How to Church (1)
According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 1 Corinthians 3.10
The just man justices
Gerard Manley Hopkins, the 19th century British poet, was a skilled manipulator of language and words. In his poem, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” he has a line in which he says, “the just man justices…” With the careful freedom of a poet, Hopkins took a common word, the noun “justice”, and turned it into a verb, “justices.” In doing this he was only following a long tradition of expanding English usage by transforming words from one part of speech to another.
English speakers have been especially agile at this when it comes to making verbs out of nouns. As Steven Pinker explains in his book, A Sense of Style, “The English language welcomes converts to the verb category and has done so for thousands of years.” He offers as examples of nouns that have been transformed into verbs, while retaining their nominative use, such familiar words as contact, host, author, critique, leverage, and panic. He explains that these “neologisms” come into being as a matter of convenience and accuracy. They “earn their place in the language by making it easy to express concepts that otherwise would require tedious circumlocutions.”
Thus Hopkins, constrained by his tight but oh-so-liquid poetic style, rather than say “the just man practices justice,” simply wrote, “the just man justices,” and everybody knows what he meant.
The churched person churches
I have been thinking for some time that we need a better word to describe the way we Christians participate in our churches. We say that we “go” to such-and-such a church, and those who hear us interpret that word, “go”, in terms familiar to their own experience. “Go” to church might mean simply attend worship. Or, at another level, it might mean serve in a leadership role or simply be on the rolls and an occasional attender.
Other folks might say, “I’m involved” in this or that church. But again, that word, “involved,” is adaptable to a wide range of meanings, and ultimately implies a kind of laissez faire approach to church where every person is free to “be involved” to whatever extent is necessary, comfortable, or convenient. “Being involved,” like “going” to a church, is thus highly subjective, capable of expressing a wide range of what “going to” or “being involved in” church might suggest.
So we need a better term to describe our participation in church, and I suggest we follow the lead of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the tradition of our language, and the permission of Steven Pinker and coin an altogether new word, a neologism that will allow us to express an important concept about our Christian lives without having to run circles around ourselves trying to explain what we mean.
In short, I propose that we coin the verb, “to church”, out of the familiar noun by the same name. “To church” is thus to take up the work by which we build on the foundation laid by Paul and others for the life, health, and ministry of our local church. As “the just man justices”, the “churched” person “churches.” Paul says that each one of us must take care how we build—how we “church”—on the foundation he and the other apostles have laid for building a local church.
He is of course correct, and together, we shall translate his meaning into common English usage. Oxford English Dictionary, get ready.
It is much more descriptive to say that we who believe in Jesus are called to church, which, as we do, the Body of Christ grows to maturity in the Lord.
Something that is, something we do
Thus, in my way of thinking, “church” is both something that is as well as something we do. Every believer in Jesus Christ is a member of the Church, the Body of Christ, as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12. Typically, believers express this reality by “going to” or “getting involved” in a local church in their community.
But these terms don’t get at what Paul had in mind when he wrote about building on the foundation he and the other apostles laid. So let’s set these terms aside for now and explore the possibilities of thinking about how to build our local church by taking seriously our individual callings and responsibilities to church in a manner consistent with apostolic teaching.
This installment in our series on the Church will thus explore how to church as an array of attitudes and actions which describe and define our individual contributions to building up the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every believer is a member of the Church, and so every one of us must be responsible to church in ways consistent with our membership in that Body as locally expressed.
The “just man justices” and the churched person churches. So let’s see if we can discover what this involves and how we might improve our contribution to this high and holy calling for the building-up of the Body of Christ.
For reflection or discussion
1. How would you describe your own approach to “churching”? What does it involve?
2. How would you explain “churching” to a non-Christian friend?
3. Whose responsibility is it “to church”? Explain.
Next steps—Preparation: Make a list of all the things you might consider as falling under the heading, “To Church.” Pray that God will allow you to grow in each of these.
T. M. Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment to give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
Visit our ReThinking Church webpage for resources to help you in churching. A good supplement to this ongoing study on the Church is our free PDF book, Pray for Your Church. Download your copy from The Ailbe Bookstore by clicking here.
This week: Our Read Moore podcast continues an extensive look at the Kingdom of God from our book, The Kingdom Turn. In our Crosfigell teaching letter, we are looking at the state of pastors and churches during the period of the Celtic Revival, using contemporary witnesses. And in our Scriptorium column we are studying the Gospel of Matthew. Click here to see all the other columns and writers available to you.
And please prayerfully consider supporting The Fellowship of Ailbe with your prayers and gifts. You can contribute online, via PayPal or Anedot, or by sending a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, P. O. Box 8213, Essex, VT 05451.
Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
