Filed under: Church | Tags: Body of Christ, Building, Church, Ekklesia, Family, Idenity
There is nothing righteous about a building. There is also nothing righteous about a home or a living room. Most people agree that the building where people meet is not the church.
It’s funny though how 99 out of 100 individuals will emphatically nod their head and say “Right, the building is not the church.” But, then ten minutes later if you point to a religious building with a steeple on top and say, “What is that?” They’ll say, “It’s a church.”
Jesus said, “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart….,” (Matt 15:18). Out of their mouths, all of the time people say, “We are going to CHURCH”, or “Meet me at THE CHURCH,” or “That’s a CHURCH,” – because THEY BELIEVE in their heart that it’s A CHURCH. You might say, “C’mon, what’s the big deal, it’s just what we call it, we really know that the church is the people and not the building.” I’m not so sure about that and I’ll tell you why.
Our Words Represent Our Actions
Let’s take a look at your average group of people who meet in a traditional church setting. They have services twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays. They have a nice building they meet in. The building is outfitted with all the traditional markings. It has a sign out front with the name of the church. The sign contains a weekly, catchy, thought provoking phrase. The building has a steeple on the top. If not a steeple, then some other traditional looking top to make it look like a church.
Inside, the building has long benches for the audience to sit on. It has a raised platform or stage at the front. It has a nice wooden box for an orator to give speeches from. Behind the speech making box and stage, there is a big bathtub which is raised higher than the stage.
While in this building, we are to conduct ourselves in a certain manner. There is special, extra reverent conduct expected from you as you are in this large meeting room. It is frowned upon anyone to eat or drink a beverage in this meeting room. This room is considered sanctified, which is why it is called the sanctuary – which means that this room is set apart or holy. This meeting room is viewed as though God Himself were living in it.
Let’s do some experiments. Let’s remove all the pews. Let’s also remove the speech making box called the pulpit. All it is now is an empty room. How would this affect our meeting? Would it still seem like a church? Let’s say we sat on lawn chairs and the preacher stood on top of a milk crate. Would it now still be a real church?
Let’s say we took away the entire building. Let’s say a tornado picked it up and moved it to Kansas. Now remember, we all agree that this building is not the church. But what if this building were obliterated? What would be the response of the people who met inside it? More importantly, what would be the emotional response of these people? Would they say, “Our church has been destroyed?” And if this building were gone, how would it affect their fellowship and their practice of meeting together? Do we really believe that the church is really just the people?
We all agree with the concept that the church is the people and not the building – but only in concept. If you were to take away, change, mess up, or alter people’s sacred building, they won’t really feel comfortable.
People associate the building, the pews, the pulpit, the steeple, the baptistery, a pastor – all those things are necessary with “having a real church.” If you meet outside in a park, at 3:00 pm on Thursday instead of 10:45 am on Sunday, then you wouldn’t have a “real church.” If you baptized people in a lake or a river, instead of the bath tub behind the speech making stage, it would seem like the baptism was not quite as official or holy. In 1993, I baptized a man in a bird bath because it was all that was available. Was that baptism somehow less official than being baptized in a bathtub behind a pulpit on a Sunday morning at 10:45? In Acts Chapter 8, the Ethiopian Eunuch jumped out of his chariot and was baptized in some water right along side the road. The thief on the cross next to Jesus was never baptized at all, yet he entered into paradise. Perhaps we should consider if possibly God does not care about the things we care so deeply about.
“Well, Acts chapter 8 and the thief on the cross were during Bible times. Times have changed now”, some might say. Sure, things have changed. But they have not changed for the better. Why do we think that doing things differently from scripture is all of a sudden now more correct?
When Jesus walked the earth, He met outside and taught people in the middle of tremendous disarray. There were people sitting down in the grass. There were people sitting in trees. Some people were probably on their way to the market with their livestock and saw the crowd listening to Jesus preach. They would stop to hear what Jesus was saying and had their cow or chicken there with them as they listened to the message. No one was dressed up in a formal way. When Jesus spoke, there were babies crying, people in filthy clothes, and people walking around toward the back of the crowd.
