When church is just a building…

This past week I was out of the Quad Cities with a team of 10 people going to Wichita, KS on a missions trip. We were there to spread the word about Audacity Church, beginning September 11 this year. We came down during RiverFest, a citywide annual event where 200,000+ people are out and participating in concerts, family activities, and a variety of other things.

Last Thursday, we were planning on doing a flash mob just before a Tony, Toni, Tone concert at the RiverFest. Just before we were to go into the concert however, we were interrupted by the sound of tornado sirens. On the horizon, we could already see the wall clouds descending in the shape of a funnel. Immediately across the street from where we were was a very large Baptist church where people seemed to be running for shelter. So our group followed. We got inside where others were gathering and hoped to ride out the storm. We were there no more than 10 minutes before someone, presumably a staff member of this church, came and informed us that we couldn’t stay there. They then told us we had to leave. Immediately.

Now, I’m in church leadership, and I get it. There are risks to taking people into your building. Insurance liabilities and the like. But doesn’t it seem like there’s a bigger picture to look at in the middle of a tornado?!?

We got outside and the sirens continued warning of the incoming storm. We took shelter with a few thousand other people in the basement of a massive convention center. We quickly realized that this was still a great opportunity to make some people smile and get the word out about a church coming their way this fall.

The response was overwhelming! People were getting in the middle of it with us, having dance-offs, while we provided water to many of them, and invited them to check out the church. People were grateful and friendly toward us as we ministered to them, perhaps in a very abnormal setting.

While one church had the opportunity to be a place of shelter and safety, they kicked people out. Another church (that doesn’t even have a building) brought hope and encouragement to their city during a storm.

I’ve been in enough churches to know that many are focused more on keeping the carpet clean, than touching hurting lives. Quite discouraging, these churches are little more than brick and mortar. For them, church is just a building.

But I’ve also seen enough to know there are many churches -churches like Audacity- that see people instead of insurance liabilities. These churches realize that we are most like Jesus when we get dirty serving our city, not when we’re wearing our “Sunday’s best.”

I later discovered that this unnamed church, despite it’s perfect location in the city, had long since forgotten their first love and were little more than a historical landmark to the 500,000 + residents of the Wichita metro area.

We have the most life-giving, life-changing message in the universe! Let us be busy building His Kingdom.

Blessings,

John

PS – On a lighter note, here is a video we were able to throw together on that day: