By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:10-11

This past Sunday I preached from 1 Corinthians and leveraged the theme of building a house as a metaphor for building the church. Just as we would never move our family into a home that wasn’t first designed by an architect, so we as “wise builders” should be a part of churches that are constructed with purpose. How we do church matters. With that, I teased out Paul’s illustration of Jesus as the foundation and applied it to the rest of a house. Enjoy!

Let’s look at church like we are building a house. There are different parts of the house, and these correlate with different components we need to include if we want to do church in a way that matters, to do church with excellence.

Foundation = Jesus. Every house needs a foundation. That’s already been determined. Our foundation is and always will be Jesus. Our religion is founded on a person (Jesus) and an event (the death and resurrection of Jesus).

Walls = Scripture. we need to frame the house so that it has shape and form. For us that’s Scripture. That’s our guide. That’s how we know Jesus. We are founded on Jesus and framed by Scripture.

Roof = leadership. We’ll go as high as our leadership, not just paid leadership but lay leadership. If we have good leadership at every level of our organization, then the sky’s the limit.

Windows = our testimony. That’s how the outside world looks in and sees what’s going inside the church, by the way we live our everyday lives. Basically, if we’re living lives of joy, if we’re truly free in Jesus, then the world will observe that and want what we have. They’ll have hope that they can find joy and freedom as well.

Doors = outreach. That’s us being intentional to reach out to others and invite them in, and to do church in such a way that our front door is wide open to the outside world.

Rooms = small groups. Inside the house, it’s not just one big room. It’s divided and broken up into smaller rooms where people can gather together, be known, minister to one another and serve one another. Where we actually “do church” the best is life-on-life in small groups.

Power = spiritual gifts. You want electricity in your house. You want running water. How the whole thing holds together is when we leverage our spiritual gifts serve one another through love. 

If we can do these things, we’ll build a church that will stand the test of time, we’ll lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven, and we’ll have a lasting impact in our community.