Was it considered a church meeting when Jesus would preach to the crowds? Of course it was! The church meetings throughout the New Testament include meetings outside, meetings around a fire, meetings in homes, and meetings in buildings. Paul was in a church meeting one time, and while he was teaching, a young man was sitting in a window sill. Imagine if during the next Sunday morning service somebody decided they couldn’t hear as well from the back so they climbed up and sat in the nearest window sill? Someone would probably call security.
Here’s the point. The building is not holy. But we believe it is. If you meet in a park, meet in a home, meet in a fancy Catholic building in Rome, meet in a tree house, it’s all the same. Jesus said that “Where two or more are gathered together, there I am in the midst.” Do we really believe that? C’mon, do we REALLY believe that?
Let’s test it out. Could you meet with one other person, just one, on a Tuesday night in a park? You would read the Bible together, pray together, share hearts, worship God, and touch the Lord together. Would you consider that church? Be honest now… would you still feel like you have to cover your God base by going to the official church meeting on Sunday morning? Would you still feel like you have to dress up, sit on a pew, and listen to a sermon in order to feel like you’ve been in church?
Our actions sometime betray our right Biblical concepts.
Our religiousity runs deep. It’s all we’ve known, it’s all we’ve seen, it’s all we’ve been taught. It’s what we’ve believed for a long time now…even though it is unbiblical. What about all the other things you maybe unaware of that you believe and practice…. that may be unbiblical? The Holy Spirit will help you. But it sometimes takes tremendous honesty and courage to grow.
Why did the New Testament Christians meet in homes? It is certainly not that a house is more righteous than a building. Once you see and understand the essence of body life and what church really is, you will see that THERE IS NO NEED FOR A BUILDING. In fact, it can hinder and get in the way. Also, once your eyes are opened, you will stop associating “being fed” with that of listing to a message once a week. The New Testament Christians were not “fed” by a three point sermon once a week by a paid professional.
What is the point of meeting together anyway? What is the essence of the church meeting? The purpose is to touch the Lord, to encounter Jesus, to be built up in faith, and to edify one another. When this happens, He feeds us. He edifies the church. We are built up and encouraged and He is blessed. The essence and point of the church meeting is more easily accomplished as we keep it simple and don’t include all the extras and unnecessary practices.
It’s Time to “Go To Family”
Many times in Christianity we use words or phrases which are not found in scripture. Phrases like “give your heart to Jesus, make a commitment to Christ, once saved always saved, lose your salvation, our church body, or the body of Christ here” – none of these phrases are found in the Bible.
Many times the idea behind such phrases was originally founded in scripture. But over time, we add to their meaning. Over long periods of time we create man made doctrines, and then we assume they are Biblical. Assuming that certain things are true without questioning them gets us into a lot of trouble in the church. Over time our words and phrases get packaged, re-packaged, and then packaged again. Many times the arguments and discussions we are having are not Biblical themselves. In other words, we are often asking the wrong questions. Or, the dilemmas we are trying to solve are based on assumptions that are in error themselves. Almost always, words and phrases we use that are not found in scripture are not scriptural ideas.
Huge ships are turned by very small rudders. Sometimes even the smallest error in our language (which reflects our thinking and our heart) can manifest itself with huge and consistent patterns of unbiblical practices in our lives. If you will learn to seek the Lord and examine the scriptures with no biases or assumptions, it will open a whole new world to you.
I would like to introduce to you another phrase not found in the Bible. Scripture never uses the words “go to church.” And it doesn’t use that phrase for a good reason. You cannot go to something you are. The early Christians understood this. But we don’t. Our lack of understanding in this area has caused severe and widespread damage. “But it’s just words,” you might say. If I said that God was a female, would you have a problem with those words? I would too. The words we use express what we really believe, and we live according to how we believe. Let’s look at the absurdity of our practice of “going to church” and how it negatively affects our lives.
