This is a guest post Brandon Chase. Brandon is a baseball player at heart; a practicing Crossfitter, golfer, hoopster and guitarist; fueled by meat, cappuccinos and chocolate. He writes about learning to Live by the Life of Jesus Christ on his blog Zōē Perissos. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Marie, and has two daughters McKinley and Delaney. They live in Fort Worth, TX.
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Do you remember doing Science Fair projects in school? You know, the ones where you did an experiment in order to answer a question, solve a problem, or explore a “what if?”
I’m certainly glad I’m not in 7th grade anymore, and don’t have to whip out my tri-panel display board and fret over whether the Judges are going to like my project. But, I do have an experiment, while hypothetical, that I’d love to see tested:
What would happen to the Church – the Body of Christ, if it were forced to exist without:
- Officially designated church buildings or offices
- Paid, full-time vocational ministers
- Institutional or otherwise officially organized groups or factions
- Tithes, Budgets or Ministry Plans
As I stated, I realize this experiment is an anecdotal exercise. Truly, it would take an extreme set of circumstances (or… a magnificent move of God) to arrange a new playing field such as this.
But what if?
What would you do if you woke up one morning, and suddenly, as if in an alternate reality, you learned that following your Lord, practicing and growing in your faith – being a Christian – had to be done differently…
What if…
What if there were no “churches” to “go to?”
What if there were no buildings where Christians gathered once or twice per week?
What if there were no “Ministers?” No “Pastors?” No “Preachers?” No “Leaders?”
What if there were no denominations? No groups of like-minded people who practice the same theological or doctrinal expression and traditions?
What if there were no institutions to which you would tithe or give? There were no tax deductions? No budgets directing the allocation of funds or mission statements or plans dictating ministry form?
You would have prayer, the Bible, and people – but none of the above.
What would you do? How would you move forward? What would happen to the Church?
What would happen to the world?
Hypothesis: Revival
I am giddy as I fantasize about this query.
Can you imagine? The Body of Christ being released into the wilderness – amongst the darkness and danger and wolves of the world – with no “church” building to retreat to on Sunday, no “Pastor” to listen to week after week, no tribe to look for answers in tradition and no tax motivation or direction on where to give money?
To many, this sounds like chaos.
To me, this sounds like Heaven on earth. This sounds like the Ekklesia. This sounds like the Body under the Head. This sounds like the Bride in radiant Oneness with Her Groom. This sounds like the Family of God. This sounds like a dwelling place for the Lord.
This sounds like Jesus.
It was He in fact who said He was sending us out like sheep amongst the wolves. He said just as He is Light, so too are we, shining in the darkness. He said that the world was dangerous, but that He had already overcome it, and that we were the real dangerous ones in Him.
He also said He was the Head of His Body, the Church. He would lead; we would be equal, united and mutually beneficial members to each other, and the Body as a whole.
He said that as sheep, we listen to His voice and hear Him, as He leads us, and we follow.
He said there was no room for division or faction – only Him.
He said nothing about giving a certain percentage. He asked for everything. He did not direct ministry. Ministry is His Life – and It is to be taken everywhere, all the time, as He directs.
These were the simple, but profound instructions a small group of followers received from their Lord. They didn’t have buildings they erected and gathered in. They didn’t place titles on certain people or create offices around them. They knew nothing of denominations. They were not given percentage of giving or mission plan guidelines.
Instead, they gathered with each other, two or more at a time, at varying points in the day, every day, in as many varying forms and expressions as possible.
When they gathered, Christ, by the Holy Spirit, “lead” the meeting. He set the agenda. He was the agenda. He was expressed and His Life was given, and out of that expression and Life came mission direction and action – always in the form of humility, service and Love. Money and possessions and resources were given freely, generously, spontaneously and continuously – with no thought to percentage or personal benefit. Ministry was organic, dynamic, and viral.
Their simple, but powerfully obedient response to their Lord’s commission, changed the world.
The early Christians did not have anything that we do not have today. In fact, they had so much less. But the advancement of the Kingdom and the Life of Jesus was so much more explosive in their time.
This begs the question:
How did the early church do so much with so little? And… How are we doing so little with so much more?
And these are indeed good questions. But they are not the best question, which is:
What do we have now, that they didn’t have, that may be hindering the Kingdom?
While the answers to that question cannot be fully treated in one article, might I submit that in part, they include:
- The modern day church building as the form and function of what we believe to be “church;” and if “gone to,” the primary function and practice of Christians.
