{"id":53766,"date":"2022-09-30T10:34:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T15:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=53766"},"modified":"2022-11-02T01:03:31","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T06:03:31","slug":"the-benefits-of-having-a-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=53766","title":{"rendered":"The Benefits of Having a Building"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Today, the Dubai skyline offers an impressive row of towering skyscrapers, world-class hotels, and the world\u2019s tallest building. On the south side of the city sits our humble church home.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">While unimpressive by architectural standards, this church building is priceless. It\u2019s the only building licensed by the government for evangelical Christian worship in our city of nearly <span aria-label=\"Rich text content control\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">three<span data-contrast=\"none\"> million people. Currently, just <span aria-label=\"Rich text content control\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">three<span data-contrast=\"none\"> other evangelical church buildings exist in the entire country of UAE. Each week<span aria-label=\"Rich text content control\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">,<span data-contrast=\"none\"> our building in Dubai hosts more than a dozen congregations which speak Arabic, Urdu, Chinese, Korean, Telugu, Tagalog, Hindi, and English, and in so doing it facilitates the gathered worship of thousands of evangelical believers from more than 70 nations.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">We often tell our congregations<span data-contrast=\"none\"> that the church is not a building but a body: a blood-bought community of the redeemed. We stress this because conflating the church with a building is common and yet destructive to the church\u2019s true identity and mission. Buildings can become distractions from the gospel<span data-contrast=\"none\">; they can <span data-contrast=\"none\">even become <span data-contrast=\"none\">idols.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Church buildings are beneficial because they maximize Word ministry, provide stability long-term, are a public witness to the gospel, and help the church better steward its money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":671,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[327],"class_list":["post-53766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","tag-life-together","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/671"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53766"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53768,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53766\/revisions\/53768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}