The Church is Not a Building… Or is it?

Hosts: TJ Freeman, Joe Wagner, and Josh MacClaren

Summary: In this episode of Rural Church Renewal, TJ, Joe, and Josh discuss the often-overlooked importance of church building conditions and hospitality. They explore how the sufficiency of Scripture guides every part of life, including how church environments reflect biblical hospitality. They emphasize that welcoming, clean, and well-maintained spaces convey care and respect, making visitors feel comfortable and valued. The hosts share practical tips and scriptural references to encourage church leaders to review their spaces and make necessary improvements, ultimately underscoring how such actions honor God and serve others.

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Transcript

Imagine this. A visitor pulls into your church. It's their first time there, and when they step out of the car, they notice some faded signs, some peeling paint, and when they walk inside, the entryway is full of clutter. As they move toward the pews, they start to smell that musty carpet smell.

They're working their way through the dim lighting, and there's no clear direction on where they're really supposed to go. Let me just ask you, what message have they already received before they've even heard you preach the gospel? The truth is, hospitality starts long before you greet someone with a handshake. What does the condition of your building Say about your understanding of the Bible and the God that you serve? 

Well, welcome back to another episode of Rural Church Renewal. My name is TJ Freeman. I am a rural pastor and I am joined by my friends. 

Hey, this is Joe. I am also an associate pastor here at Christ Church.

 What's going on, guys? This is Josh MacClaren. Rural pastor.

Today we have the joy of talking together about something that's really easy to overlook. And that is our church buildings. We have been talking about the sufficiency of scripture together. Which means what, by the way, guys? What do we mean when we say sufficiency of scripture? 

It means it's sufficient.

It means it can be used for all things. 

Thank you, Captain Obvious. 

 Scripture completes us. Scripture equips us for everything we need. 

There you go, Josh. 

What are you talking about? Break it down into something. 

Dude, you did this to me last time.

A five year old could understand. You have young kids in your house. 

Yes. 

And are you like, hey Come on guys, scripture it completes you. 

Probably. 

Alright, what, what do we really mean? 

Willow, sweetie, the Bible is God's word, and if you want to be saved, and you want to glorify God, that's what you need.

In all things. 

So it only deals with salvation? 

No, I said after that. I didn't just say salvation. Go ahead, Joe. 

The people are going to love this part. 

I know. 

In all things. Everything! That means all things. Whether it is in things dealing with hospitality or in things dealing with salvation or anything in between, Scripture gives us the guidelines, the directions that we should follow, according to God's will.

Alright, does Scripture say something about me watching a football game and going away upset that my team lost? 

Yeah, probably, when it talks about idols and idolatry. 

Okay. 

And, ruling your spirit. 

Yeah, the kind of things you think about. 

And being self controlled.

Right. So it comes to bear in every area of life.

And actually that little anecdote we just had, as embarrassing as that may have felt for our listeners to listen to, it illustrates something important. And that is that we don't always have a firm grasp on how scripture comes to bear in some areas of our lives. And one of the areas that that happens to us as pastors and church leaders is when it comes to the condition of our buildings. We don't put a lot of thought into the shape of our buildings.

And it can be something that we get very used to, we neglect, we overlook, we may even say it's not important and it really shouldn't matter. So can you guys Think of anything in the Bible that might encourage us to think about the condition of our buildings?

Yeah, first Peter in chapter 4 verse 9. He talks about showing hospitality to one another without grumbling.

Titus in chapter one, verse eight, be hospitable, a lover of good, self controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. Keywords are that we're looking at is hospitable. And if you look at those in context, you can see the context is be hospitable to one another. But one of our great desires is to be able to add to the one another, to be able to bring people in.

So hospitality is a huge thing. The Bible does address it specifically and exactly and shows us how we should welcome people into our spaces. Welcome them into our churches, into our homes, Into our congregations and memberships. To be able to be welcoming to people. And without grumbling. 

The author of Hebrews says do not neglect to show Hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels. 

Bingo.

It's pretty wild. 

See so it really does Cover all the bases that we're talking. 

All the bases. 

