They talked about it being a sacrifice.

Those of us who decided to be part of our church’s new satellite location would give up the comforts of our modern building, complete with banks of windows and a cool steeple, in a chi-chi Chicagoland suburb.

Instead we’d meet at a tired community center in the one-block downtown of a nondescript ‘burb. We’d gather there for a year or two—until the nearby building we purchased underwent a transformation from a business into a church.

I felt called to this new congregation. So for the past year and a half my church home has been this ‘gymnatorium’’a hardwood-floored room with basketball hoops and gymnastics mats attached to the walls, as well as a big stage flanked by dark wood paneling and a heavy red velvet curtain. There are a few high windows covered with bars (no doubt to protect the glass from stray basketballs), occasional winged visitors, and one lonely bathroom stall off the main sanctuary that mysteriously always seems to be out of toilet paper.

It’s the kind of place where Charlie Brown and his gang might stage a rag-tag but heartwarming Christmas play.

And I love it.

Oh sure, the sacrifice part has certainly proven true. Every Sunday morning, church members arrive early to set up chairs and retrieve the sound system from the jail cell downstairs (the building used to be the police station). Our nursery exists in a tiny room just off the sanctuary, from which we often hear the cries of unhappy babies. One Sunday the sermon was briefly interrupted by a loud thwap, as one of our ushers killed an unwelcome wasp. And in the winter, we sometimes have to trick the thermostat into turning up the heat by placing a bag of snow or ice on the locked control box.

So why do I love my messy, Charlie-Brown church? Precisely because it’s messy. It’s a come-as-you-are church. And it feels much more like real life than some other churches I’ve attended.

There were times at the lovely main location when I felt as if I and my broken heart or spiritual questions mucked up the place. Times when I felt dissonance between Jesus’ teachings on humility, or his sufferings on Good Friday, or his frequenting of dusty streets and the pristine location where we were discussing his life.

At our current location, I’m reminded that while the Christian life includes love, joy, and peace, it also includes sweat, sacrifice, and humility.

Of course I’ve experienced times when beautiful church architecture has moved me. I’ve stood awestruck by towering European cathedrals, places whose very design surely was an act of worship. Places so huge and grandiose, they make me feel appropriately small. And God so amazingly big. And his love for me all the more precious.

While I’ve found inspiration in churches on that end of the wow-spectrum, I’m finding surprise blessings on this end of the continuum as well. This church helps me remember that we serve an approachable God. That he calls us to ‘approach the throne of grace with confidence’ (Hebrews 4:16). That what we discuss while all dressed up on Sunday morning applies to the mundaneness of a Tuesday afternoon. That the God of the universe left the glories of heaven to walk this broken, humble earth to draw near to us and save us from our messy selves.

I had the privilege to visit Corinth recently. As my friends and I stood on the stone walkways the apostle Paul once trod, in view of ruins from temples built for kings and gods long gone, my friend Jean reminded us of Paul's teachings in 1 Corinthians 3:16: We are God's temple; his Spirit lives in us. God doesn't need or demand some ornate edifice; somehow we, his broken, redeemed children, are enough to carry around his presence in our fallen world.

Each week at my Charlie-Brown church, we get a tangible reminder of this embodiment as we schlep chairs, retrieve info-center materials from Rubbermaid containers hidden underneath the stage, and occasionally bring our own toilet paper—essentially assembling our church every week. But mostly by our just coming together in God’s name.

I know we’ll all be thrilled once our new building is complete (especially the early-morning chair setting-up team). But I know I'll look back with gratitude for the surprising ways God met me in such a humble place. And then look forward with great expectations for how he’ll move and meet me in our new church home.