“Reflection”
What is the Church?
Ask a thousand people, and you may get a thousand answers:
A building. A denomination. A set of beliefs. A source of pain. A home of peace.
But at its deepest core, the Church is not made of stone or stained glass.
It is not confined to cathedrals or councils.
It is not an empire to control or a club to belong to.
The Church is a living, breathing movement of Spirit through people.
The Beginning Was Fire
On the day of Pentecost, a small group of ordinary people gathered in an upper room. They were afraid, uncertain, waiting. And then, without warning, came wind and fire. The Spirit of God—the very Breath of creation—descended, not on a temple or throne, but on them.
Each one received flame.
Each one spoke with boldness.
Each one became part of something new: the Body of Christ, not as metaphor, but as reality.
This was the Church.
Not an institution, but an ignition.
Not a doctrine, but a divine encounter.
What the Church Has Become
Over the centuries, the Church has grown, evolved—and at times, been deeply wounded by its own hunger for power, certainty, and control.
It has built empires in the name of a homeless rabbi.
It has silenced prophets in the name of peace.
It has excluded, oppressed, and harmed the very people Christ came to lift.
This is a hard truth. But it must be named if healing is to happen.
Still, beneath the brokenness, the original fire has never gone out. It flickers in the quiet acts of kindness, the whispers of resistance, the songs of hope still sung in the night.
The Church as You
You are not outside the Church.
If you carry love, if you seek truth, if you long for justice, if you hold mystery—
You are part of the Church.
Not because you signed up.
Not because you attend a service.
But because the Spirit of God dwells in you.
This Church is not built on brick and mortar, but on presence and light.
It cannot be burned down.
It cannot be bought.
What Now?
The Church of the future may not look like the Church of the past. And that might be grace.
It may be smaller in number, but deeper in soul.
It may meet in homes, in gardens, in prisons, in the open air.
It may be less about preaching, and more about embodied compassion.
What matters is not the outer form, but the inner fire.
And that fire—that Pentecost flame—is waiting in each of us, ready to be reclaimed.
So Let Us Remember:
The Church is not the walls that divide.
It is the wind that unites.
It is the breath of God, moving through human lives.
It is you. It is me.
It is love, awakened and alive.
“The Church is not a building, nor a system…”
When we hear “Church,” we often picture an institution, a denomination, a hierarchy. But none of that was present on that first Pentecost.
There were no cathedrals.
No clergy in robes.
No official doctrines or councils.
Just a group of ordinary people, gathered in longing and openness.
The true Church is not a structure of stone or bureaucracy.
It’s the living current of Spirit that flows through people who dare to be vessels of love, truth, and transformation.
That’s what was birthed at Pentecost—not an empire, but a movement of awakened hearts.
“A people sparked by Spirit…”
This is the miracle: the same divine breath that moved over the waters of creation…
…is the same breath (Hebrew: ruach) that rushed through that upper room…
…and it’s the same breath that moves through you.
To be “sparked by Spirit” is to awaken to your divine origin.
To remember: you are not separate from the Source.
You are not here to perform a religion—you are here to embody Presence.
“Each of us can reclaim that flame…”
That flame is the inner fire:
- The fire of courage when you speak truth in a world that silences.
- The fire of compassion when you reach out to the forgotten.
- The fire of creativity when you co-create something beautiful in a broken place.
- The fire of discernment when you walk away from what is false, even if it’s dressed in holy clothes.
To reclaim the flame means:
You do not need permission.
You don’t have to wait for a priest or a pulpit.
You are the temple. You are the flame.
“If we keep returning to that original wind, that raw fire…”
The original wind was wild. It didn’t ask for credentials. It didn’t bow to human systems.
It blew where it wanted, igniting unity without uniformity, power without domination.
Returning to that wind means letting go of what the Church became—
—and returning to what it was always meant to be:
A Spirit-movement. A love revolution. A sacred uprising.
“…maybe we can heal what’s been broken.”
Not by denying the wounds.
Not by pretending the past didn’t happen.
But by becoming healers and truth-tellers.
- By listening to the pain caused in the name of religion.
- By honoring the mystics and prophets who were silenced.
- By returning to love—not as sentiment, but as sacred fire.
We won’t heal the world with systems.
We’ll heal it one soul at a time, lit by Spirit, moved by wind, rooted in truth.