THE CHURCH in a HOUSE?

Bishop Dr Gordon Wong, Bishop of the Methodist Church in Singapore. He usually includes a song in his sermons.

Greet also the church in their house. (Romans 16:5)

The apostle Paul, missionary to all the nations, does not here understand a “church” to be a building. The “church” may meet in a building – in this verse, the “church” met in the house of Prisca and Aquila. But the church is not a building.

COVID-19 has stopped many from meeting together in a church building or sanctuary throughout the last 18 months. But the church of Jesus is not a physical building. As the song in our Methodist Hymnal puts it:

The church is not a building; the church is not a steeple; the church is not a resting place; the church is a people. We're many kinds of people, with many kinds of faces, all colours and all ages, too from all times and places. I am the church! You are the church! We are the church together! All who follow Jesus, all around the world! Yes, we're the church together!

Jesus Himself promised that wherever two or three persons meet together in His honour, He will be in their midst (Matthew 18:20).

So what does it mean to plant a church?

I guess church planting means sowing and watering seeds that will grow into two, three, or more, people who meet – whether in a house, or online – in honour of Jesus who taught us all to Love God By Loving Our Neighbours.

May the Methodist Missions Society keep on planting seeds that grow into churches, with or without buildings, but certainly without walls.