A Camp With No Walls

Track ten answers a question the album has been circling since the first track. If a man is campless, outside the walls, where exactly does he go to church? A Camp With No Walls is the answer, and it builds a church right in front of you - but out of people and grace instead of lumber.

Every piece of an ordinary church building gets named, and named as something living. The walls are made of people, pressed in close and warm. The roof is just His covering. The cornerstone is Jesus Christ. There is no door to lock, the way is always wide. There is no steeple and no bell - the singing is the only bell we have, and love is all our power. It is an old-time, clawhammer-banjo song, rooted and plain, and the whole thing is a church that needs no address.

The bridge states the ecclesiology flat out. Where two or three are gathered up, He said that He is there. He never said a sanctuary, He never said a square. That is the actual promise of Christ - His presence guaranteed to two or three of His people, with no building required. The camp was always flesh and blood, the brethren and the Lord. And then the line this whole catalog has been working toward: they buried it in brick and stone, but the church walked out the door. The church was never the walls. It is wherever His people lift the song - and He is in the midst of it all.