The house finches are scouting our eaves for a place to build their nest. The motion lights? The decoration by the door? They dart in, heads the color of a Kansas sunset, narrating their search to the neighborhood in trills and whistles. Spring is here, and the birds are hunting for a home.

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the apostle describes what it looks like to be at home in the church. Christ opened the way for everyone — Jews and Gentiles. 

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (2:13). ­Jesus “is our peace,” and he has created “in himself one new humanity in place of the two” (2:15). 

Through Christ we are welcomed into the eternal communion of the Trinity, all having “access in one Spirit to the Father,” and thus we are “no longer strangers and aliens” but “members of the household of God” (2:18-19). 

It’s a living household, built on the “foundation of the apostles and prophets” with Jesus as the cornerstone (2:20). 

In Paul’s description, belonging to the household of God means believing in Jesus and becoming a people in him. Jesus is at the center (verse 20). We believe “the word of truth, the gospel” of Jesus, and we are formed as a “new humanity” in him (1:13; 2:15). 

Paul goes on in chapters 4-6 to detail how Christians are called to order their lives in light of their convictions. It’s the sociological trifecta: believing, belonging and behaving, all holding together in God, the one in whom we find our home.

The language of finding our home in God runs all through the scriptures. The Psalms speak of God as our “refuge” (2:12; 26:1; 62:8). He’s our “fortress” and “strong tower” (59:16; 61:3). “A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere” (84:10). 

“I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ ” (Psalm 122:1). 

I was. 

I love church. It’s the place where I’ve found community and learned what it means to follow Jesus. I came to faith because of the church, not in spite of its foibles. Paul’s words about being “built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” ring true to my life (Ephesians 2:22). 

When I was a young guy making my way in a big city where I didn’t know anybody, I found a church. When my wife and I were first married, we discovered community in a gathering of young couples in church. Our little sons swam in a clinking sea of toy cars with the other kids on the back pew of church. My family and I have moved for church and studied (and took out student loans) for church and made quesadillas for the church potluck. 

Jesus people are our people. 

The church has been our home, and I long for others to find their heart’s home in Christ’s church. It’s a many-roomed mansion (John 14:2). Come on in.

Which is why it’s such a great sadness when, because of wounds or exhaustion or drift, church doesn’t work for everyone. My family and I have been there, too. In the wake of Mennonite Church USA’s redirection a few years ago with the Repentance and Transformation resolution, which declared biblical views on sexuality and marriage “violence,” we and many others suddenly found ourselves homeless. 

One minute we were sitting in the living room of our church home, then — vote — the house picked up and crab-walked to the left, and we found ourselves outside. We’re still out there.

It seems to me that much of the anxiety and upheaval many of our congregations are experiencing has to do with that loss of a sense of home. I think we’re all longing for it, a home where we can belong and believe and walk the Jesus way together. 

“Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself” (Psalm 84:3). Our hearts need that: a place to be at rest. It’s not unchanging — which is impossible — but it is stable. There’s no way back to what was, not together, not anymore. Nevertheless.

Of course, in all of this we’re ­longing for something deeper still, not so much a place, but the One in whom we can all be at home (Revelation 21:3). He’s still where he always was.