The word church in the Bible is the Greek word ekklesia. Ekklesia means “the called out ones.” If you further study the word, you will observe some interesting meanings. The word also has with it the meanings of a family, a people, an assembly, or a council. It even has the idea of a modern town hall meeting for deliberation.
We could substitute the word “family” for the word “church”. The church is a people. A family is a people.
Let’s say that after a long day at work, you were heading home to eat supper and then retire for the evening. And, you were going to do this inside your house with your spouse and children. Would you say, “I’m going to family?” No you would not. You would say, “I’m going to be with my family.”
Erroneously, church has become a function that we do on Sunday morning. Church has become an event instead of it being who we are. The word church has lost its meaning of family; the word has lost the meaning of us being a people. Going to church has become a weekly activity that we do. We’ve taken a word that defines who we are, a word that identifies us, and we’ve lessened it to an hour and a half episode that we do once a week. After the weekly church event, we then we all go home to our individual lives. It’s like going to the theatre, or going to school, going to work, or going to the grocery store. “We’re going to church!”
Look at it this way. If you are something, you are that thing everyday and you do what you are everyday. Are you a man? Then you never stop being one. Are you a woman? Then you never stop being a woman.
If you have kids then you are a parent. Do you ever stop being a parent? No. If you go to school, go to work, or you are at home, you are always a parent. You don’t stop being a parent because of where you are or what activity you are doing.
And here’s the point: As a parent you should always be actively parenting. You should be praying for your kids while at work. You should be planning things for them, thinking about their needs even when you are not with them. When you are at work, you are working to provide for their needs, when you are home with them, you are actively engaged with them and interacting with them. If you are a parent, you are always a parent and you do at least some sort of parenting activity daily!
Same with the church! If we are the church, you never stop being the church. You cannot be the church on Sunday at 10:45 a.m. and then not be the church Tuesday at 10:45 a.m.
When we call the building a church or say that “we are going to church” we are taking away from the fact that “church” is our identity, not something we “go to”. When something is our identity, we are that thing all of the time. When we “go to something”, we are only participating in that activity while we are there.
When we say “we are going to church”, we are practicing the exact error that is really in our hearts.
We have made something we are, into a weekly event. We’ve made the word “church” into an impersonal, shallow, intellectual, 2 hour a week activity.
Erroneously, we have our life at work. We have our life at home. We have our life of activities. We have our life with our church. We have our life with our friends. It is all become separate and compartmentalized.
If God has saved you and you belong to Jesus Christ, then your new identity as a person is now with the church.
The church, corporately, is now who you are. And you are to live the reality that you are the church 24 hours a day / 7 days a week.
We think growth as a Christian is learning more about the Lord, instead of knowing Him as a person. I can read a book all day long about who my wife is, but until I share her heart, and until I spend plenty of relationship time with her, I will not know her. Learning more information only teaches you about something. Experience is where true growth occurs.
In our day and time we know very little of intimacy. We know very little of how to be joined in heart and be truly knit together as a people of God, yet deep down, we all long for it. We have traded the intimacy of true church life for the falseness of an institution.
We are a living and breathing temple of living stones who encompass the true and living God. We are alive! Corporately, we are the very Bride of Christ. We are filled with the Holy Spirit, within and without. How offensive it is to call us a dead pile of brick and mortar. How it tells and exposes our lack of revelation of who we are, to say things like, “time to go to church.” If we are not using New Testament language, it is because we lack revelation to some degree. If our beliefs are in error, our practice and what we live are in error as well.
By Terry Stanley
More later…
Filed under: Church | Tags: Church, Clergy, Laity, Manipulation, Nicolaitans, One man, Pastor
by Andrew Strom.
Most churches today are run using the ‘Senior Pastor’ model, where one man (almost always with a degree from Bible College) does most of the ministering and is looked up to as “the man of God”. Few could deny that pastors are truly the ones who are running the church today.