- The submission to, and sometimes idolatry of those in the position of “Pastor” or others in “Leadership,” to the point where, under the clergy/laity caste, the Priesthood of all Believers, and the identification of and free functioning in Spiritual gifts is retarded.
- The division of the Body of Christ into many thousands of dis-unified parts, many of which give no more than lip service to the Lord Jesus Christ as the Head.
- The oftentimes abused teaching of tithing, and the door that it closes to creative opportunities to be generous in giving and serving and loving outside of a corporate bank account and budget.
God is not hindering His work in our age. He has not designed that this time be marked with less power and wonder and expansion of His Kingdom.
No, man has done that.
Maybe, just maybe, this little experiment should not be anecdotal or hypothetical at all.
Maybe, we’ve always had the prescribed steps, ingredients and answers to this all along?
We have Him. He is all we need.
Maybe He is calling His children to get ourselves – our stuff and our ideas, out of the way…
…and follow.
Some people just can’t cope with the idea of change. This is especially true in the institutional church. Instead of taking into consideration that disruption of the norm is sometimes a good and necessary part of living an abundant, dynamic life, they become frightened of the unknown and unfamiliar. They lash out using any resource available to them, be it asserting themselves through position, using power to dig potholes and set up road blocks, employing fear to demonize you in the eyes of others, or emotional weapons like name-calling and ostracizing. Today, I believe that many (the majority) of Christians are people who live in happily-blissfully ignorant slavery that is for all intents and purposes one of the most clever illusions of freedom I have ever seen. They are free in ways that not-yet-believers are still imprisoned, but restricted and oppressed in ways that not-yet-believers are not. Really, they are free in every way, but they behave as if and believe as if they were not. I can say this with confidence, because I lived in that world for over a decade. I followed Christ right out of the doors of the church. If I ever return, it will be as Moses returned to Egypt, to free the brick-making slaves who had no idea they could just walk away from Pharoah and God would have their backs.
Thank you Alice. Your words are haunting, encouraging and prophetic all at once. And I agree with you. I was studying the “freedom” that Paul writes about in Galatians 5 – being “free” in Christ – and I was struck by the depth of the root word. We really don’t have language to exhaust what it is we have in this Freedom. And yet, we’ve taken that and watered it down. True Freedom is only found and kept when out of a place of being Free, we posture ourselves back in bondage (slavery)… to Christ. We die. He Lives. True Freedom is found. The challenge for those of us who have wandered through the wilderness after leaving Babylon, and are learning what it means to walk in Canaan, is how to live that out amongst Brothers and Sisters who may be blissfully unaware of their own (improperly placed) slavery. Thank you.
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
There are certain benefits in having a place to go to, a place to gather, a physical place for others to see. It gives place where people can be found by those who are looking for something, and forms a sort of level ground for the members to gather where it belongs to all. At least in theory. I am not certain that suddenly removing that from the equation is the right answer, though it would certainly alter the way things are and are done. I am not really certain what the answer is, though I can not fault your thought process in this regard, I am not sure what the answer is. I would however really like to see God do something to shake up the church as a body, and get it moving together as a whole in the direction He wants it to go.
Thank you Tim. Of course, my words offered largely a hypothetical, as I said. I don’t think every church building is really going to go away. So no, that is not the answer. But something in me screams that if they did – the Spirit of God would be sought more in earnest by those who desire to continue to draw near. In doing so, God’s people would be lead into a “gathering” (Ekklesia) of the Body of Christ that would transcend the logical benefits of having a physical place to see and retreat to. Truly, it would be like nothing we’ve experienced, since Pentecost and the 1st Century – but more, imho. While my article is hypothetical, I do know that the answer is not – the answer is Jesus Christ. God is doing something to shake up His Church and the Body – He’s using a remnant to do it – and in many cases, it looks nothing like what “church” has been made to look like over hundreds of years. Thank you again for your comments. Bless you!
Actually there are many of us who are part of the church which you have imagined. The church with no walls, no budget, no staff, no property and only one head – Jesus. Those who understand what is happening know that their kingdoms are diminishing; their treasuries are shrinking.
People find something that is making a real difference and feel the need to organize it and institutionalize it. When there is prestige, power, control and especially money to be had, many people want to get involved. When none of those things are available, those seeking personal profit in one or more of those areas lose interest quickly.
Some feel they need the institution. That’s what they’ve been taught and all they know. They believe they need it. Jesus is not enough. They need buildings, properties, pastors, Bible interpreters and teachers, people who tell them how to think, what to do, who to give their money to and how much to give. This too shall pass.
