Dear friends,

    If church were a business, its product would be hope. And if church were a business, I’d be the Chief Technical Officer of the Pierce Avenue branch plant of the Presbyterian Church in Niagara Falls, New York.

    If church were a business, the product of the Pierce Avenue branch plant would be hope.

    Our Talking Heads would appear on the media, saying with one voice that the Business Plan of the Presbyterian Church and all its branches and subsidiaries is simple and direct.

    We don’t just sell hope, they would say, all of us in this corporation help ourselves, our loved ones, and our customers find meaning and purpose for their lives, now and forever. But they would not add the amen, because that would not be businesslike.

    Hope is not just another four-letter word, our billboards would proclaim to passing motorists. We don’t hold sales but keep to one every-day low, low price, our managers would tell the reporters covering the opening of a new or expanded branch plant. Our competitors would have you believe that they are the ones who produce hope, but in reality we are the hopeful ones, they would tell the reporters.

    Sooner or later, however, some college-graduate-cub-reporter will ask the hard question.

    Just what do you mean by hope, she will ask.

    Jaws will drop so quickly that injury will result.

    Heads will turn so quickly that painkillers and bone-cracking will be required.

    Then the sputtering and sighing will begin. Someone very like the college-graduate-cub-reporter, with the same pride and self-assurance, finally, though, will step up to the mike and offer an answer.

    I think everyone knows what hope is, the brave one will say.

***

    If church isn’t a business, what would you call it? An institution, God’s House, the place we have always gone on Christmas and Easter?

    I ask, because the way you define church will have a lot to do with what you do in and because of and for church.

    So the question stands. What is church?

    As much as I would like to be a Chief Technical Officer, with all the digital toys that would go with a job like that, I am the Resident Theologian, AKA the Pastor.

    One good dodge when an important but difficult question of any sort is asked within the walls of a church is to turn to the Resident Theologian and say, What do you say to that, Pastor? And any pastor worth the title will have a word, a sentence, a paragraph, or a lecture already prepared for such an occasion.

    Not me. Although I could mouth words, paragraphs, or lectures on this or almost any other subject likely to come up inside a church, my answer would be something like this: Good question! What’s your answer?

***

   Lest we run the risk of becoming cagey card players, I’ll break my rule and answer the question first, from my perspective.

    Church for me is the place where I can always find God.

    Church at the same time is not the only place where I can find God, because like all who believer in God in Jesus Christ, I need only look inside myself to find God, who promises, and follows through on the promise, to come and live with any person who confesses Christian faith.

    Church for me is the place where I most often preform the roles of Resident Theologian and Pastor.

    Church at the same time is not the only place where I perform these roles. Whenever I tell another person what I do, I assume the roles the church has imparted to me. Ever met a preacher and not had a firm idea of who he or she was and should be?

    Church for me is the place where I most often act on the call that God has on my life.

    Church at the same time is not the only place where I act on the call that God has on my life.

    Church is the place most often where I speak and act theologically.

    Church at the same time is not the only place where I speak and act theologically, because I am unable and indeed unwilling to separate life from theology.

    Church is where I live and move and have my being together with other people who are doing the same.

    Church at the same time is not the only place where I live and move and have my being together with others.

    Church is, and at the same time church is not, all or only. It just is – here and there and everywhere.

***

    And if church were a business, I could offer these thoughts to you at a discount. Or I could say that our business plan does not extend to trafficking in coupons, specials, and loss-leaders. Blah, blah, blah.

    Friends, my thoughts are not for sale but are a gift. I offer them to you in the same loving spirit that God gave them to me, in a voice barely louder than that of a summer’s breeze -- personally, one to another, with love and respect, and with wishes for a glorious future extending to and beyond the stars, toward God in the heights, with God in the heart. In hope.