Recently while watching at-home church, my son said to me, "Mom, can you tell me where to find verses about worshiping inside a church building?" As usual, when my kids ask excellent questions, I was busy. I wanted to listen to church (like a good pastor, of course). So I told him to look in his Bible app for references to "Temple" and "Church."
Here are a few of the verses he found:
"Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in your midst?" - 1 Corinthians 3:16
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" 1 Corinthians 6:9
"So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him." - Acts 12:5
"It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them." - Acts 12:1
After a few minutes of this, he looked at me with big eyes and said, "Mom! In all of these verses, the temple and church it is talking about are people! The people are the church!"
As we begin to gather together again, please remember: it was never about the building. You - we - are the church.
—Jana Lee