Here’s the church and here’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the people…

There was a day when we could recognize a building as a church by its distinctive features, but now the architecture of sacred spaces runs the gamut.   Churches are designed to identify with a thousand different subtly secularized ideas about their mission, vision and community.  Some look like schools, others like shopping malls, while some resemble professional office parks and are called campuses.  Church buildings come in every conceivable shape and size, each with a corresponding and yet, competing vision of why it exists.

But the church is not the building, and its mission, vision and community, while flavored by the soil in which it is planted, is not as variable as the edifices that house it.   The church pictured in the New Testament is not an innovation or departure from the Old Testament covenanted community.  In fact, it is explicitly described as “the Israel of God.”  On the day of Pentecost, the church is not born as some assert, but new branches are radically engrafted.  The essence of the ekklesia, the “called ones” is reasserted, not reinvented, but now with the “dividing wall of hostility removed.”

Acts 2:36-47 reveals a glimpse of this as the picture of the church, its identity, and its impact is reaffirmed in light of Pentecost.   In our day, when the mission, vision and community of the church is as diverse as the buildings in which it meets, it is important to return to the exemplar.

What is a Church?   What is River City Reformed Church?  Join us this Lord’s Day, November 12, as we examine Acts 2 and consider our identity and impact as a Church.

We meet from 5:00 – 6:30 pm in The Commons at St. Andrews Anglican Church at 8300 Kanis Rd in Little Rock.  Click here for directions. Come with a friend you and join us for fellowship and conversation. We look forward to seeing you there.