Hansen and Leeman make crystal clear what they mean by church: “A church is a group of Christians who assemble as an earthly embassy of Christ’s heavenly kingdom to proclaim the good news and commands of Christ the King; to affirm one another as his citizens through the ordinances; and to display God’s own holiness and love through a unified and diverse people in all the world, following the teaching and example of elders” (26). After offering this rich, multilayered definition, Hansen and Leeman analyze it phrase by phrase over the course of eight chapters. 

I still find it hard to believe. A flu virus succeeded in doing what centuries of persecution by Roman pagans, Ottoman Muslims, Hindu nationalists, Eastern European atheists, and Chinese communists could not: stop Christians from gathering together for fellowship, prayer, participation in the sacraments, and the proper discerning of the Word of God.

While our persecuted brethren from the past met together secretly in homes or caves, strengthening each other in the face of possible martyrdom, we who live in the freest nation on earth huddled in our homes, more afraid of facing public scorn than of forsaking the assembly of the saints. Yes, many people with compromised immune systems had legitimate COVID-19 fears, but most of us, myself included, allowed social and political pressure and media-fed anxiety to keep us from congregating together.

Of course, it was easy for most of us to justify the breach in fellowship since we could livestream sermons, listen to worship music on YouTube, and give to charity through PayPal. Were we not getting all the spiritual nourishment we needed in the comfort and safety of our own homes? Maybe all that business of going to a church building and meeting people face to face was old-fashioned and out-of-date. How much is really lost when we conduct our Christian walk apart from the physical church with its institutionalized programs, messy relationships, and inevitable egos and hypocrisies?

Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman assure us that a great deal is lost, that we are, in fact, forsaking the very commission that Christ gave us. In Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ Is Essential, Hansen, editor in chief of the Gospel Coalition, and Leeman, editorial director of 9Marks, provide a compact, powerful, highly accessible defense of the assembling of the saints that all people who find themselves questioning the efficacy and necessity of church should wrestle with.

Lest we try to wiggle out of that necessity by playing semantical games, Hansen and Leeman make crystal clear what they mean by church: “A church is a group of Christians who assemble as an earthly embassy of Christ’s heavenly kingdom to proclaim the good news and commands of Christ the King; to affirm one another as his citizens through the ordinances; and to display God’s own holiness and love through a unified and diverse people in all the world, following the teaching and example of elders” (26).

After offering this rich, multilayered definition, Hansen and Leeman analyze it phrase by phrase over the course of eight chapters. All the facets of the definition are insightful, but I will focus here on three facets that I found particularly illuminating and challenging and which, I believe, offer much-needed clarity as to the precise mission of the church and why we need to be there in person for that mission to be accomplished effectively.

God’s Earthly Embassy

While most Christians are aware that the Bible calls upon us to be ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), few of us make the connection that if we are ambassadors, then the church is the embassy where we work. “An embassy,” Leeman explains, “is an officially sanctioned outpost of one nation inside the borders of another nation.” In that sense, it is no exaggeration to say that “[g]athered churches are embassies of heaven” (54). The church represents Christ’s kingdom the way the American embassy in France represents the political leadership, economic goals, and diverse but unified culture of America.

In keeping with his analogy, Leeman describes what we should find when we enter one of these embassies of heaven: “A whole different nation—sojourners, exiles, citizens of Christ’s kingdom. Inside such churches, you’ll hear the King of heaven’s words declared. You’ll hear heaven’s language of faith, hope, and love. You’ll get a taste of the end-time heavenly banquet through the Lord’s Supper. And you’ll be charged with its diplomatic business as you’re called to bring the gospel to your nation and every other nation” (54).

It is not enough for there to be random Americans walking around individually in Paris, embodying American values. There needs to be a physical place in that foreign land were the distinctive language and beliefs and behaviors of Christ followers can be heard and studied and seen. Apart from the physical embassy and the gathering of people within that embassy, that language and those beliefs and behaviors will remain abstractions. The witness of America, and all that she stands for, will be lessened. Parisians will be robbed of the chance to stand on American soil without ever leaving France.

Recalling a time when he had to go to the American embassy in Brussels, Belgium to have his passport renewed, Leeman muses that the “embassy didn’t make me a citizen.

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