Before I say anything, let me say this one thing: we don’t need a building. There is only one thing that a church needs: the gospel of Jesus Christ. That means that this building will not be our church’s treasure, Jesus Christ alone is our treasure. So the proper way to see this building is as a tool, not a treasure.
Now, we can carry on. Here are 10 ways that thais building could be a tool in service of the treasure of the gospel:
First, because Exiles lay down deep roots.
We are exiles here on earth, while we await the new creation to come when Jesus returns. But biblically, to be an exile doesn’t mean that we don’t invest in our city or in the creation. In fact, when God’s people are exiles in Babylon, God tells them to lay down deep roots in the city: “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
All of the instructions God gives his people have the same flavor: put down deep roots in the city! Do things that take a long time! In fact, God instructs them that their welfare is hidden in the welfare of the city, meaning that if they want to flourish they are obligated to help Babylon flourish. And so we want to buy a church building because we believe this is still God’s strategy for making his name known in human cities. That’s not to say that worshiping in a rock club or a jazz club is sinful (Lord knows we’ve spent 6 years doing that), but that building lasting things for the glory of God in a city has unique power. We want to tell our city that we are here to stay!
Second, because we need to learn how to melt down our mirrors.
When the Israelites are building the tabernacle in the wilderness, there’s this interesting phrase in Exodus that has always stood out to me: “[Bezalel] made the basin of bronze and its stand of bronze, from the mirrors of the ministering women who ministered in the entrance of the tent of meeting.”
Mirrors were rare and precious in the ancient world. But here are the Israelite women literally giving away their mirrors to be melted down in order to build the tabernacle. When we make great sacrifices to build great things for God, we are transformed. We believe that our church will grow stronger and godlier as our people learn to make sacrifices in order to buy this building and make it into a home for Frontier Church. Get ready to melt down your mirrors!
Third, God’s people are commanded to take dominion over creation.
Read the first couple chapters of Genesis. God’s ultimate plan is for Christians to inherit the earth in the new creation, and that project begins in this lifetime too. Adam failed to take dominion over the earth and transform the rest of creation into a Garden (he was supposed to take Eden global!), but since we have the Spirit, we have the power to succeed where Adam failed.
We aren’t ultimately supposed to rent creation, we’re supposed to own it. So by owning a plot of land and transforming it into a garden, we believe we will have a greater impact on our city for the gospel. We want our church to view this building as “a heavenly attack” of peeling back the darkness in our city.
Fourth, we want to be the city’s most joyful church.
One scholar aptly notes that “Israel was never happier than when they were building the tabernacle and temple together.” We believe that by doing hard things together, like rolling up our sleeves and painting walls and peeling up ugly carpet, we will become a tighter-knit and more joyful family. And this is by God’s design.
Another scholar notes, and this is profound, that the creation of the cosmos only takes one chapter in Genesis, but the creation of the tabernacle takes 20 chapters in Exodus. This is because creating community is more difficult than creating everything out of nothing. Community creating is hard work.
But a building would give us, in the words of past theologians, a stronger “common life” with one another. We would have a place. We would have a place to gather together, to hang out at, to work together, to train together, to feast together, to be together. A common life.
Fifth, more ministry and less administration.
When you don’t own a space, it makes ministry really really hard. Now, I’m not afraid of doing hard things. Hard things are fun. But it’s a significant barrier to ministry to have to rent out a space everytime we want to do a leadership training, membership class, church meeting, or what have you; and that means that a lot of time and energy goes into administrative details of booking a space and lugging things around and setting up, and that leaves less time for actual ministry.
We think we will be more effective when we can put more time into ministry. In other words, this is less about investing money into a building and more about investing more money into YOU.
Sixth, we want Jesus to move into the neighborhood.
It’s absolutely true that the fullness of God dwells in every individual believer, and so Jesus is always in this neighborhood. But it’s not the same way that Jesus is present in a neighborhood through the gathering of many believers, namely, the church. Put your theology hat on.
This is precisely what Jesus is teaching in Matthew 18: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Or Peter in 1 Peter 2: “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” In other words, by yourself, you are a temple. But together, we are The Temple in our neighborhood.
