by Frances Newman

Created on: March 04, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

Have you ever been a wedding bride or assisted one?

"One day a college student invited me to attend church. I was given an address. When I arrived, the only thing I saw was a Starbucks coffee shop. Amused, but confused, I decided to go in and check it out. Sure enough, my friend was there, sitting with about 8 others, talking about God. When I questioned him about it, he assured me that I, indeed, was at church. He said "church," as the Bible states, consisted of two or more people gathering in the Holy One's name. Aghast, I decided to leave all expectations at the door. I stayed, engaged, and even bought myself a $5 cinnamon dolce latte. Two hours later, I thanked my friend and left. On my way home, I thought... was that really church?"

After reaching the two-year mark of pastoring at our church, our senior pastor retold this story and asked us this question... was this church? Afterall, if we churchgoers are to be thrust into the center-stage arena of "to be or not to be, to go or not to go" - shouldn't we be asking ourselves this very same question? Is any gathering of two or more pious philosophers truly the making of a church? Or did we design buildings in premeditated fashion to become, as one put it, "the opium of the people?"

No other institution in the history of mankind has been subject to more criticism and evaluation than the church. Yet, on this ordinary Sunday service, once again we were presented with yet another personal inventory to explain our existence on this universal plane. The answers were as varied as there were people in the building. The church, to this one congregation, meant many things to many people. But there was one common denominator. The "church," they all said, was "the Bride of Christ."

The origins of the word itself can be attributed to the roots of the Jewish Renewal Movement of first century Judaism. The word "church" is a Middle English term used to define divine public worship. It comes from the word "Ekklesia," which can be read in the Coine Greek version of the Gospel of Matthew, meaning "the public gathering of those summoned." No other gospel mentions this term. In fact, no other religion uses this term to mean the church. The church is the bride. Christ is the groom. And as in the traditions of a Jewish wedding, there is expectation that the church must prepare the way in order that her groom may return to her soon. The belief of this new Jewish movement was that only God, who is the father of the groom, knows the exact

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