“When is a building, not a building?” I’m not going to make you wait until the end of my sermon for the answer. “When is a building, not a building?” When it is a church – you may have guessed that answer.
The writer of Psalm 127 declares, “Unless God builds the house, those who build it labour in vain.” Indeed, if we only built this building to have a building, it would be sad indeed. Look around the downtown. Unfortunately, there are many wonderful but empty buildings, built with a purpose in mind, a purpose they are not serving at the moment. We didn’t need to build a building in order to have a building. We built it for something more.
As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of this facility, we are taking time to consider what exactly we are here for, why we gather, what we envision for the present and future of our church gathered in this building.
James P. Wind, of the Alban Institute, says this about our church buildings:
Our religious spaces are special places that make room for our spiritual
selves to emerge, for sacred stories to be told, and life-giving practices to be
learned. They make room for us to meet God, rekindle hope, experience
self-emptying love, and face the [shadowed] side of our humanness with the
light of grace. From these places, justice and mercy are set loose in the
world....Our challenge is the same as that faced in every era: to keep clearing
imaginative space and keep building new kinds of sacred containers and
symbols that will release healing in the world.