Church = Building?

Adam Sieff, our student ministries director at Hillcrest (and budding Hip Hop artist) gave his first sermon Sunday (it was excellent!) on who the church is (a hope, a blessing, a people, etc) and what it is not (mainly, a building). And yet so much of what we talk about and discuss and even read almost makes the subliminal connection that the church is a building. We're reading through the Bible at Hillcrest and we're almost done with Exodus, and as much as the book is about the people's exit from Egypt, you could almost argue that a better title would be "how to build a tabernacle". Over 11 chapters in Exodus contain either instructions for how the tabernacle was to be built and/or instructions concerning the priests once the structure was completed!

A popular blog I read by a well known church leader has been interviewing several other well-known pastors and asking them, among other questions, what their current biggest leadership challenge is, and many of the answers deal with 'church as building' kinds of issues whether it's a new facility, moving facilities, or securing facilities for multiple campuses. I don't doubt the sincerity of these leaders, and am not saying that talking about buildings or acquiring new buildings is a bad thing (perhaps it's even some steeple envy on my end, as Adam preached about Sunday), but to learn that church is people, many of us have to unlearn that church is a building, because we see and hear so much of it.