So Jesus becomes uniquely present in a neighborhood through a church, and this is why Jesus tells us that people believe in him when they see us together loving one another: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” God has designed people to respond to the gospel when they see believers together in action.
We want to baptize somebody on every block of Beaverdale (and, of course, West Des Moines and Altoona and the whole surrounding area). And we believe that this building is a unique tool to help give us a communal witnessing power.
Seventh, the time is coming for our church to build an ark.
The time is coming when renting a public space won’t be an option for Bible believing churches, and that time is very close in a city like Des Moines. So we want to start building an ark before that flood pours out on Des Moines.
Our world is quickly becoming Egypt. And like Moses in a basket in the Nile, we will eventually need our own basket. A place that belongs to us where it is safe to sing robustly Christian songs, preach robustly Christian sermons, and practice robustly Christian disciplines. So let’s pick up some hammers and start building this ark; weaving together this basket.
Eighth, matter matters.
Creating matter was God’s idea, not Satan’s. And like everything else, matter exists to display the beauty of God. And so we think it is a helpful witness to take a building and beautify it in order to declare to our city that God is beautiful. And yes, it’s going to require some sweat from us to make this building beautiful, but remember that God didn’t make the entire creation into a garden for Adam. He placed him in Eden, but most of the world was Wilderness, and God desired Adam to image him by making the wilderness into a beautiful palace for God.
Like one theologian said, “Architecture speaks. It is not possible for human beings to live in architectural silence. When congregations build church buildings, this is either a testimony or a mask." God wants matter to speak of Him. What would a neighborhood think if they saw a young, passionate church pour themselves into an old church building?
Ninth, we want to be our grandchildren’s church.
This is our way of saying that building something that’s durable is more important to us than building something trendy. This is hard work, because it requires the discipline for us to think two or three generations deep, hence, we want to build our grandchildren’s church. Not yours. Or mine.
Investing time and energy into a permanent space precisely re-arranges our imaginations to think this way. You treat a home differently than you treat an apartment. And so it’s time for us to begin worshiping in a space where we can imagine growing our families, baptizing our kids, seeing young men grow into pastors, seeing pastors grow into planters, seeing our children take over the leadership of our church. These past 6 years God has been extraordinarily generous to us, but we can’t just pat ourselves on the backs for defying the church planting odds and statistics. We must continue to build something that lasts.
Tenth, we need to make room for the sparrow in our church.
Here’s the way the Psalmist says it in Psalm 84: “Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise!” He’s praising God that even the sparrow has a place in God’s temple, which is a poetic way of talking about how God desires to be an agent of new creation who so holistically redeems the cosmos that his new creation project even involves the sparrow! Or, to an Old Testament Israelite, even birds and Gentiles!
We don’t have a place where the sparrow can find a home at Frontier Church. It’s a simple fact that our church is invisible 6 days of the week to our city. But if God gave us a building, we would become visible. We would have a place where the sparrow can lay her young, where the swallow can make a nest. We would have space to rent out to people in our neighborhood, to gym owners looking to expand, to coffee roasters who need a place to roast, to church planters in Des Moines who need an office space, to whoever in our church or neighborhood needs a physical space for cheap to begin their entrepreneurial endeavors. We could really bless our neighborhood!
I think I failed to lead our church these past 6 years to be on mission where we were. When we gathered at Noce, I failed to lead us to be on mission to the homeless population down the road. When we gathered at Wooly’s, I failed to lead us on mission to the downtown apartment complexes. This is not an excuse, but it’s hard to sometimes think of those things when you’re rushing in at 6am to set things up and rushing after lunch to tear them back down after worship. Still, that’s a missed opportunity I wince at.
But I really believe God has brought Carlos and I to our neighborhoods to give us a foothold for mission. In fact, a few of my neighbors are actually praying for our church to buy the building! I want to baptize somebody on every block of my neighborhood. Carlos wants to baptize somebody on every block of his neighborhood. And I don’t want to sound too dramatic, but it’s hard to not see the Lord’s sovereignty in placing Carlos and I so close to this building. Specifically, living one house away from the church you pastor is, statistically, a one-in-a-million thing in Des Moines.
And maybe even an answered prayer. For the past few years, more than once I’ve laid my hand on that building while walking around my block and asked God to give it to us. It looks like he might just do that!
