Church is where you are.

It's hard to imagine a time when there was no church. We walk through our towns and there are churches of every shape, size, and color on every other corner. Small churches broadcast their services on public access cable channels while mega churches broadcast their own channels. Church, though too often removing itself from culture, is truly ingrained into it. If you say to a coworker or a person at school, "I'm going to church", everyone knows what you mean. I've never been asked, "Church? What's that?"

But there was a time when the church had it's beginning. It was an exciting time when, instead of figuring out how to work a church themselves, people had faith in God to do the figuring for them. All of this is recorded in the book of Acts and to a lesser degree throughout the Epistles. The book of Acts is our historical record of the very beginning of the church. God preserved this record and included it in the scriptures as an example for us. Acts is how you do church.

Paul becomes the focus of the book of Acts a few chapters after his conversion. Paul is a cool dude. He is very sure of himself before he knows Jesus, very self-reliant and prideful. After Jesus comes into his life we see a different man, a man that is sure of Jesus and is Spirit-reliant and humble. That's what Jesus does, He changes people. He changes them for the better and He makes them His church. God's building program isn't roofs and doors and windows, it's men and women and children. Your church might be a building on Maple Street but God's church is people - no address required.

So, Paul finds himself in Athens. This is a pretty big deal, in a day before $79 flights to Ft. Lauderdale and family vacations to Aruba. Athens was quite a distance from his home town but he didn't let that stop him from doing church. Too often we do church where it's clean and pre-cut and normal, but Acts contrasts that with the example of church being messy and free-form and weird. How many times have you been in a "strange place" and were unwilling to do church? You'll talk about Jesus when you're in a Bible study or at your kitchen table but not when you're in school or a friends house?

Without hashing things out too much, here is the boiled down version of what takes place: First, Paul observes what's happening where he is. The scripture says he was deeply troubled by what he saw going on. How many times do you see the things going on around you and are upset by what you see? The hurt of our friends, the stupid choices people keep making that only bring more pain, these things upset us. Second, he did something about the hurt he felt for these people. He didn't just say a prayer about it and go about his day. He engaged the people with a remedy for their problem. Third, Paul introduced them to Jesus. This is the natural development of witness that God set up. God wants us to be missional. That means he wants us to be like Paul and engage our culture and introduce Jesus into it.

It all starts with love. Love for God. Love for people. Let's face it, we can get upset for all sorts of reasons, and most of those reasons are selfish. Our churches have been upset for a long time, and for all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong outcomes. Our driving force should be love and love doesn't leave things alone. When love sees a problem, a hurt, a pain, it acts. Love isn't still, it's active and alive and engaging.

What I pray for us is that we get over calling buildings churches and start taking the responsibility to be the church, just like God planned. I pray that we would take the example of Paul in Acts 17 and follow the three steps of a missional lifestyle and that our lives would be wrapped in and empowered by love. Awesome.