I can often feel the inevitable question. It usually occurs at night when we've finally gotten the children to bed and are left with a few quiet minutes to ourselves, reading or watching television. She will be lightly flipping through one of the seven catalogues that arrived in the mail today when she'll turn to me and say, "What do you think about this color here for our bathroom? Would this be a good one for us?"

It isn't that I don't care about our bathroom getting painted. Nor am I unwilling to help when it's time to get down to brushes and rollers. It's just that I really don't have an opinion on the color of our bathroom. My wife lives in a world of color swatches and palettes; I do not. I simply lack the categories for being able to have anything that looks like an intelligent opinion of such things.

We mentioned in our last article that mankind was created for community, but that assertion begs a whole series of questions about the nature of that community: what does it look like? What is its essential nature? What are the requirements for entrance into it? Granted, you are not likely to get direct antagonism from anyone about these questions, but the answers to them will usually contain blank stares. That's not because Christians today don't care about the Church anymore than I don't care about getting our bathroom painted. It's the categories we lack. We don't know what to think about the Church, so we don't think about it at all.

Fortunately, the Bible contains a book almost solely dedicated to the nature of the church—Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. There we find Paul giving us at least three helpful ways to begin to think about God's intentions for his people in the Church.

First, we see that the Church is a BUILDING.

Ephesians 2:19–22: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

Mind you, by using this metaphor, Paul is NOT suggesting that the “church” is the building in which it meets. Rather, he is drawing off a powerful symbol resident in the Jewish mind: the Temple. For a Jew, the Temple was THE center of religious activity. It was not a place like heaven, but a place where heaven and earth literally intersected. Jesus exploded these Jewish expectations by declaring that HE was in fact the new locus of religious activity, that it was in his person and work where heaven and earth intersected. Therefore, when Paul speaks of the “household of God,” he means to say that it is in the church where Jesus is primarily to be found.

For youth ministers, it means that the work we do has to be about the local church. The faithful body of believers, gathering week-in and week-out, is ground central for God's work in the world, the center theater of his redeeming power. From that vital center, Christians are sent out into every area of life with the mind of the Lord to suffer for him and to push back the effects of the Fall. It is a task no less for our youth than it is for our adults.

Second, we see that the Church is a BODY.

Ephesians 4:11–16: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

The essential quality described in Paul's metaphor of the body includes maturity and unity. The work we do as the “body” of Christ is given to make people mature. Paul gives us some of his unique youth ministry insights when he suggests that it is children who are “tossed about.” Our job as youth ministers is to create stability. How? By keeping students connected to one another in the vital relationships of the church. There, the healthy oversight of peers and older wise counselors grows students up into maturity. Second, the “body” metaphor suggests that our youth are to already be working on unity. That is, they have to see that the church has to function together in all that it does. This requires them to know enough about how to discern truth from error. A youth minister’s job is to escort every young person from their youth into early adulthood by teaching them to BE part of the body.

Finally, we see that the Church is a BRIDE.

Ephesians 5:29–32: “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Paul saves his most powerful metaphor for last. God wants to have the same kind of relationship with his church as a man does to his wife. Therefore, our living relationship with Christ needs to be one marked by intimacy, vulnerability, service, and permanence. The metaphor of the bride suggests that the body of Christ is more loved than she knows. This ought to be both amazingly encouraging and deeply frightening to us. Frightening, because we know that he will do whatever he must to see to it that our youth are holy in him. He is absolutely committed to this. Encouraging, because we know that we have a “love that will not let me go.” He is determined to bless me as a part of his church, his bride.