Thinking about church-going and Bible reading, it occurs to me that while I find meaning in the printed words, it is the periodic worshipping with familiar faces and names that is even more meaningful to me. Abstracting from that I imagine that the institution and the outline that church building, order of service and programming all give to one's week and annual cycle is a "means," while it is the people thereby brought into relationship with each other that is the ends. Going further, though, you can say that those relationships with fellow sojourners of this life is, in turn, a means through which each of us gets into relationship with God; it allows us each in the ways we know best to make "Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." So the institution is about the people, because working with and knowing the people IS expressing God's love.
The convolution of church is about people, but people is about God, and God is about church seems to return to the starting place; not gaining any ground. But still this exercise helps me to hold the parts of the equation up to the light to see what they are.
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