The People Are The Church
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. -- Acts 20:29
Sunday was a special day across Alabama. A day of prayer, the governor said. Yeah. It was that and so much more. It was a day of thanksgiving, a day of mourning, a day of crying out to God.
Rev. Larry Corder stood in the parking lot Sunday morning and looked out at the congregation gathered around him. The remains of the Alberta Baptist Church building were clearly evident in the background of the video. Just one more destroyed building in a sea of death and destruction. Heartache compounded by the loss of a refuge.
Yet Corder reminded the people that God's church isn't a building. It's the people. Losing a church building hurts because there are so many memories we associate with it. It is the site of baptisms and weddings and funerals. It is a place of Sunday worship and Wednesday fellowship. It is laughter during vacation bible school and joy as a new believer joins the fold. Memories remain in our hearts even as we mourn the loss of the building.
Because it is just a building. A church is the people who pull together during a crisis. A church is the love that reaches out to comfort and hold the lost. A church is the face of Jesus grieving with His people even as they draw from His strength.
It's impossible to make sense of this horrible tragedy. But we can find strength in the body of Christ, the people who last long after the building is gone.
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