The gathering of the children of God

I was reading on emergent village about one of the churches who had joined. They made a grerat run at what church is all about, but then they lost their steam halfway through and went back to the starting line. They began by saying:

Vintage Faith Church will be a church of "people", not a "place" you go to.

but then the ended up saying that it was actually a place to go, but it's just not FOREMOST a place you go. Man, if you're in for a dime, you've gotta be in for a dollar. It either is or it isn't.

Vintage Faith Church will be a church of "people", not a "place" you go to.

This may sound confusing, but nowhere in the New Testament do you read once that they "went to church". What you do read is that the church (the people) gathered together. There is a big difference between the two. The church is the people, not a place or a meeting you attend. We believe that through time in the modern world, the church" has become known to be more of a place that people go to vs. a people on a mission for God. We cannot underestimate the power of words that shape our viewpoints and understanding of what a "church" is, and how it is supposed to function. Vintage Faith Church will definitely have large weekly worship gatherings, and will have various classes and other meetings at a "place"- but foremost, we will be defined and function as a community of "people". If this is intriguing to you, or even confusing, you will hear a lot about this as we [flesh] out our vision and values in the planning and launching of the new church.

My hope is that somehow we can reclaim God's vision for His church so that it is not about meeting anywhere, not in a "worship center" nor a "church" nor "Solomon's Porch" nor "house to house." It is about, like they said, "a people on a mission for God," where any meeting at any place is merely consequential--I have never seen that yet in any gathering of any people anywhere in the world. It's always at least a little about the meeting itself.

Until we completely disavow ourselves of any notion that any gathering has any intrinsic value whatsoever, we will still have a leg or an arm or a finger caught in the trap of the world. The only thing valuable is the people in the gathering, and those souls were just as valuable before they gathered and will be just as valuable when all gatherings are over. It's not what they do or don't do, say or don't say, think or don't think. It's not any elements of the gathering. Until we come to such a place of communion with God that we hunger and thirst for the careless touch of fellowship, we will continue to tinker with the meeting places and orders of worship ad nauseum, and effect no transformation of true or undefiled religion. We will remain infatuated with either "getting it right" or "getting it palatable" or "getting it liberated" or "getting it unified" or "getting it under control" or "getting it defined" or "getting it organized" or whatever else the mind of man can conceive as important.

So where should you meet? Nowhere. Everywhere.

Or, as the conqueror in Kingdom of Heaven answered when he took possession of Jerusalem,

"How much is Jerusalem worth?"
"Nothing. Everything."

I do not say that this has never existed (I think a few groups have caught this throughout the millennia). I do not say that the kingdom was ever lost such that we have to get it back (the King is still on His throne). But His kingdom has never come through any structure, neither architectural nor organizational. "It is within you."