The superfluous church

".... Now among all the startling images in this vision is a little reference to a feature of the new Jerusalem that highlights another second-best we’ve settled for. And it’s one that comes as a shock to many of us. When the reign of God comes to fruition and the new holy city is established at God’s command, it will be a city without even a single church building! Church buildings of all kinds - from the humblest chapel to the most grandiose cathedral, from the whitewashed preaching barn to the most ornate basilica - all of them will be abolished, and God will be glad to be rid of them!

John doesn’t go into any great detail on this. He simply says, while describing the city he saw in his vision, “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”

Why is there no special holy place of worship set aside in the city built by God? Because it doesn’t need one. Because ideally we would have never needed one, but God let us have them anyway because we weren’t coping too well without them. ...
As long as the church buildings and the liturgies and activities that take place in them are shaping a people who will worship God by the way they prayerfully live out their lives in love, mercy, justice and peace, then those buildings and their activities have a valuable place in our lives. But the history of such places shows how easily they can be corrupted so that we substitute the adoration of the place and its systems for the honouring of God in godly living. When God let us have a temple and later church buildings, it was always a risky move: a second best option taken as a concession to our need for ‘things’ to help us perceive the presence of God and taste the fruits of heaven. God allows us to make use of such things, and even honours our use of them, because God knows that most of us are still a long way short of being able to do without them. But if we are not reminded from time to time of the inherent dangers in our use of church buildings, then we are running a grave risk of repeating the mistakes that Jesus and the prophets spoke against.

Churches and their ceremonies can contribute to our ability to be the people of God who live out the love, mercy and justice of God in the world. But in the Revelation, John tells us that the day is coming when they will be utterly superfluous."
http://www.laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html