Carve sides of elegant church (4)
I believe the answer is:
etch
'carve' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'sides of elegant church' is the wordplay.
'sides of' means to remove the middle letters (only the letters on the sides remain).
'church' becomes 'ch' (common abbreviation).
'elegant' with its middle taken out is 'et'.
'et'+'ch'='ETCH'
(Other definitions for etch that I've seen before include "Delineate" , "Eat away with acid" , "Prepare artwork" , "Use acid to cut design" , "Engrave metal plate using acid" .)