Who Is the Church?

We have learned to point to buildings
and call them the Church.
We have learned to name services, programs, traditions,
and say, There it is.

But Scripture keeps asking a quieter question:
Who is the Church?

The Church is not stone stacked toward heaven.
It is dust breathed into life.

The Church is not an institution holding truth.
It is a body being held by Truth.

Before there were sanctuaries, there were hearts.
Before sermons, there was breath.
Before doctrine, there was Presence.

The Church was born the moment
God chose not to dwell among people,
but within them.

“You are the body of Christ,” Paul wrote—
not a metaphor, not a symbol,
but a living confession.
Christ, not remembered, but revealed.
Not taught from without, but forming from within.

The Church is not gathered by agreement,
but by union.
Not built by effort,
but grown by life.

Wherever Christ is forming Himself in a person,
there the Church is happening.

It happens in kitchens and hospital rooms.
In houses of mourning and quiet joys.
In whispered prayers and wordless tears.
In forgiveness that costs something.
In love that has no reason left but God.

The Church is not strong when it is impressive.
It is strong when it is faithful.
It does not conquer by power,
but overcomes by witness.

The Church does not point to itself and say, Follow us.
It points inward and outward at once and says,
Christ is here.

When we ask, “Who is the Church?”
the answer is not we in isolation.
It is Christ in you—
plural, living, breathing, becoming.

The Church is the place
where heaven and earth agree
inside human lives.

Not a building filled with people,
but people filled with God.

And when the Church forgets this,
it becomes noisy and anxious.
But when it remembers,
it becomes quiet and luminous—
a body at rest,
a witness walking the earth.