There is a phenomenon that has prevailed in the Body of Christ for centuries, but which requires a re-examination if the Church is truly prepared to “come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
It is the phenomenon in which men and women called by God to “feed my sheep” consider it more befitting to neglect that mandate and instead concentrate on building physical structures. This is not to say that the people of God should be left to the mercy of the elements in their worship of God.
Any man or woman of God who invests more resources, energy and time building physical structures, no matter how magnificent they appear, than in building and raising believers to conform to the image of Christ, has misplaced priorities.
Structures in themselves are not evil. A dry roof protects people from rain. The error comes when the building becomes the mission instead of the tool.
Jesus never told Peter to go raise funds for a building campaign. He said, “I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” The mandate was clear: make disciples who look like Me.
Yet over 2,000 years later, many pulpits sound more like project management offices than training grounds for soldiers of Christ. Fundraising for auditoriums, announcements for building projects, and sermons that always end with “give, give and give” for this or that project.
What Are We Called To Build?
Meanwhile, multitude of believers leave church services still carnal, and anxious about what to do regarding many questions of life, without a clue about Who the Lord they have yielded their lives to truly is. The question isn’t whether roofs, bricks and mortar matter; it’s what we are actually called to build.
Jesus invested three years in 12 men, not marble. Paul planted churches, but his letters dwell more on character than anything else. The early Church met in homes without any magnificent edifice, yet they turned the world upside down.
The World’s Influence
There are pressures – visibility, revenue, imitation or comparison, and success as defined by the world. Churches copy corporate models — bigger, faster, better looking. Nothing wrong but when the growth of structures takes priority over the growth of saints, as is the case in much of the church in modern times, then there is a big problem. Beautiful buildings, broken believers — divorce, fraud, adultery and fornication, murder, malice, etc all inside nice-looking structures.
Build Right
A hall that seats 50,000 but makes zero or five disciples is a warehouse. The Kingdom doesn’t need more real estates; it needs believers who look more like Christ.
For those who are confused about what the Bible says regarding the Kingdom of God, here is a simple explanation, according to a renowned Bible teacher, Dr Okey Onuzo, in his book, Kings And Priests Unto God:
“When we build the kingdom of man, the focus is on the organization, its size, its structures and tentacles as well as its material resources. When we build the Kingdom of God, our focus changes to raising men and women who follow Christ and daily conform to His image.”
The gates of hell do not fear magnificent architecture; they fear believers who look like Jesus in their offices, markets, and homes. That’s the building. The house is not the same as the household; the house may be beautiful and the household in disarray.