God's Dwelling

I feel like I am one of those people who grew up right between two different generations. In fact, there’s a video comparing boomer dads to millennial dads and I feel like I’m right on the fence between them. The boomer dad in me sees a McDonald’s and says, ‘I need a Big Mac’ and for my injured kid to ‘just walk it off!’, while the millennial dad in me tells my competitive kids that ‘We’re just out here to have fun’ and ‘you can’t eat that, it has too much sugar.’ And being stuck between two generations allows me to see a significant shift in church dynamics, too.
In fact, I’m always surprised when people, especially kids, come into our church without much experience in a church and see it as a place that deserves reverence and respect. And I can appreciate that (the boomer dad does anyway). However, the millennial dad really doesn’t care for it. Not that we shouldn’t treat our churches (and its contents) with respect and reverence, but I don’t think it deserves more than our houses or other buildings.
However, I do believe that God deserves that respect and reverence; in fact, I think he deserves more than we give to anyone or anything. However, we often equate our reverence and respect for God to our reverence and respect for the building. And I get that. However, I sometimes wonder if we maybe equate God so much with the building that it’s directed more toward the building than toward God.
And the problem with that is that God very purposefully said that he didn’t dwell in buildings. In fact, Acts 7.48 says, “However, the Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands.” (NLT) Not since Jesus’ death on the cross has God’s unique presence been inside a temple or a building or a church. Rather than a building, God now has chosen to live within those who choose to follow him. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6.19, “Haven’t you yet learned that your body is the home of the Holy Spirit God gave you, and that he lives within you?” (TLB) It is not the church building that deserves our honor and respect as God’s house, it is God’s people (the real church) who deserve it.
And, honestly, if we have any respect or reverence for a building (how we dress, how we act, how we approach it, etc) that same respect and reverence should be given to all of God’s people. It should, in fact, be given to all of humanity because not only does God’s Spirit live inside his followers, God’s image is stamped onto each and every one of us.
And so, my prayer is, if we can approach a building with reverence and respect, we should treat everyone around us with the same reverence and respect? God bless.