The Church is not a Museum

The Church Is Not a Museum

Churches are not museums of tradition or graveyards of yesteryear.

They are not mausoleums filled with the echoes of a once-living faith.

They are not archives, tasked with merely preserving history.

The church is a body—a living, breathing organism, pulsing with the life of Christ.

It is a people called to embody his love, justice, and self-giving way in the world. It is not an institution that exists to protect its own legacy but a movement propelled by the Spirit into the pain and beauty of the present.

This does not mean we discard history or reject the wisdom of those who have gone before us. But it does mean that faithfulness is not about curating the past; it is about participating in the ongoing story of God’s redemptive work.

Churches must never confuse reverence with stagnation,

tradition with immobility,

or end up embalming faith rather than embodying it.

The call of the church is not to preserve lifeless relics but to be a living tradition, an exegesis of the life of Christ. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever” (Heb. 13:8). His life is not a fixed moment in history but the foundation for a living faith, one that is continually being written in and through the body of Christ today.

The church is called to reflect this living reality—not clinging to the past, but faithfully embodying Christ’s life in the world, as his hands, feet, and heart in every generation.