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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday February 4, 2002 Volume IV Number 5 |
FOCUS - Only a Building
Well designed structures give substance to ideas and form to values. The best of them make a clear statement about their purpose.
It’s called architecture.
What is it that inspires people to build? People build homes for shelter… but more than that. They build to provide a place for a family to grow and develop and prepare for the rough and tumble outside. They build a retreat from the pressures outside. A safe place to find rest and nourishment. They build to entertain; to welcome friends and family for the purpose of sharing a life. A home makes a statement about the occupants’ work ethic, their sense of aesthetics (or lack thereof) and their sense of place.
For some, a home is strictly functional. There’s a place to prepare meals. To take rest. To freshen up. A place for leisure. Most homes these days, even the most modest of homes all over the world, have space somewhere inside devoted to a blinking electronic tube that produces flashing colorful images and piercing sound, all designed to hold one’s attention for hours on end. At least one room is arranged around that flickering light.
On the other end of that spectrum is the Highland Park, Illinois residence of “His Airness” which made news this week because Juanita Jordan asked the judge for the house in a pending divorce settlement. Michael Jordan’s residence spans twenty-five thousand square feet and includes a full-sized NBA level gymnasium and it makes a statement, too. It tells the world that a professional athlete, with a sufficient number of championships, can live very well in the land of the free and the home of the brave. The palaces of the wealthy these days may not be surrounded by a moat filled with alligators with stone walls all around and a draw bridge, but they make just as conspicuous a statement to the rest of the world about the possibilities of success and power.
Other buildings in town make a statement, too. Just a look at the exterior will tell you what’s going on inside. Corporate chrome and glass is all business. The Mall is surrounded by a sprawling asphalt parking lot around the circumference, with the names of major department stores visible from the Interstate. The Civic Center boasts sculptures and fountains. The fire-station is a launch pad always at the ready to dispatch heavy trucks into the fray of traffic with lights flashing and sirens blaring ready to intercept emergencies and nip them in the bud. The Home Depot is a giant warehouse with electronic cash registers up front that not only tally up the bill, but keep track of the inventory. The Local School flies the flag out front and welcomes one and all at a Grand Entrance to pursue an education. Look at the average building in town, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what goes on inside.
World travelers soon discover something rather astonishing. All around the globe you will find houses of worship on street corners in most every town. These structures, like the rest, make a statement. And what a wide variety of statements. In Europe, the old structures recall a time when Royalty required good citizens to participate on the life of the church as a civic duty; and everyone knew the cathedral in the center of town was an extension of the power of the Throne and the idea was to keep things pretty much under control. The Reformation changed all that. Now places of worship are the result of a local group of people joining forces and deciding to worship together in a place of their own. Their architecture and design is as varied as the colors in the rainbow. From a store front with a cross in the window to a Gothic Cathedral complete with flying buttresses.
Our congregation is ready for a building of our own. We’ve found one. It’s a fixer-upper. It sits on a hill overlooking the countryside, over ridges and valleys and winding country roads with the mountains in the distance and from the lawn in front of the education wing it certainly is a grand view.
We’ve challenged our people to ante up. We need money. And we need craftsmen. We need machinery and tools and time and talent.
It’s an amazing thing to watch our people rally to the cause.
* * * * * * *
One of our key leaders is a former pastor. Steve continues his work on a denominational level, but when he’s in town, he’s in the trenches with the rest of us. He’s a teacher. A counselor. A spiritual cheerleader.
It wasn’t that long ago that as a pastor, Steve led his people in a building project of their own in a semi-urban community near the big city. For years, they met in a series of public schools, renting the facilities on weekends as a place of gathering. Then they purchased a local skating rink, and converted it into a worship center with offices and classrooms for a growing local congregation.
When that building was completed, a young musician, a businessman and a dad, a classical guitarist and lyricist, wrote a song for the dedication of the skating rink turned into a church. Kevin Stevenson’s words rang true then… as they do now.
This is only a building
We all know it’s true
The real church of God
Lives in me and in you
This is only a building
The Lord never could
Live in hallways constructed
Of concrete and wood
Walls and ceilings and rooflines enclose space. Keep out the weather.
Houses are houses. Go through the models at that new construction site down the road, professionally appointed, with a few little evidences of real life - like a magazine on a desk or a wooden tray with a bottle and crystal wine glasses and a color coordinated napkin sitting on the bed in the master suite - and the sterile absence of life will leave you with a sense of emptiness because this is, as beautiful as it appears, still a house. It’s not yet a home.
What makes it a home? What fills the enclosure? People. Stuff. The imprint of the occupants. The furnishings. The color. The frames on the wall. The vases and the knickknacks and the plants and the fabrics. But most of all, the love and the warmth shared by the people inside.
The house becomes a home.
And that’s only some conduit
Gray metal pipe
That carries some wire
To a fluorescent light
Someone hung in a classroom
To illumine the scene
When my little boy
First says John 3:16
To his Sunday School teacher
Who helps him to say
“Lord Jesus please come
Live in my heart today”
Oh the angels will dance
And the heavens will sing
That a child of mine is
A Child of the King
But that gray metal pipe
Running inside the wall
Didn’t have much to do
With my child at all.
