In the last post, we examined two misconceptions of the church today. The first was that the church is not a social club and the second is that the church is not a vehicle for social reform. We will consider our final two in this post.
Fifth, the church (building) is not a wedding chapel. There have been a few times that I have received calls from people in the community wanting to use the church building for their weddings. On one such occasion, the parties involved were not members of any church, they just picked up the phone book and started calling churches. There is a big difference between a local church allowing its members to make such use of the building, and a church allowing its building to be “rented out” as a wedding chapel. If one is not religious enough to be a member of a church, why is it important to have a “church” wedding?
Sixth, the church is not a primary, elementary, middle, or high school for teaching secular subjects such as science, mathematics, history, literature, etc. Just about every large congregation today has a school attached to it. Education is good, but the church has a specifically spiritual mission and when that mission is diluted, God is not pleased.
Churches should not allow themselves to be misused in these ways. The church in the Bible was engaged in three works: evangelism, edification, and benevolence limited to saints only who are in need. We must learn to be content with the church as the Lord has planned it from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 3:10-11).
Kyle Campbell