Amen Sam. Yes, God is indeed moving in a remnant in this age. He is stripping things down to Christ alone. He is enough. Forever and ever, Amen. Bless you.
I would love to see all churches close down so that everyone can see who is really God’s. Like Martin Luther’s I Have a Dream Speech only I dream of a day when Christians will be judged by their actions rather than by their church attendance or denominational affiliation. Then, when the doors are shut, just maybe people will spend more time actually building the kingdom of God with their actions outside church walls.
Thank you Brother. I dream with you, and Father. Wrote about that a few months ago…
http://brandonchase.net/2013/09/26/i-have-a-dream/
Thank you for sharing your dream. I stand with you.
Sure is a nice thought…Yet their is a mistake in the premise so the answer will be askew!
You see, there is only one Ekklesia that the gates of hell has not, is not, and will not prevail against. Jesus I the Head/Corner Stone and He picked the living stones He places within His “church” (ugh, I hate the word).
Thus this system of “jesus franchises” using Him as a mascot, like Chucky Cheese is not a broken system, it is another system…or rather another’s. Like a Chucky Cheese franchise, the mascot is there to identify the building, but the folks don’t go there for the mascot, they go there to be entertained!
What you are actually looking at is the only thing on earth and in history that perfectly fits the picture of a broad road that leads to destruction while selling an “assurance of escape from hell aka salvation.” These are those who will hear, “Depart from Me you worker of inequity, I never knew you.” They will cry, “But Lord! LORD!! We did all these things/works in your name!!” Yes, the broad road that leads to destruction runs down the center isle and up across the pulpits of these “jesus franchises!”
The true fellowship of the saints has only saints gathering, and where the elders SERVE the youngers as a function and not an office. An elder is nothing more than a 3rd grader in a 2nd grade classroom, where these 4 things are certain.
1. If the 3rd grader learned the lesson well, he/she can function as a help to the 2nd grader.
2. If the 3rd grader learned in error, he/she will teach in error, and lead astray.
3. If the 2nd grader learns the lesson correctly, he/she can correct the 3rd graders error, thus functioning as the elder in that case.
4. In no case are the 2nd grader or the 3rd grader EVER the teacher!
So, when we see the blind guides inviting the world in to the “service” at the “jesus franchisees” are they not fulfilling the parable of sewing tares in with the wheat? Jesus said His enemy does this, and so we see that they are just like their father, the prince of this world.
The elders are to teach the youngers to go out and accurately preach the gospel to the lost and dying of this world. The Holy Spirit then convicts the elect to repentance. Then they can join the fellowship of the saints. An elder is worth a double honor when he can both teach the saints to accurately go out and preach the gospel, and also goes out and preaches the good News himself to the lost and dying.
On the other hand in the counterfeit, the blind guide hireling teaches his sheep to go out and invite the lost to come in and make a decision for a jesus who is then bound to accept them. Behold the power of another gospel!
Revelation 18 says, “Come out of her my people, for her sins have reached to heaven, lest you be caught in her destruction.” What else in the world and in history fits this thing but Churchianity/the “jesus franchises?!?!”
The Mother of all harlots is the church of Rome, so the question becomes, “Then who are her daughters?’ Well, what system of 55,000+ divisions of Jesus came out of the Church of Rome, but those denominational institutional daughters we see today? Nothing else in history or on this earth fits the description? Look up the Jesuits and see that they were formed to bring the daughters back under the Mother Church…Their confession, not mine by the way!
We are called to return to our First Love, the One on the outside knocking? Yes, He is on the outside of the jesus franchises calling His own OUT.
Can we see these things?
Well said. They will not succeed in bringing the ‘daughters’ under the mother church because we are at a time when people are starting to hate the ‘whore’ and her daughters.
The manifestation of God sons(and daughters) and the brightness of Christ’s coming( in us) is at the forefront of a great awakening that is happening all over the world.
The goal of the ‘gospel’ is to end suffering through love. Everything else is chaff in the wind and will be taken away.
Nicholas,
I am a little confused by your reply. Could you please clarify your statements in light of the scriptures, please? Thank you in advance for helping me understand where you are coming from with these 3 statements.
“…because we are at a time when people are starting to hate the ‘whore’ and her daughters.”
“The manifestation of God sons(and daughters) and the brightness of Christ’s coming( in us) is at the forefront of a great awakening that is happening all over the world.”
“The goal of the ‘gospel’ is to end suffering through love.”
