We were with friends wandering through bustling streets bracketed by ancient and modern buildings. Familiar retailers had squeezed into each building and sought to lure us into purchasing essential items for the fulfilment of life.

The girls of our party were soon entranced, exploring and admiring this apparently rare and unique opportunity - but the boys held firm, identifying that practically every shop could be found in practically every town up and down the length of the country. Despite the beauty of the architecture this was just shopping!

The town’s architecture however was fascinating. The planners had tried to blend the old and the new rather than demolishing and starting again. Their efforts were admirable as old was preserved by injecting new usage and purpose – sometimes masking and obscuring the builder’s original dreams, however they were still standing, serving, surviving.

The shop clad streets led down towards a large park. A grand old stone gateway stood on guard, but its gates had been fixed open allowing unimpeded flow of pedestrians. Within the park laid the ruins of a once impressive Abbey; walls that had once defined and housed a thriving community now provided seating, shelter for picnics, an open air arena for ‘Proms in the Park’ and a knee high labyrinth for children to explore, invent and imagine until parents destroyed their illusions.

To a trained eye the evidence of the grandeur of what once was proclaimed all around, for us normal folk though a scale model had been made to honour the work of an ancient community. A large chapel, which still stood, was once connected to large meeting rooms, storerooms, accommodation, working gardens, stables and workshops. It must have been incredibly impressive, with each part connected to the next, not for show but for a reason, allowing the community to function and prosper.

But now it laid in ruin, designated as a place to relax, play, escape from the pressure of the real world located just up the hill in the shops and offices where people engaged in buying and selling.

I wonder what the original designers, the builders, those who paid for it, the residents, the employees and the generations who knew this as the living heart of the community would now think of their home’s new identity.

That got me thinking. I wonder what our church building will look like in a hundred years time? Will it still be standing? Will the site still be used to point people to Jesus? Will the endless hours of planning and preparation, the funds that have already been given and the great sacrifices needing still to be made make a tangible difference beyond the next few years? What lasting impression will remain?

I believe God’s thoughts have already been revealed to us on this question. It was revealed in the middle of a poor, needy, isolated village our church is partnered with in South Africa. We had funded and helped erect a fence to enclose a new compound – a place where local volunteers could meet, grow crops, provide food for hungry children and bring hope to a desperate place. However, just three months after the fence was in place it had been torn down by people in the community. The volunteer women were devastated, but also worried that when we found out we would walk away because we might feel that our contribution and hard work was not respected. It was here God asked us a defining question “How important is the fence?” I don’t mean how important did we think it was to the community, but how important was it to us? Would we walk away because ‘our fence’ was no longer there? Our response came as a defining declaration “It’s not about a fence but our hearts”. People matter more than things.

When it comes to our church building and the plans to make it bigger, we need to remember we are not building a monument or a shrine – it’s a facility, a tool. I hope our building does reflect many aspects of God’s character. I hope that the hours and hours of work being spent on its design, and the huge amount of money being sacrificially invested into this build result in an incredibly welcoming, glorifying, loving place that will be used for generations to come. My hope is that the wider community, young and old, will identify this building as a place to find faith, hope and love.

But it is just a building. People matter more.

The place where God dwells, is in His people, not in a building. God’s hope is found in us.

My prayer is that we don’t value the building more than the people who meet within it, that we don’t sanctify the site and surrender the lost who dwell all around. People matter, sharing Jesus matters more than a building.

I don’t know what our building will look like, or how it will be used in a hundred years time – or even ten years time! But I am convinced that if our hearts and lives - what we do, how we give, how we pray, how we serve, how we love – if it is fixed on knowing and sharing Jesus, a legacy far greater than a building will be created, in fact eternity will echo with the praises of people who have personally encountered Jesus because of our church. Not the building, but the people.

Be involved.

Mark Madavan