About Our Buildings

W. Carl Ketcherside

[Page 97]

     From time to time in recent months I have been delivering a lecture which I entitle "Strangled By Structures." In the course of it I take a quick rundown on the book of Acts to learn where the Good News was announced. I point out that it was proclaimed in the Jewish temple, on an outdoor colonnade, in the Sanhedrin court, in a vehicle traveling on the main highway, in private homes and in Jewish synagogues. It was preached by a river side, in a jail, in the inner city of a university town, in a heathen courtroom, a Greek lecture-hall, a third story tenement, the stairs of a military barracks, in a Roman judgment-hall, and in a dwelling rented by a prisoner.

     The only place it was not preached is about the only place we do proclaim it--in a house owned by the congregation of saints, and kept for that purpose. The primitive saints owned no "church edifice." They knew nothing about what is today termed "religious architecture." They had no idea of a material sanctuary, a pulpit or cushioned pews. All of these were as foreign to their minds as a cathedral or a basilica. The fact is that the Christians constituted an underground movement, flexible and not tied to earthly sites. This was one source of their strength.

     A candid survey of contemporary society forces us to realize that we are being herded into a corner because of the traditional approach we have developed. It is not easy to admit this and most of us will die without doing so. We have equated spiritual strength with real estate holdings, and frequently have gauged the success of a congregation, not upon its service to humanity, but upon the size of the pile of brick and stone which has been cemented together in a strategic spot.

     Now we are faced with areas where it is unwise to erect "church buildings" as we have come to quaintly refer to them. And these are precisely the places where the penetration of the Presence is most desperately needed. It is a little bit ridiculous to move into the stark poverty of the ghetto and purchase a lot for a fancy sum and erect upon it a shining edifice attesting to our affluence elsewhere.

     But when I mention this it "bugs" the brethren no end. Warnings go out that I am dangerous and fanatical. Folks keep a wary eye upon me for fear that I have a hatchet under my coat and may start hacking away the pillars which support the arched roof of "the sanctuary." Few such complaints come from the ghetto where the brethren are too busy spraying for cockroaches and putting out rat poison to pay much attention to what I say. But brethren who do not have to worry about lice invading the hair of their Sunday School children allow some of the things I say to get in their own.

     Be of good cheer, brethren! I am not going to set any of our monasteries on fire. I'm simply trying to spark a flame in the hearts of those who are stacked

[Page 98]

in our glorious woodsheds and turn them into kindling wood for the Lord. I am as neutral toward buildings as I am toward a claw-hammer or monkey-wrench. I do not get a passion about tools, but I do hate to see some of our mechanics vainly wrestle with a lug wrench that will not fit, and skin all of their knuckles. And I am arguing that the institutional church concept which is hooked on worshiping God "in temples made with hands" is often as inappropriate to our day as a country store with a hitchrack in front of it. Both have had their day and the heyday is over!

     I do not recommend that we abandon our structures to the moles and bats. Enough of the brethren are already evacuating them without a planned strategy of retreat, and if some of the black saints show up and "place their membership" the white sheep in some areas will knock the gate down trying to get away from those who will not "stay in their place" and hold the line--the color line, that is.

     All I am suggesting is that we re-examine our structures and their purposes and convert them into meaningful units in the service of the Master. As places for reaching the world of the lost they are becoming less effective with each passing year. In great inner city structures which once were packed with proud and aloof worshipers, the small minority which remains rattles around like a handful of dried peas in a gallon sirup bucket. They bask in their former glory and hang pictures of yesterday on the fading walls, but the word "Ichabod" can be written above the portals.

     In our day of radio, television and mammoth Sunday newspapers with their colorful supplements, the neo-pagans are not going to sit in front of a wooden stand and listen to someone orate from a borrowed sermon outline on the grave sin of contributing to the Herald of Truth program, or of using individual cups on the table of the Lord. If they are going to be forced to yawn they will just remain in bed where they will not have to fumble in a pocket when the plate is passed. If it keeps on and the men of our age become more complacent we are going to be forced to go into all of the world and reach them. That will be a new wrinkle for some of us!

     What can we do? One thing we can do is to "zero in" on the world by regarding our buildings, not as fortresses, but as mobile bases from which to attack. Our problem will then reverse itself. It will not be a question of how to get more in who are out, but of how to get more out who are in. If the early saints had been trapped as we are the Way would never have gotten one foot off the ground. But those saints permeated, penetrated and pierced the culture because they were "Go" oriented instead of "Come" organized. Here is what I think our buildings need to become.

