Three of the vital areas of our lives are the church, the home and the nation. It will be thirteen years ago, this month, that I came fresh from Dallas Seminary to the Bay Area and to the work here at Peninsula Bible Fellowship, as it was known then. It was almost thirteen years ago that I first spoke to this group, meeting as a small group down in the community center. I remember the thing that impressed me about it, and which was reflected in the opening story that I told that I would like to repeat this morning.
I reminded them of the visitor to a certain city, who was a stranger in town and he came in and asked a man on the street where the various churches were located. The man was something of a wag. He said to him,
They're right where you would expect them to be. The Episcopal Church is next to the theater, the Presbyterian Church is down by the ice plant, the Methodist Church is next to the gas works, the Baptist Church is over by the river and the Synagogue is next to the bank.
And I remember commenting on the fact of how interesting it was to find a church located in the community center—right where it ought to be.
Well, where is the church? Our subject could be as well entitled What Is The Church or even Why Is The Church? but where
is as good as any. As all of us know, churches come in assorted flavors and sizes, and it is also clearly evident to any who are familiar with the present world, that many of the churches that exist today are a far cry from the New Testament concept of a church. And perhaps as we look at what the church is and what it is like and why it exists, it might be helpful to begin by approaching it from the negative—as to what a church is not, since there is such confusion in this area today.
