Featured auditiorium or sanctuary?

Still, churches are built out of stewardship for a purpose. They are mere buildings, but they are not merely buildings. They are set aside for worship, to glorify God - if nothing else by their testimony that there is a people of God. This is something "sticks & bricks" people don't get. It's not that worship center is not just as appropriate as sanctuary (and perhaps more appropriate).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I don't think we're that far apart, actually. It's just that the word "sanctuary" raises my hackles. I've been reading the old Baptists and appreciate the distinctions they made, the anti-magisterial attitude that was in their bones, as they defined their faith.

No gigs about considering baptism and the Lord's Supper sacraments? I'm disappointed. But that's another thread.

:tongue3:

 

:laugh: I don't know of any Baptists who would consider baptism and the Lord's Supper sacraments....but who knows....it wasn't that long ago that our nation saw a Baptist pastor perform an infant baptism. It's a crazy world.

 

Yes, like I said, Baptists do not consider the sanctuary to be such a sanctuary. I understand now that the word conveys such meaning to some people and perhaps it should be simply stated as "worship center" and the local church building as a "campus" (as the building isn't really the church). I'm not very old....in my late 40's....but I am way to old to care about being "church PC." (I also don't care if we call Christmas "Christmas....even though we don't view it as Christ's Mass....or if we call Resurrection Sunday "Easter" even though we are not worshipping the goddess). Those things don't bother me so much as people making a big deal of what people call things when they realize what is meant by the contemporary usage of the terms. And even that doesn't bother me enough to lose sleep over....except when we can't have pumpkin decorated candy wrappers on Halloween.

Do you believe that Baptists who call the big room where they gather to worship a "sanctuary" are placing people under the Law, or do you believe that they have in mind a more contemporary use of the word?

 

Sorry. I'm old school and don't think paedobaptism is appropriate or sanctioned by the New Testament. I was 7 when I was baptized and am not sure I was really a proper candidate for baptism. Postponement might have been in order. But that's me.

I just think that Zwingli went too far and that Calvin was closer to the mark on the ordinances. I certainly don't think the ordinances are salvific, but I do believe that they are sacramental -- holy and set apart -- from my reading of the New Testament. Does not Paul sternly warn against eating and drinking the Lord's body and blood "unworthily" without discerning the sacrifice of Christ? Does not Peter inveigh on the importance of baptism? Do not we as Baptists insist that baptism is the gateway to full participation in the church and to the Lord's Supper?

This is what the Second London Confession has to say about the Lord's Supper, after rejecting transubstantiaton:

"Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually receive, and feed upon Christ crucified, and all the benefits of his death; the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses."

Sounds sacramental -- holy -- to me.

 

Let me be clear. If, on Sunday morning, a brother says he's going to the sanctuary, I do not feel the need to grab him by the collar and harangue him on the difference between a meeting hall or a worship center or a sanctuary.

Likewise, I serve on a praise team that has four singers, a pianist, an organist, two guitarists and a drummer. If I had my druthers, singing would be a capella with no choir. But the church hasn't chosen that route, and I do not feel it is my role to rail against its choices because they're not mine. I could go join the Primitive Baptists if I wanted to be "church PC." Instead, I serve as I can within the framework the church has selected because I believe God has called me to be with these believers at this moment. And God has blessed me for it.

But this is a debate forum, and I feel free to put forth what I believe are biblical views. Besides, I'm a paid-up member of the Curmudgeon's Club and intend to take full advantage of its privileges.

 

Of course....I think that we all understand that this is where we can debate our differences. That is what I was doing as well. This is a very minor disagreement (on what to call the worship center) and my church does call it a "worship center."I shy away from "meeting hall" as it is not reflective of the purpose of the building (just like "campus," I think "meeting hall" merely helps churches blend in and take on secular images for a very "unsecular" purpose).

What I disagree with is the notion that the church building is "just a building." In one sense, it is just a building. The English Bible is, after all, just a book. It is just ink and paper. That does not mean when I need a doorstop I feel it is just as appropriate as Webster's dictionary for that purpose. The English Bible is set apart from other books as it is a tool, or lens, through which we can study God's revelation. The building is representative of it's purpose to the world. So my objection is not in abandoning the use of "sanctuary" but in viewing things in a strictly utilitarian purpose. and even going so far as making common what the church has set apart for the purpose of facilitating corporate worship.

 

I understand, and I can respect that. I am often a stickler for using the right words as well. I just am not sure that using "sanctuary" conveys anything but a worship center. Many other words have come to differ from an original meaning as well, and if you look up "sanctuary" I believe that you may find it is not necessarily restricted to an OT usage. That said, I'm fine with "worship center."

 

I do see your point. I think that the same is true of the Bible. I have seen people who, essentially, make the Bible their idol. My caution is to those who look at these worship centers as merely utilitarian spaces. But you are right that we should not view our worship centers as temples. They are "special" only because they are set aside for the church.