So what I'm hearing is there is a call to be hospitable. And There's a temptation, a common temptation, to grumble about having to be hospitable. What would be behind that? 

Well, you gotta be intentional, right? You gotta think about it.

You gotta think of others greater than yourself. So, what are they gonna think when they walk into my door? How am I gonna greet them? Am I gonna offer them some water? Like, thinking about in our homes, maybe I should be thinking about more in our churches. You know, what is a guest going to think, when they walk in and they see?

Well, what do they see? What do they smell? Who's going to greet them? Is someone going to greet them? Are they going to be welcomed to some coffee? Or refreshments? You know, these types of things. 

Those are a ton of quite great questions to ask yourself and to ask your people, but that also goes back to the heart matter, too.

Do your people want strangers to come in? Are they welcoming? Often times when strangers come in, when new people come in, when guests come in, Hey, it's great to have them, but we have this natural thing in our brain where, Hey, sometimes guests are like fish, after a couple of days they begin to stink.

We don't want them to begin to stink in our nostrils. We want to love them, invite them in, share the gospel with them, and have them hear, since we're talking about the sufficiency of scripture, we want to have them hear the gospel preached, from behind that pulpit. We want to have them listen to our sermons. We want to be able to disciple them. And so what we need to be able to do is have a heart that loves people and then that then extends to lowering the barriers for them to come in.

There's so many things out in the world that keeps people from coming into the church. Well, flesh and devil. There's so many gateways for people to get through, to get into our churches. We don't want to raise any more barriers for them to come in. And that includes a lot of the things that we were talking about.

Like, what's the shape and condition of the building that you're in?

Yeah, that's good. So, I'll bet you, the average listener is going, you know, I Appreciate the sufficiency of scripture and I think I live by it. I want the word to dominate generally in everything I do and I mean for that to happen. And what I'm kind of thinking is We overlook certain areas in our lives where we don't think the sufficiency of scripture speaks to it or matters that much.

And the condition of the parking lot is one of those areas. So if you pull in and it's muddy out and your parking lot is just a mud pit, you've actually neglected caring for strangers well, showing hospitality. So you're saying Joe, if you really love people well, you're going to think through ahead of time, how can I best care for them, so that when they walk into this church in their high heels and fancy Sunday clothes, they're not covered in mud by the time they get to the door.

Right. I would bet you that if we were to say the sufficiency of scripture and we're talking to pastors or teachers or anybody in the church. They're going to immediately go to, like, that one aspect, that teaching aspect. Right. I can teach anyone about anything in life because of the sufficiency of scripture.

And then, the teacher, the preacher, even the listeners that are there. They're going to be like, okay, this is God's word, but that's right there, like the heart of what it is and what it extends to hospitality, bringing people in to where you are. So just exactly what TJ said, sufficiency of scripture does not just mean that you're going to pour over scripture to be able to teach it and teach it well.

It goes out even to bringing them in, into your parking lots, into your entryways, into your greeters, into The stuff that might be laying in your church that has been laying there for months or maybe even years. That everybody else is used to, but as soon as somebody comes in new and they see that laying around, they're going to immediately have thoughts in their brain and you're, and you're putting up barriers for them immediately. Even if you are preaching the very best sermon and you've got the great illustration and you're driving home to your point, if somebody's sitting there and looking at, I don't know. Name something that somebody could see there and be discouraged by when they walk into a church. Piles of stuff. Dirt. Old carpets. Smell. 

Outdated material. 

Yeah. Bulletin board postings that are four years old. 

So the bible is telling us we need to seek to show hospitality, which is an active phrase. Seek to show hospitality. So when we do that, it means i'm going to be actively looking for ways I can be a blessing to people who come into the church building, as one example of showing hospitality corporately. So If we're going to do that, we're also going to brush up against the temptation to grumble, according to scripture. And somebody's going to go, we don't want to spend a thousand dollars putting stone in our parking lot. Somebody's going to go, you know what, that tracked rack, by the door.

With tracks from the 1970s. It's been there my whole life. Why would we update that? 

And my uncle bought it. 

And my uncle bought it, yeah. Hey, this paneling, it's fine. We don't need to paint the paneling. Let's just leave it like this. That sign out there, that sign's been there for 50 years, it's fine.