But amazingly enough, in the Book of Acts, which is the history of the first 30 YEARS of the early church, the word ‘Pastor’ is NOT EVEN MENTIONED ONCE. In fact, even in the whole New Testament the word is only used one time – and that is near the bottom of a list of ministries in the church, and in the plural: “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers…” (Eph 4:11). This is the only place where the word ‘Pastors’ (plural) can be found.
There were elders and ‘overseers’ (these terms are interchangeable) in the New Testament church. But that is totally different from the position of “one man pastor” that we have today.
So how did a one man Pastor end up running everything? And what effect does this have on the church?
Well, when you study history it becomes obvious that we mostly got this concept from Rome – not from the Bible. As Beckham said (quoted in one of our previous articles): “Using a combination of the Roman governmental and feudal systems, Emperor Constantine developed a church structure that has lasted for seventeen centuries… People go to a building (cathedral) on a special day of the week (Sunday) and someone (a priest, or today, a pastor) does something to them (teaching, preaching, absolution or healing) or for them (a ritual or entertainment) for a price (offerings).”
In most cases, what we are seeing today is the continuation of this “Clergy and Laity” system that dominated the church during the Dark Ages. There is very little difference, really. The titles have changed but apart from that it is basically the old Roman Catholic system of professional ‘Priests’ running everything. We call them ‘pastors’ but the position is basically the same.
These are people who have gained a degree from Bible College, and now we pay them to be our “minister”. Never mind the fact that we are ALL supposed to be ministers!
What this results in is two different ‘classes’ in the church. -The “ministering” class and the “churchgoing” class (or ‘laity’). Which is something that God utterly detests. He cannot stand His people being divided up into ‘classes’ like this. It is the doctrine of the “Nicolaitans” (Rev 2).
But is it really that bad? What harm does it really do?
Below are the specific ways that this “one man pastor” model does enormous harm to the church:
(1) It puts one person on a pedestal – above all others. In many churches this veneration of the pastor closely resembles Idolatry. His word is law and the entire church revolves around this one man.
(2) This leads directly to PRIDE. The position that we place these men in is terribly dangerous for them and for the whole church. It is very difficult NOT to develop Pride when treated in this way. Pride is the most subtle and spiritually fatal of diseases. It wreaks havoc wherever it finds a home.
(3) Control, manipulation and spiritual abuse become common where power is concentrated in the hands of one ‘venerated’ figure. Power corrupts. Flattery corrupts. Veneration corrupts. And before you know it, people are being terribly damaged and wounded by the control and the “management techniques” being exerted from the top. Then new teachings on “covering” and “submission” are wheeled out, to lend an air of legitimacy to the oppression that is being visited upon people. Everyone is told to ‘submit’ and not to question. The “one man pastor” system lends itself to this whole scenario like a hand in a glove. It is virtually made for it.
(4) It turns the church into a bunch of “spectators”. In other words, everybody sits around and watches while the ‘professionals’ do most of the work. It is their “job” after all. This is an absolute disaster. For we ALL have gifts and callings and anointings from God.
(5) The position lends itself to “robes and titles”. Jesus said to his disciples, “You are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ because you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.” (See Matt 23:5-12). None of this seems to stop men from taking on “titles” today.
(6) Many pastors by their nature tend to be “play it safe” types. They don’t like the boat being rocked and they are often resistant to real change. The fact that today’s church is in the hands of pastors, rather than apostles and prophets (as it should be) who are the “risk-takers” of the church, means that it is slow to react and is easily out-maneuvered by the enemy. We desperately need anointed ‘risk-takers’ and change-oriented leaders today.
Because the position of Pastor is usually the “only job going” in the church, it forces many who are actually evangelists or prophets to become Pastors, just so they can get to minister. Often they are quite out of place, and many times this leads to disaster.
All of this creates such a load on the shoulders of the man that is appointed Senior Pastor, that this job has one of the worst BURNOUT rates in the western world.
At the end of the day, just like church buildings, the best reason for rejecting this model of leadership is that it is simply NOT IN THE BIBLE.
