In the decades I did prison ministry, one of the standard presentations was a talk called The Church. The point of it was to teach the inmates that the Church was the people, not the building where God was worshipped. At the end of the talk, the speaker would ask, “Who is the Church?” and the participants would respond, “We are the Church!”

Being the Christmas season, I recently watched The Bishop’s Wife again, not the Denzel, Washington remake, but the original with David Niven, Cary Grant, and Loretta Young. For those unfamiliar with the story, David Niven plays a bishop who is struggling to raise funds for his new cathedral. The success of his endeavor very much depends upon a large donation by an elderly dowager. He prays for guidance and Cary Grant appears as the Angel Dudley to help. Dudley ultimately convinces the wealthy widow to donate her money to the poor and needy and not to building a brand new expensive edifice. The bishop feels betrayed, but Dudley points out that he had prayed for guidance, not a fancy new building. He got what he asked for, just not in the way he expected.

I have always thought that the Church would be more focused and truer to the Gospel message if we tore down all the buildings and met in people’s homes or empty fields, as was the case with the original Church. We don’t need expensive buildings. We just need to live the message of unconditional love.