The church is not a modular home...

(from Michelle Kaufmann Designs)

On Tuesday I took one of my classes to the Museum of Science and Industry to see an exhibit on Green Home design. One of the interesting aspects was that the house is a modular home, built in a factory and transported to its final location. It's not very often that you visit a half million dollar modular home!

It made me think about the passage we talked about in life group last week, Ephesians 2:19-22, which reads:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

I love this picture of how the house of God - the church - is to be built: with
Jesus Christ as the cornerstone, and a foundation of apostles and prophets. But there's more. In Corinthians 3, Paul explains that the foundation builders include the teachers and people who have planted and begun the work. From there, the individuals in the church are united to become the holy temple, where the Holy Spirit dwells.

When the exhibit at the museum is over, the half-million dollar home will be taken off of its foundation and moved somewhere else. But you cannot do that with the church…

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.