I want you to listen to this song. Like, the whole thing. It’s important that you listen to the whole entire thing. (Just ignore the cheesy graphics, okay? Close your eyes or something.)

Then, I want you to think about church. Like, what it is and what it isn’t.

Church isn’t a building where we all go and sit in rows and listen to a leader talking and then sing some songs and head home.

Church isn’t potluck.

Church isn’t putting on our Sunday best and hoping everybody thinks we look good and that we have it all together.

Church isn’t congregating with a bunch of people who look the same as us and think the same as us so we’ll feel good about us.

But, church is all the Jesus-followers in the whole world spread out and shining because the light of Jesus lives inside of us.

And church is a messy but redeemed people who know about grace and who become Jesus’ hands and His feet to touch the world so they can feel Him here. So that others can know that He is alive and well and camped out among us.

And church is all of us, running around, sometimes whispering into each other’s ear and sometimes shouting it out– that God is big. Very big. Because we’re all weak and we all forget and we need each other. We need to hear it, often, that God is real and He’s got a plan and this world isn’t all there is.

Church is God’s people praying because we actually believe He hears us and that He changes things when we ask Him.

Church is a body a God-believers and Jesus-worshipers who never stop holding onto each other, even in the dark, knowing full well that there will come a day when all will be light. Never-ending, unstoppable light.

Church is banking our very life on not what is seen, but what is unseen. Because the stuff we see is temporary but the stuff we can’t see is eternal.

Church heals the world because the church cares about the world and is willing to suffer that the world might know Love Himself.

Church is becoming like a child, with faith like a child, and hope like a child and wonder like a child. That the God of the universe is big. Very, very, very big.

Now, play this song again. And sing it loud. Run around the room and sing it to your Jesus-following friends. And this is church.