It doesn't need updated. And we've all seen examples of this. Josh, you've lived some of these examples and you're a good example because you don't have a physical building. Nope. So you've had to use rented spaces. Yes. And some of those rented spaces have not allowed you to show proper hospitality And it's caused you to make decisions.

Yeah. We experienced a rented space where there was Visibly, and even just through the senses of smell, and even people's allergic reactions, There was clearly a mold problem in the space. And it had caused even some of our own members to not be able to Attend, or even struggle with attending, some were even fighting to just attend but they were having visceral reactions. So location was great.

Great. Yep. Time is fine. Not necessarily ideal, but fine. So to not even be able to care for our own members let alone guests was Really hard to do.

Walking into a molding building. How many rural people listening probably have mold somewhere in their building? So this would be something where you'd go, if I want to Apply the sufficiency of scripture to the way I care for my building, I need to make sure that we're keeping it clean. And we're going to go down there and do mold remediation, even though it's going To cost more than the average kind of a cleanup project.

That's a way that you actually love and serve and show hospitality. 

It's good stewardship and it's worth the cost. It's not frivolous if it means you're seeking to care for your own flock and the people who may be added to it. 

I'll share a much less expensive example, but how deep rooted, this goes.

So in a previous church where I was serving at, it was a smaller church, and really people were used to where the sanctuary was, where the bathrooms were, and where the classrooms were. It was a pretty small church. Most people could probably figure it out when they were coming in. Guests, when they were to walk in, we know that guests are just taking everything in, they don't know where anything is.

So what we did was we put up a sign. It was a fairly large sign. It was a directional sign. Sanctuary that way, classrooms this way, bathrooms this way. You know who had a problem with that sign? The people that were there for a long, long time. They didn't like it. It moved some of the stuff that they really like to have hanging on the wall in that particular space.

And they were not thinking in the hospitality, according to what scripture would say, to be hospitable to strangers, to people coming in. And that was really a deep seated heart issue when it gets right down to it. 

It's a great example. Would those people have thought That they believe in the sufficiency of scripture.

They certainly would have said, Absolutely we believe in the sufficiency of scripture. But when it butted up against something that they didn't like, Then they totally forgot about the sufficiency of scripture, or didn't even make the connection. 

I went and visited a church one week, And they were a church that would have yard sales, But it was like a free yard sale, you know, People would bring their stuff, donate it, and then the community can come and take what they want.

And they did it once a year. But all year long leading up to it, guess what people did with their junk? Piled it outside that church door and then some of it would make its way into the foyer area. And I just remember walking by garbage bags and boxes and all kinds of things just stacked in piles. And I asked the pastor what it was for, and he said this is for our yard sale 11 months from now. And that's just something that they had all grown accustomed to. People brought in their junk and they set it by the door. And when guests walk in that's the first thing they're going to notice. That's the first thing I noticed and it does communicate something.

You wouldn't want to do that in your home. You would know enough that when somebody is coming over to your home, you try to tidy up. And sometimes you have that closet, you shove everything into that. You don't want people to see. At your church you can, in anticipation of guests coming, whether there's been a guest in the last five years or not, in anticipation of the fact that God, the Holy spirit, may lay it on somebody's heart to come to your church, to hear the gospel preached, clean up your foyer. Clean up your bathrooms. Clean up the area around the pews. Dust the flies off the windowsills. These kinds of actions are very simple. Most of them are very cheap and they get after applying God's word in all areas of your ministry. And I just want to say lovingly to my friends in rural places, listening to this podcast, you're building is probably in need of some updating.

One of the reasons that people don't come to your church, even though you have good intentions and whatever, and they're never going to say this to you. One of the reasons they don't come into your church is because they don't feel comfortable when they're there. That may be because it's dirty. It may be because it stinks.

It may be because when they walk in the door, they just don't know where to go or what to do. It may be because you don't have greeters, or if you do, they don't know what to say. It may be that no one's even looking or thinking about what a guest would do. It may be that you bombard them like crazy. One time I went to a church, my wife and I were in college, and I swear it was an evening service.

