I closed yesterday’s blog with “Did you see the baseball in your shoe this morning?” The manager wants you to pitch today. Or, as Seth Godin says, “It’s your turn. It’s always your turn.” In one blog, he states it this way:

It’s easy to wait for it. The movies have taught us that when the music swells and the chips are down, that’s when leaders arrive and when heroes are made.

It turns out, that’s not how it works.

Our work is what happens in all the moments. Leadership doesn’t simply appear when the script announces it does: it is the hard work of showing up when we’re not expected to, of seeing what’s possible when few are willing to believe.

Your defining moment is whenever you decide it is, and you get a new chance to lead every day. – Seth Godin

I really resonate with these messages. Maybe that’s why I react so strongly to articles like I read the other day. The primary intent of the article was that we love “the church” because Jesus did. There’s truth in that, but sometimes the idea of “church” – the people called out by God to follow him and do his work in the world – gets mixed up with, as Reggie McNeil calls it, “The building on 1st and Main.”

I’ve written about this before. Todd Wagner, pastor of Watermark Church in Dallas, Texas, is trying to change the definition of church. His point is that somewhere along the way, the New Testament’s ecclesia, assembly of people, got hijacked and replaced by the German word kirk, church building. Here’s the official Greek definition of the word translated “church” in the Bible:

ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) ‘assembly’ church, congregation, assembly; a group of people gathered together. 

Why is this important? Here’s how Watermark Church expresses it on change.org:

If we primarily define church as a building, we miss the point of what God intended His Church to be: a group of people that are on mission 24/7 to bring hope and restoration to a broken world. This could not be more important. We’ve let culture define what the church is, causing people to first think of walls and windows instead of men and women who love and care for them. – Todd Wagner

I don’t get the sense of a people on mission when I read the article by Kevin DeYoung, “Why Christians must love the church.” Here’s how he closes:

“I will build my church.” Who builds the church? Not the pastor, not the seminary, not the sheep, not the government, not the publishing house, not the critics, not the powerbrokers, not a class of people called the oppressed, not the social media influencers. Jesus does. And what does He build? Not a brand, not a school, not a magazine, not a campus ministry, not a nation, not a party, not a platform, not a webpage. The church—the only institution on earth that Jesus promises to build and promises will last.

Are you wondering what you can do to make a difference in the world? Go to church. Give to the church. Pray for your church. Correct the church when she errs and encourage those serving the church whenever you can...

Jesus builds the institutional church? I can make a difference by going to church? That’s what this brother believes. I think I subscribe to the other view that I’ve seen on t-shirts worn by people on work teams:

Tomorrow I’ll have one more look at this article plus a word (don’t panic!) on why we should go to church.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand in the gate of the LORD’S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. (Jeremiah 7.1 – 7, ESV, emphasis mine)