This Sunday morning, I found myself tracing the word her in an old hymnal—
the way one might trace a scar that still holds meaning.
“The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord.”
How rare it is to hear the Church still called her.
That small pronoun carries a forgotten tenderness. It reminds me that the Church was never meant to be an it—a structure, a strategy, or a brand.
She was meant to be her—receptive, relational, alive.
Once, her meant mystery.
It meant the Bride who receives and reveals,
the Holder through whom divine love takes form.
She carried, she tended, she healed.
But over time, much of the Church drifted.
We broadcast sermons to millions yet forget how to sit in silence with one.
We’ve made ministry a market—tickets, merchandise, algorithms of belonging.
We take sides faster than we take time to listen.
The cross became a banner for camps instead of a bridge for communion.
The shepherds are weary; the singers are hoarse.
The body keeps working while the breath is gone.
Even those who serve no longer know how to rest.
And yet, even now, there are sanctuaries that still breathe.
Rooms where silence is honored, hands still anoint, and love still lingers longer than the sermon.
Not all has been lost. The Holder has always survived somewhere—
in the hospice chaplain’s prayer, the neighborhood meal, the song sung for one instead of many.
And still, the Reviver breathes.
Maybe the Church is not dying—maybe she’s molting.
Every age forgets its breath, and every age must wake again.
The flood was never just destruction; it was mercy—washing away what could no longer hold life.
The question now is not whether the Church will survive,
but whether she will feel again.
Can we remember what it means to be her—
to hold instead of hurry,
to tend instead of tally,
to heal instead of hustle?
Can we let love overflow its old containers without fear of what spills?
This isn’t the first drift.
It won’t be the last.
But maybe this is our turn—
to wake with eight billion others
and learn how to hold without walls.
I’m learning that to serve Christ’s Church is not to fix her, but to feel with her—
to help her breathe again.
Christ revives.
The Church holds.
And in that holding,
the world begins to heal.
And some already are.
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🜂 Re-membering the Holder: A Vision for the Revived Church →