Some people say that having a ‘board of elders’ who can hire or fire the pastor keeps all of this in check. Not so. It may keep the “control” side of things down, but the mere fact that they feel the need to “appoint a pastor” just shows how hooked into this system they really are. It is centuries old, and all we are doing is perpetuating it.
So how did they do things in the New Testament?
Well, the first thing we need to realize is that the apostles were not “professionals”. Apart from Paul they had never been to Bible College. (These were run by the Pharisees!) Most of the apostles were simple fishermen and tax-collectors. But they had spent MUCH TIME WITH JESUS. That was their qualification.
And it is clear that Pastors were never in charge of the church. It was the APOSTLES who were given that role. But they never “lorded it over” the people. And wherever they went they appointed elders or overseers (plural) to watch over the church in their absence. Unfortunately, some translations of the Bible use the word “Bishop”, which gives the impression of a ‘hierarchy’. But this was not in the original. As Greek scholar W.E. Vine states: “‘Presbuteros’, an elder, is another term for the same person as bishop or overseer. See Acts 20:17 with verse 28.” So these were just simple “elders” – that’s all.
It was only when the church fell into serious decline and then into Romanism that the complicated “hierarchies” began. Before this, it was all very simple. Perhaps one day it will be so again.
Now, some will want to ask – Does all this information make me “anti-pastor”? Not on a personal level. In fact, I tend to get on with pastors pretty well. I meet them all the time. But we have to realize that a lot of them are struggling inside a system that is completely unscriptural – and change has got to come.
More later….
Filed under: Church | Tags: Church Service, Fellowship, Home Fellowship, Institutional Church
What I must start off with is that I always believed in God. I was brought up Catholic and my father always made sure we went to church and had a Catholic education. (Growing up my father always wanted to be a priest, according to what my grandparents told me.)
I am the oldest of 9 children. At a very young age I entered the convent to be a nun. It was the week before my 17th birthday. At 19 I was out. During this time my parents were going through a divorce, but a month before the divorce was final, my dad was killed in a motorcycle accident on his way to work.
Without going into a lot of detail, let’s just say my life growing up was not peaches and cream. There are abuses I went through and I always tried to do the right things, but failed in areas. There were times I got drunk, lied, etc.. There are a some sins I can think of that I am very ashamed to talk about, but that is in the past and forgiven. After my father’s death, my mom moved to Florida with the children. About a year later I decided to move to Florida.
Though I believed in God, I was very empty inside. I was looking for a church and ended up finding one, which had a group of people who met on Friday nights at the Walsh’s home for prayer, praise, and Bible study (in the late 70′s). A lot of them were new Christians. It was there someone told me about Jesus. The person telling me about Jesus acted like he knew Him personally and THAT was what I wanted. I became a Christian that year. I was hungry to read the Bible and continued to go to the meetings.
Well, years went by. I learned things as I read my Bible and I attended different kinds of churches and finally ended up in a Baptist church. All I can say is, as time went on I lost my zeal for God even though I was active in church. I was in the music ministry and we had a music ministry for the prisoners here in Volusia County. I also taught Sunday School to 5th graders. I attended church on Sundays and of course our Wednesday evening services. I attended just about every function the church had.
Around 2004 things started to change for me. I found myself hungry for deeper things of God. Through the years I gained a lot of head knowledge, but I was empty inside. I started questioning my beliefs and ‘why’ do I go to church. I started looking at my life and those around me. When it came to Sunday mornings, it was I who had to make sure everyone in the family got up so we could be on time for church. There were some mornings that were not pleasant.
I got to the point where I started watching more closely at the people in the services and after the services. Everyone seem to have their own little circle of friends. As much as I went to church, it was hard to really find anyone to converse with who was ecstatic about God. I wanted to talk about Jesus, to have conversations like I did in the old days with people who, like me, were new Christians, where we were on fire for God and we couldn’t talk about anything else but what the Lord had done in our lives each week and shared Scripture verses that spoke to our hearts, and words of encouragement for each other. Those days were gone. I couldn’t find anyone on fire for God, much less that spark was gone in me as well. Once in a great while I found someone just before Sunday School or Sunday service where a sincere conversation took place and we got more out of our two minute conversation than the whole hour sermon!
