What is Church?

On Tuesday nights at theRevolution and at the Gathering we're always careful to point out that "this is not a substitute for church", these ministries are, by their nature (aimed nearly exclusively at a specific demographic), supplementary. TheRevolution, in fact, has often been called a "para-church ministry", meaning that it serves the local church and is not its own independent church.

North Avenue Baptist, Foursquare, First Southern Baptist, those are called churches. Two big reasons I would consider them churches are 1)because they are intentionally called so, and 2)they all strive for wide variety of ages and races in attendance. There are hosts of other reasons, but these two make a clear distinction from the Gathering and theRevolution.

What we must be clear about is that there is a difference between "church" and "a church".

This is from LifeANSWERS Summer 2007 Leader's Guide (From my Sunday School class at FSBC).

"Church is the group name for being Christian," write Douglas Jacobsen and Rodney Sawatsky in their book Gracious Christianity. "It refers to all of the followers of Jesus who have ever lived.... More intimately, and just as importantly, church refers to a local gathering of believers, people who know one another face-to-face, people who put up with one another's quirks and foibles, people who genuinely try to love one another despite all their imperfections. The local community of the church is the social context in which Christianity takes living form. Being church is being Christian together."

What I've drawn from this so far:
-The Gathering and theRevolution are "church" without being their own "churches".
-I'm a member of the same church as Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, Jude, and even Moses, David, Elijah, and Elisha.
-If I'm not getting to know people face-to-face, putting up with others' quirks and foibles, and genuinely trying to love others despite their imperfections, I'm not doing church.
-If I'm not giving others the opportunity to do the same thing for me that I should do for them, I'm not doing church.

This leave one obvious question:
ARE YOU DOING CHURCH?