     The purpose of a pad is to place us in orbit. It is not a squatting place for duds or a showplace for "mock-ups." Unfortunately a lot of us have been "gutted" of our "works" by the Enemy, and although we have a dynamite Message we are living firecracker lives. Even then we sometimes just sizzle and splutter. We only fizz in the fuse and pop off in the pack. Let's get ignited and set this world on fire! The most sophisticated missile on earth is as useless as a broken crossbow as long as it is merely sitting on the platter.

     Our problem is intensified because we have sold tickets to a lot of spectators who have come to hear a lecture on "the way

[Page 99]

that is right and cannot be wrong," and they don't want to be missiles. They will come up missing if they are expected to get on with the job. It will not take much to "get them up in the air" but it will take a lot of thrust to keep them there. I am serious when I say that the devil probably does not care how many we get into the church if they act like a lot of those who are already there. It is time we turn on the heat and open up the flame jets!

     It is obvious that few people in their right mind would choose to spend their vacation on the service station apron. Indeed they are generally upset if delayed. Unfortunately, there are many who never use their spiritual fuel to do anything except to go from home to the filling station. Since they never use anything but the "regular grade" they do not have the "no-knock" additive, and frequently expend their only energy in complaining and bickering. They rust out rather than wear out. After a lifetime of routine they end up as "clunkers" filled with bitterness and resentment. We must somehow "get the show on the road" and go where the action is!

     Part of our problem today is that we have confused standing firm with standing still. As a result we are not being furnished the firepower essential to meeting the attack buried against us in our day. Because the way we said and did things a century ago seemed effective then, we conclude that to be faithful we must perpetuate the method. Many of our brethren are involved in polishing up our flintlock muskets and developing gadgets to make them easier to wield, but we have left the age of the blunderbuss and even the "buzz bomb." It is one thing to walk in the old paths, but a wholly different thing to wallow in the old ruts!

     There is little to be gained by making breathless assaults on positions which are no longer occupied and drumming up fervor for an attack on abandoned fortresses. Frequently men become fervid in decrying the position of "liberal theologians," when no theologian, liberal or otherwise, has espoused the view for many decades. It is obvious that we do a better job vanquishing the foe when he is not present. One who is cock of the walk in his own chicken yard may be merely a plucked rooster when he flies over the fence.

     The point I am making is that we should stop our simplistic approach and equip our brethren to cope with life as it is and where it must be lived--in school, office, shop and neighborhood. We must stop passing out a list of hand-me-down answers which force us to tailor and trim the questions to match and meet our solutions. We live in a complex world. Everything is not in apple-pie order and cannot be settled by supposing that it is and covering it with frosting. You cannot fight the devil with cream-puffs.

     All of this points up the fact that we must consider our buildings in new perspective. They must not become monasteries to house a cult of the withdrawn, but radiation centers from which power reaches out to touch life where it is and as it is. We must not enter them to hold

[Page 100]

a service, because service is to be rendered and not held. Service is what we do in the world, not what we do in a "church building."

     We must also realize that there are places where such buildings are not feasible. It is absurd to reason that there can be no ekklesia where there is not a communal-owned structure. Small bands meeting in tenement living-rooms or ghetto apartments are as precious to our God as those who sit in cool comfort with the filtered light of stained glass windows casting colorful reflections on the clean pages of new hymnbooks. In many areas the money which would be poured into vaulted edifices might well be used to purchase food for starving frames suffering from malnutrition.

     Jesus was standing in the shadow of one of the most magnificent structures in the world when he declared, "A greater than the temple is here." And that greater thing was the principle, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice." I thought of this recently when brethren conducted me through a beautiful temple made with hands where the rug alone cost thousands of dollars. As I passed by the bulletin board I saw the picture of a little skeletal lad with eyes looking out of cavernous depths--a starving Biafran child. A typewritten note pasted on the picture read: "Help us raise fifty dollars for Biafran relief."

     In our day we must again become militant and mobile. We've allowed ourselves to become mired down and entangled with reams of red tape. It is time to start marching. We must put the "go" back in the gospel and take the "miss" out of our concept of mission. We are building as if we were going to stay here always. Our struggle is no longer in the battlefield but on the parking lot. Let's go forth unto him without our camps, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come!