6 August 2026

There is a beautiful text in St. Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus says, ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’ (18;20) It is reassuring for two reasons. Firstly, small is beautiful and our diminishing congregations are no less beautiful if they are gathered together in the name of Jesus.

Secondly, the significance of these gatherings is the presence of Christ. It is his presence with the two or three which makes the church holy. It is not the building. It has no holiness of its own. Holiness is a quality belonging to God and Christ manifests it when two or three gather together in his name.

This has something very important to say about churches and worship spaces. It is not the physical buildings which are significant but the people who gather in these places in the name of Christ. The Scottish Reformers knew this very well.

They reordered the medieval worship spaces with their designated sanctuary and nave. They abolished the distinction between the holy and the secular and made one space for the assembly of the people. The worship space was functional. As they wrote in their ‘Book of Discipline’:

‘Least that the word of God and ministration of the Sacraments by unseemlinesse of the place come in contempt, of necessity it is that the Kirk and place where the people ought publickly to convene be with expedition repaired with dores, windows, thack, and with such preparation within as appertaineth as well to the Magestie of God, as unto the ease and commodity of the people.’

It is clear from the simplicity of this approach that the church is a place where the people assemble to hear the Word of God and celebrate the Sacraments. There is nothing added to make the place more holy or more beautiful because the beauty of the place is in the people and the Christ who abides in them.