar and entertains the neighbors up and down his street every Friday night; the man who has worked at the Lysol factory for 30 years and now has a new sense of purpose in his desire to make others safer; it is the man who picks up his trumpet each night and plays Taps from his balcony to honor the providers and celebrate the dead.
Are these acts being done in Jesus’ name? I don’t know. But they are being done in Jesus’ way. Jesus was never a stickler for “organized religion,” but He was the ultimate proponent of shared kindness and love given freely to others.
So, to me, the church at Woodland is evident in every act of love, every silent or spoken prayer, every note or phone call, every time we give of ourselves to others not anticipating anything in return but knowing that being a part of the love of Jesus in the world today is not only a very good thing; it may be the only thing.
Becky Miller