Don't Take God There

Rob Bell, in his book Velvet Elvis, starting on page 77, reminds us that Isaiah 6:3 says:

Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.

Bell then goes on to point out that

The Hebrew word for glory here is kavod, which means weight or significance. The whole earth is full of the weight and significance of who God is.

He continues:

A church is a community of people who are learning how to be certain kinds of people wherever they find themselves, so they can do whatever it is they do “in the name of the Lord Jesus”. The goal isn’t to bring everyone’s work into the church; the goal is for the church to be these unique kinds of people who are transforming the places they live and work and play because they understand the whole earth is filled with the [glory] of God. God isn’t in one building only.

Which allows him to conclude:

Missions then is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there....maybe it means teaching people to use their eyes to see things that have always been there; they just didn’t realize it. You see God where others don’t. And then you point him out.

The church is to take the message to the world, not to take God to the world. God's already there. The people just need help seeing Him.