HILLSBORO, Kan.--After the Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church burned down the about 570 of the church's 600 parishioners gathered at the Hillsboro High School gymnasium. The worship service included a sermon about the real meaning of the word "church," according to The Wichita Eagle.
"The building burned, but we're still here - and so is God," pastor Bruce Porter said.
The congregation applauded in agreement.
The church, Porter reminded them again and again during the service was them and not the building. He told the congregation God had sent them a test to see salvation and the community of faith as more important than a church building.
"I think we needed to hear it," said Risa Fadenrecht, a 19-year-old woman raised in the old church building. She said she expected to marry and raise her own children there and was horrified to see the 50-year-old structure burn. But she also said she has come to realize that the community of believers is more important to the church than the building.
"We're a community of believers," she said. "That can't burn down."
