“The church is not a building.”

If you’re like me, you’ve often heard or made this statement. There’s an undeniable theological truth here, of course, but an unintentional consequence can be that we downplay the strategic importance of God’s people gathering in a place, a building. 

In her feature story about Scotland’s spiritual decline, Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra explains why well-known pastor and author Sinclair Ferguson retired and returned to his native country, and how a congregation bought a historic church in Aberdeen needing much-deferred maintenance. According to David Gibson, “[It was] crying out to be a gospel hub in a city center.” Read the account and pray that God would renew his work in the city of Aberdeen and beyond.

At the end of the day, a church building isn’t as important as the people in it. But that doesn’t mean the building itself is meaningless. The transformation of a decaying old building—rehabbed in structure and renewed in purpose—can powerfully communicate the same gospel, in its very form, that is preached within its walls.