* * * * * *
When Israel won its independence from the Pharaoh under the leadership of Moses (with a little help from the Lord) the period of slavery in Egypt ended for the nation and after a dramatic episode on the shores of the Red Sea (when Pharaoh, suffering from buyer’s remorse, changed his mind and reneged but failed to secure the return of a whole tribe of cheap labor) a new period of wilderness wandering began all over the Sinai Peninsula.
The people developed an urge to set aside a place in their traveling camp for worship. It was a prompting from God, who gave some pretty clear instructions on how such a place ought to look. Included were priestly clothing and worship furniture and hard-wood framing to be part of the structure. One might think that the nation Israel would be penniless after years of slavery, but according to the text, the “Children of Israel,” as they were called, carried substantial wealth with them. In their pockets and knapsacks were jewelry and precious stones and collectibles, necklaces, pendants, gems, and while there was no currency, these portable ornaments had value. When Moses announced plans for the Tabernacle to be a mobile home for the Ark of the Covenant, we’re told that “those who were willing” contributed their wealth. But not only wealth. Among these wandering former slaves were skilled craftsmen and women who contributed their expertise. They knew fabrics and robes and poles and woodworking, finishers and fitters who also “were willing” to make their contribution to the construction of a house of meeting and all the trimmings.
Even then, thousands of years ago, this community of faith longed to share that connection with each other in a physical building set apart from the ordinary, to lift up voices in prayer and praise, to study the books and to learn wisdom and to hold high an understanding of their God which bears winsome testimony to all who will take time to look on and listen - this is serious business. It’s for real.
And ever since, communities of faith have done the same. All over the world. It’s a place set apart for sacred events. Sacred moments.
And this is only a room
With some chairs in a row
And an aisle down the middle
Where folks come and go
Where someday I might stand
Over there to the right
In a rented tuxedo
With my daughter in white
And some boy we first met
In the gym down the hall
When the high school kids gathered
To play volleyball
And the friendship that grew
From that casual game
Somehow flourished and nourished
This nuptial flame
Oh the angels will dance
Let the heavens rejoice
That a godly young man
Was my little girl’s choice
But the fact that they dated
At youth group events
Is strictly a matter of coincidence.
* * * * * * *
It is a fixer-upper, our new church building.
The good people who gave their time and talent thirty years ago to create a worship and education facility on the site of an old hide-away health spa in the hills did it with good intent. They gave their best. Building codes then were lax. Architecture and design followed current trends (which have long since been abandoned) and the colors, well, they betray the tastes of another era. But all that said, our growing congregation of believers is ready to take on the challenge.
And just like Moses’ congregation out there on the Sinai, our people are willing. And able. The money’s coming in. People are bringing their wealth. But more than that, their expertise. Their machines. Their skills. Their energy. Their vision.
There’s a longing among our people as old as Moses, for the family of faith to share a home.
There’s a kitchen.
There’s a fellowship hall.
There are classrooms. And meeting rooms. And a youth room. And a conference room. And offices.
And a worship center.
Then when my life is over
And Christ holds me near
My friends and my family
Will gather right here
To speak of my virtues
And downplay my faults
While I lie across town
In the Forest Lawn vaults.
And when the service is over
They’ll finish it all
With a pot-luck buffet
In the Fellowship Hall
* * * * * * *
There is, perhaps, nothing sadder than a house that’s only a house. It can be magnificent. It can be palatial. But if it’s empty of love and warmth and activity and conversation and support and nurture and care and encouragement, it’s only a house.
And if a church stands empty, even as a museum piece, apart from the purpose for which others sacrificed and sweat and blistered and finished, that’s all it is… a building.
Now this is only a building
We all know it’s true
The real church of God
Lives in me and in you
This is only a building
The Lord never could
Live in hallways constructed
Of concrete and wood
But this concrete and conduit
And the sheetrock and steel
Give substance and form
To the things that are real
Oh… our lives are like stories
We live page to page
Our faith is a drama
This building’s
The stage.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
Kevin’s lyrics say it so well. I hope someday you hear him sing it; his voice, his classical guitar accompaniment, puts a whole lot in perspective. We hope he will sing it at our dedication a couple months from now. Even a modest house can bring people together in meaningful ways. It’s home. Michael Jordan’s opulent house surely seems empty to Juanita about now. There’s lots of flash. But something important is missing.
Maybe you’ve got a place of business. You’ve got a classroom. You’ve got a professional office. You’ve got a place of worship. You’ve got a house. They are all buildings. But what’s inside?
Because you are a leader, you set the pace. You fill the room. What do you bring there?
Your life is a drama. You live page to page.
Make your house a home.
Fill it up with something good.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2002
LeaderFOCUS is brought to you by Good Stewardship Associates
Special Thanks for Design by my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
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