After Sunday services were over, I would watch people as they got in their car to go home while I waited for the children to get out of their Sunday School class. Some people looked like they had been sucking on lemons all morning. I would see people in a rush to get home that they were not courteous to oncoming traffic within the church parking lot! And I remember sitting there and thinking, “Is this all there is?” I was thinking about my life, about the church attendance, people rude in the parking lot, people looking angry most of the time, how people were backbiting each other, etc. etc..
This got me started to look up on the internet about church or church life. I came across an article titled, “Why Modern Churches are Carnal.” It explained the word “church” and how it has nothing to do with early Christian practice, about man-made traditions, titles, the binding of Christians to tithe, about the abuse and roles of those within the church structure. During this time I was also seeking the Scriptures and came across a doctrine that I have held onto for years and found to be false (Original Sin). I was excited about this new found truth, and when I tried to share it with my Christian friends they turned on me (from the internet to those I knew in church, right down to the pastor). Some of the church members accused me of trying to undermine the teachings of our pastor. Some of them did not bother to speak to me anymore. I seemed to have made enemies.
I went to church a few times thereafter, but this time with my spiritual eyes and ears open to what the pastor was preaching. He was not preaching against sin, but giving excuses for sin and to encourage the pew sitters to to try and do better, even though it was taught that it was impossible to keep the commandments!
The last time I went to church was on a Wednesday night. The sermon made me sick to my stomach, and I could not understand how anyone could agree with what the pastor was teaching. It took everything in me to not jump up and shout, “NO! This is wrong, this is not right!” The teaching was making them comfortable in their sin – for them not to worry if they were guilty of any of the sins found in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 when it says those guilty will not inherit the kingdom of God! Instead the pastor told them they did not have to chew their nails off their fingers, so to speak, because we all stumble at times. He even confessed one Sunday and said, “I lust daily.” These people had nothing to worry about because they are fed that a child of God can never lose their salvation.
Well, that Sunday I got up and I just couldn’t get myself to go to church. What had been going through my mind those few days was, “Come out of her.” I felt the Lord was telling me to get out of the church I was in. That Sunday morning my husband was already up and sitting at the table. I said, “I’m not going to church anymore.” He was kind of surprised. He didn’t say much. This is not to mention that he felt like he had to go to please me. Why tell others to get ready for church if it’s not in their heart to go? I didn’t want my family to go just to please me. Not to mentioned that one of my daughters met some friends “at church” that led her faster down the path of destruction. There were some teens there who cared nothing about their spiritual life. They were just in “the program” and going to church because they were forced to attend like I did with my children.
It was difficult for me at first when I stopped going to church. I had some “guilt,” and then wondered, “What’s next?” I don’t know if you heard the expression, but I had to “detox” from church. My life was caught up in the institutional church, helping to build the “pastor’s kingdom.” I was kind of afraid at first because we’re taught that the more you stay away from church, the deeper in sin you will go. This is a lie. If a person goes deeper into sin, then one must wonder what his spiritual condition really is. For me? I had to learn to lean on Jesus and not some church system and a one man pastor.
It’s been since 2004 and I still not have attended a church service. There have been times I thought that maybe I should find something because I haven’t found Christians around me going through the same circumstances. I haven’t been able to find a fellowship of other believers except for those I have found through the internet. I keep praying to find something or the Lord lead me to somewhere, anywhere. But it is during these times that I know He still wants me to seek Him. The last time I went through this agony about fellowship, I was led to an article indirectly. It is titled, “No Fellowship, No Problem! Again, the Lord spoke to me through this article.
I’m still here and still surviving. I use my time for study in God’s word, for the web, and this blog for His honor. Maybe some day I might find that home fellowship with other believers close by, but for now I remain content in the state I am in, trusting in Jesus.
More later…
