The church is Christ’s gift to us. I have heard those words many times, but I heard them again at synod, which I attended last week. I had not really thought about what that meant, and I suspect I am not alone. In fact, it seems increasingly that Christians do not see the church as God’s gift; more and more Christians are perceiving that the church is part of the problem.

How do we understand the word, “church”? There are at least three definitions. The first refers to the building, but we all know that the building is not the church. The second refers to the people: those who believe in Jesus and seek to follow him are the church. This is the best definition of the word, “church.” There is a third definition that perceives the church to be an institution or an organization. This third definition might lead us to say something like this: the church decided that it would no longer hold evening services. In this last understanding, we perceive that the church is rather like a business. A parallel statement might be: the business decided that it would sell lumber only to contractors who had an account with them. In this third definition, the church is somewhat equated with its leadership, the decision makers.

It is the third definition, understanding the church as an organization or institution that has caused many to rethink their relationship to the church. “I do not want to be part of the church,” they say, indicating that they don’t want to belong to an organized church. Similarly, they might say, “I can be a Christian without the church.” Again, what they mean is that they do not want to participate in the organized church and it’s not that they don’t want to associate with other Christians.

When we hear the phrase, “The church is Christ’s gift to us,” we might question the truth of that statement if we think of the church mostly in terms of it being an organization or an institution. If we look at history, it doesn’t take us long to determine that there are many times when the church, as an institution, did not serve the people very well. Often times the decisions of the church (made by the leadership) served to harm the people more than they did to help them. It has been said by some that they would be happy to be a Christian if it weren’t for the church.

It is sometimes hard to disagree with those who feel disenfranchised by the church, especially as they think about the church as an institution. It does not feel like Christ’s gift to them, and the more institutional it becomes, the less like a gift it seems to be.

Of course, no church can exist without some kind of organization. In fact, no three people can spend time doing anything together without some kind of organization. When people gather, there needs to be someone to take a leadership role and guide the group. That often takes the form of setting an agenda, facilitating discussion, and clarifying direction. A church is no different in that regard, but the leadership of the church must carefully consider how it does its work. The leadership of the church, we believe in the CRC, has been set in place by God to guide the members of the church (the real church) to grow in faith and to serve Christ. They may be called upon to set agenda, guide discussions, and give direction, but everything that they do is so that the followers of Jesus Christ grow in their faith and become more faithful in their service and witness to their Lord. While the leadership is called to have the best interests of the church in mind, the church they are thinking of is not the organization but the people. It is easy, however, for the leadership to begin to develop the mindset that they are there to serve the organization first, perhaps to the neglect of the people.

When we think of the church, we should always think of it in terms of it being the people of God and never in terms of it being an organization. While the institutional elements are inevitable, they are there only to ensure that the people of God can be the church effectively and faithfully. The organization serves the body, is another way of looking at it. When we think of the church as being the people, we recognize that it is Christ’s gift to us. We work alongside other believers, contending for the gospel, we hold each other accountable, we encourage each other, and we seek to be a witness to the world together. We cannot do that alone, and if we want to be faithful, we need each other. It is Christ’s gift to us, that we have each other. Consider what it would be like to live in a place with almost no followers of Jesus Christ and to have to maintain our faith all by ourselves. With the Holy Spirit in us, that is possible of course, but it makes all the difference to do this together with others.

We can celebrate the fact that the church is Christ’s gift to us. We benefit greatly from belonging to a church, and we rejoice that we do not practice our faith alone. We can also celebrate that Jesus Christ raises us leaders to help us become all that Christ meant us to be, rejoicing even when the church begins to take on institutional tones. As long as the organized part of the church serves to enable followers of Jesus Christ in their service and worship, we can see it as a gift. Only when the leaders begin to serve the institution should we be concerned. We always need to be reminded of what the church is, and as we are reminded, we can also celebrate that the church is Christ’s gift to his people.