What is The Sanctuary?

What is The Sanctuary?

The Sanctuary isn’t a building, but the people that gather to worship. In the Old Testament the Sanctuary (or Holy Place) was constructed with skins and fabric and later with stone. It was that place where God would meet his people. It wasn’t like a bird sanctuary or a retirement community; it wasn’t what we would call “safe.” God isn’t safe, but He’s always good. Or maybe we should say that “safe” isn’t safe. We all hide in a prison of our own construction. God is not safe for that prison—the prison we call our “self,” our “pride,” or our “ego.” Not safe, yet nothing could be more safe, freeing, and healthy for the person that you truly are, than communion with God. The Sanctuary in the Old Testament was a place of profound mystery, wonder, and even terror. It was a place where the fire of God would consume evil and reveal the good.

In the New Testament at the death of Jesus, the Sanctuary is miraculously opened as the curtain separating the people from the Most Holy Place is ripped from top to bottom. Fifty days later on Pentecost, the Spirit of God falls as tongues of fire upon a frightened ragtag group of disciples, who begin to praise God in ecstatic joy. They are the Sanctuary. And Scripture tells us that we are the Sanctuary. And so we’ve named our little church The Sanctuary.

We invite you to worship with us, as you do, we pray that you would feel free to surrender yourself—fears, doubts, insecurities, failures, even “successes”—your judgments of yourself that create a prison for your spirit. We hope that you would surrender your judgments to God’s judgment in Christ Jesus. “God was in Jesus reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). You are worth the shed blood and broken body of God in flesh, Jesus the Christ. That is God’s judgment. It is eternal. It is Love. It is fire that burns away our pride and fills us with the Spirit of God, who is relentless and undefeatable Love.

If you doubt all the stuff you just read, including God, please feel free to ask questions, disagree, and seek the truth. We believe that Jesus is “The Truth,” not just true, but “The Truth.” That means that you can’t go wrong by seeking the truth. We believe that if you seek the truth, you are already being found by the Truth, who is always seeking you.