They must have known that our headlights were different. Than the headlights that normally came in that driveway because when we got there, every man from the church was in a line to shake our hands. The women were not part of it, but every man from the church was there and they made us feel super weird.

There are so many ways in a rural church that you can slip into a pattern where you don't even realize that you are not being hospitable. And that is part of the reason that your church is stagnant. And you need to take this seriously if you want to obey scripture fully and be hospitable. 

So the driving factor for you, church in rural areas, is not to bring more people in.

The driving factor is not, hey, this is going to make everything look tidy. The driving factor is because this is what scripture says to do. 

That's right. And some of those other things are benefits. Perhaps the Lord would use your efforts in this to let somebody come in and feel a little more comfortable and come back a second time. That's not the goal. The goal is to obey the Bible, to honor the Lord, and to be loving and hospitable. 

Yeah, loving and hospitable because this is, these are emotions. These are heart sorts of issues too. So maybe one thing people in the churches in the rural areas to be thinking about as you're dusting out the corners, as you're putting up a sign, as you're taking down the really, really old stuff, is be examining your heart.

Hey, I want people to come in. I want people to hear God's word. I want to be able to worship with more people than what we're worshiping with right now. And so make that accessible to them.

So here's the challenge. Take a walk through your building. If it's a rented space, you can do it. If it's your own space, you can do it.

And try to have the eyes of a guest. You might even invite a friend along, who doesn't go to your church. 

That's a really good idea. 

And just take a walk through the building together and talk about smells. Talk about cobwebs in the corner. Talk about piles of hymnals that are stacked all weird on the sound booth.

Talk about whether there's Bibles out so that if a guest comes, they can actually read from the same version of the Bible you're preaching from. Talk about what's in your bulletins. You know, just do that kind of an inventory and start with the cheap stuff, the easy stuff. A little bit of bleach goes a long way.

And work toward things like maybe you need to save up to do a little bit of a renovation project. Maybe you need to put a ramp outside so that people who are in a wheelchair can get in. 

They're just keeping the weeds down in the flowerbeds. 

That's right. 

Those are the sorts of things. We're thinking new light bulbs.

That's right. Lighting makes a difference. We were with a friend recently and he was talking about a debate in their elders and deacons meetings about the color temperature of the lights. And they came to the conclusion that it really mattered. We want a warm, inviting feel, not some industrial, sterile, cold Sam's Club feel.

And they made lightbulb choices based on hospitality. 

Maybe you throw down an area rug in an area that's really echoey. 

Yeah, yeah. 

Really simple, easy things that you'd be able to do here and there. 

Yep, that's good. So, that's your homework, dear friend, dear listener. Go take a little walk through the church.

I think this is important. Just thought of this. Okay. So as you're doing that if you're in leadership in your church. And you're recognizing some of these sorts of things. What you then do is also, Live according to the sufficiency of scripture and you can equip people in your church. That's right. As well.

And as you're equipping them in these minor projects, then you can share the heart from behind what you're doing it for. 

Absolutely, and then there's some teaching it as well. So think about application in your sermons Think about Sunday school classes, about hospitality. Think about ways that you can teach and instruct the congregation in love to be hospitable.

And it's really delightful. When you start thinking about others and how to be a blessing, there's a joy that comes with that, that far outweighs the comfort you might feel now by not doing something like that.

So what have we talked about on this episode? We've walked through some scripture talking about what it means to be hospitable and how we need to seek to do it and not grumble instead. 

We've talked about the fact that hospitality falls under the umbrella of the sufficiency of scripture, even though it's not something we might primarily think about. And how we care for our buildings actually communicates something about how we care for the people who will fill them. And then ultimately how God cares for us.

And we've given you the challenge to go out and take a walk through your building and see what you can do to make some headway. I hope these things are helpful to you. We're so happy to be talking about this together. We want to see the church thrive in rural places for the sake of God's glory. He wants to be glorified even in the middle of nowhere.

That includes the town you live in and the church you attend. So go now and serve with a joyful heart and make Christ known through the way you care for your building. Raise your Ebenezer. You thought I was going to say, go serve your king.