There's No Place Like Home

During the pandemic, there was a quote being shared all over social media by a well-known megachurch pastor that said, “I hear people say, ‘I don't have to go to church to be a Christian,' and they are absolutely right. Salvation is through faith alone in Christ alone. But you don't have to go home to be married, but stay away long enough & your relationship will be affected.” Each time one of my friends shared this online my heart groaned because it equated a church building and services as the meeting place or "home" of God and his people, where we develop our relationship with him.

Not since Pentecost, however, has the presence of God been connected to a physical meeting place where we go to meet him. Instead, God builds his temple in our hearts, and our covenant with him is first developed through a personal relationship, not simply attending church services. While the local church is essential to God’s design, a church building isn't our “home.” When we put our faith in Jesus, God makes his home inside us, and our eternal home is with God himself.

Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23 ).

John wrote the book of Revelation while exiled on Patmos, and Paul wrote part of the Scriptures while he was arrested. They loved Jesus's church and were integral in building it, but their relationship with God didn’t suffer from missing services or meetings for a period of time. Instead, they wrote some of the most powerful words ever wrote in human history while they were outside of what we Americans call church. I’m sure they missed their congregations, but God spoke to them and used them powerfully because, through Jesus and by his Spirit, we always are home in God's presence.

In 2016, a series of dreams led me to leave everything I knew and join a megachurch in another state. Last year, another series of dreams urgently warned me that it was time to go. If I had heeded this popular quote on social media, I might have been tempted to conform to a rule placing me back inside a church building instead of following the Holy Spirit.

One of the things God showed me this past year is that there are two types of ministries in the American church. In a dream, he pointed me to when Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus’s feet with perfume. Though her ministry was unconventional, it came from a place of devotion that honored Jesus. Still, Judas criticized her for not selling the perfume and putting it toward something more useful. What he didn’t admit, however, was that he was using his position for personal gain. In the story, God was teaching me to obey the Holy Spirit instead of outward rules for ministry that may appear righteous but, at times, have other agendas. In a relationship with God, obedience is a matter of heart, not rules or methods.

I love the local church; it’s a place of fellowship and equipping for those of us who love and follow Jesus and where we serve and care for each other’s needs. However, a church building has not and will never be my home. I plead that we would stop introducing new ideas, creating rules, and prescribing procedures for the church. Instead, let's teach and encourage each other to obey how the Holy Spirit leads us to apply God's word to our lives. He leads us into fellowship with other believers but also guides us out of places that are unhealthy for our spiritual growth. It doesn’t take prophetic gifting to see that God is changing things up in the American church, but my concern is we could miss it if we continue creating our own standards instead of obeying the Lord.

To others like me who suddenly feel like a refugee evacuating the party lines of church movements, my encouragement is to continue listening and obeying the word of the Lord who brought you into this vast, new land. Wait on his voice, and he will lead you home.