Things You Save in a Fire

When the house is on fire, you save the children and vulnerable first. The same should be true for the church.

If your house was on fire, what would you save?

Your wedding ring?

Your computer?

Your wallet?

Your family?

What if you’re the fireman rushing to the scene and the homeowner looks at you and says, “save the house no matter what.” You stare at her in shock. You can hear the screams of the children. You know her husband is inside, trapped behind a heavy door. But she wants you to save the house?

I was recently on a podcast talking about the topic of church hurt, and this analogy came up. A lot contributes to church hurt, but one I hear often is the impulse in a crisis to preserve the institution over the people. Conflict is a given when you put a bunch of sinners together. And even our best attempts to protect from harm collapse under the weight of a broken world. I’ve seen leaders choose specific narratives about why a person leaves the church to hold the shred of unity that remains. I’ve heard of leaders allowing bad actors into the church, and then covering up their moral failings. And I’ve witnessed leaders pick the church over the ones hurt under her care. There are run of the mill church struggles that are to be expected, and then there aren’t.

The house is burning, and we’re telling the firemen to save the building at all costs. How many people have to “die” before we see that we’re saving the wrong thing in the fire?

We consider someone completely insane to choose the building over the people, but we do it in theory when we choose the institution over the people who make up the institution.

I love the church. I believe in the church. But I’m not beholden to one local expression of the church. None of us should be. We get into trouble when we place a higher priority on the institution, or the history, or the good things the local expression has accomplished, at the expense of the people inside—and let’s be honest—at the expense of the women and children inside.

In Revelation, the apostle John writes about seven churches, and some of those churches get a stern talking to. Some of them lose their witness because of their failure to obey. Some of them tolerate sin but pretend to be holy. Some of them he threatens to take away their witness—their lamp stand. We’ve all been tempted towards this since sin entered the world.

We did church planting for eight years. The church still exists today, but like any church, it doesn’t look the same. Most of the original members and leaders moved on. The church we were members of in seminary merged with another church and doesn’t even have the same name anymore. When a church closes its doors, or merges with another church, or dwindles in size, it doesn’t mean the church has failed, it just means that local expression has run its course.

The gates of hell will not prevail against the church, but God never promised that to the First Baptist Church on the corner or the Second Presbyterian Church down the road. He promised it to us, his people. We comprise the church. We are the place his presence dwells—in our very bodies through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The building can crumble, but the church marches on because the people are the church. When we save the institution, or the reputation, or the name of the local expression and let the people inside burn, we contribute to the church’s demise. We think we’re saving her, but we’re expediting her swift end.

Sometimes I think we get stuck on the institution because we live in a western context where the majority of our churches meet in buildings. We rally around by-laws and constitutions and mission statements (which are important!), and we think that this is what makes the church carry on. We need the structure. But the structure is a by-product of our unity around God’s presence indwelling us. Sometimes we miss that we are New Testament Christians, no longer dependent on the physical temple to worship God. In the Old Testament, the temple was once the place where God dwelled. He filled the temple in 2 Chronicles 7 when Solomon completed the temple.

But when the temple was destroyed and rebuilt, he never came back to fill the temple. It wasn’t because he stopped working. It was because he was doing something better than filling a local expression of his glory. He wanted his image on the move—so he came to dwell inside us—his image bearers. The destruction of the temple in 70 AD was sad, but it wasn’t a game changer. This was such a monumental change in history that Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians, that they are God’s temple (1 Cor. 3). All the holiness required of those who came into the temple, was now required of them. And made possible by God taking up residence inside them through the Holy Spirit.

We care about people because they bear God’s image. We care about people because we are God’s temple—we are the building where God dwells.

When we choose the institution over the people, we choose an empty shell over the very image of God. We choose the house over our flesh and blood screaming inside for help.

In some places of evangelicalism, the house is burning. And it’s a beautiful house. It’s hard to see it go. A lot of good work has happened in that house. Lives have been changed around that dinner table. Sinners were welcomed home into a family who loved them. The Word was preached. But we need to hear the screams coming from inside. The house isn’t the church, the people are, and she’s crying out for us to listen.