Hi Mickey,
I’m surprised to see that no one has posted an answer to your questions in almost two months, so I’ll give it a try.
‘The whore and her daughters’ is a reference to chapter 17 of the Book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse of John the Divine. This, I believe, is one of the most misinterpreted books out of all those commonly accepted by most Christians to comprise the totality of scripture. (The topic of what comprises scripture is being discussed elsewhere on this website.) Two significant passages are:
17:5 – And upon her forehead was a name written a mystery: Babylon The Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the Earth.
and,
17:18 – And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.
‘The whore’ is ‘Babylon the Great’, often interpreted to mean the organized church. The first manifestation of this organized, political structure was the Church of Rome. ‘Her daughters’ were, and still are, the splinter groups that formed other churches after their members became too dissatisfied with the politics of the original group.
That is one common interpretation, which you and Nicholas have both alluded to in your posts. However, there is another interpretation, a broader and complementary rather than conflicting one. That is that ‘Babylon the Great’ refers to the entire global society and accompanying economic structure developed throughout history on the foundations of self-interest and greed. Verse 17, especially, supports that interpretation. The organized churches alone, though to some extent facilitating them, cannot be held responsible for mothering all “abominations of the earth.”
The sexist terminology of whore, daughters and harlots is an unfortunate product of a time when women were not even considered to have a soul and therefore were not seen as persons. It was a time when, with very few exceptions, men were responsible for world events, and therefore should have shouldered the blame. (It is men who are still mostly in charge and should accept moral responsibility for our current, dismal state of world affairs. In either interpretation, if Babylon and her daughters are the whores, it is only because men are the johns and pimps.)
A good understanding of the true foundations of secular society and the nature of the Kingdom of God has been the experience of a few enlightened individuals since the time of Jesus and even before, but with many running to and fro, and knowledge increasing (a reference to Daniel 12:4) we are at a time when more people are coming to “hate the whore and her daughters” (as well as those pimps and johns).
“The manifestation of God sons (and daughters) and the brightness of Christ’s coming (in us) is at the forefront of a great awakening that is happening all over the world.”
That, as many of us believe, is what Jesus foresaw as the coming of the “Son of Man.”
Luke 17: 23 & 24 says, roughly translated, “People will say to you, look, there (he is)! Or, look, here (he is)! Do not go off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashing under heaven (across the sky), so will be the Son of Man.” The sense we get here is that Jesus will not appear in the flesh as the same Jesus of Nazareth who was speaking, but that it would be his spirit, the Christ, the same spirit with which mankind is (or will be, or is being) anointed, that will manifest across the entire corpus of humanity, like bright flashes of lightning seen everywhere illuminating the darkness of the clouds. A beautiful metaphor for what some of us like to think of as the Beautiful Apocalypse. The earlier verse 20 of the same chapter seems to support that: “Neither will people say, ‘look, here!’ or, ‘look,there!’ for the kingdom of God is inside you.”
Also, in Mark 14:62, Jesus says, “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” This is a much more difficult verse to interpret word by word for those of us who know neither Aramaic nor Greek, but the same general interpretation seems to fit.
“The goal of the ‘gospel’ is to end suffering through love.”
I completely agree with Nicholas on that.
Teaching ‘the gospel’ is what has come to be known as the great commission, based in large part on Matthew 28:19-20:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (That last sentence further supports the interpretation that the ‘second coming’ is a coming in spirit.)
‘Gospel’ means truth. I don’t think Jesus had in mind for his disciples to teach ‘the truth’ about who he was (Matt. 16:20). To this day there is much confusion over exactly who Jesus was, and how to reconcile his humanity with his divinity. That’s not the point. What was evidently most important to teach was the truth, the gospel, of what he taught; which was how to live according to the Holy Spirit, which he realized was the spirit within him, as well as within each of us, as long as we realize and allow it: “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8:58.) He didn’t mean I, Jesus of Nazareth. He meant the Christ, the spirit of God in humanity, the spirit with which he was anointed and wanted all of us to be.
The gospel truth that Jesus taught was not about being the ‘only begotten’ son of God (the words – or rather, one word in the original Greek- of John as interpreted by later translators). Nor was it about his redemption of our sins (a theology developed to its current form only centuries after the facts primarily from the epistles of Paul, who never knew or spoke with Jesus personally, in the flesh.) Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see anywhere in Jesus’ own reported words anything to support those two claims.
The underlying theme of Jesus’ words and actions is seen throughout the New Testament, and is summarized in Jesus’ own words in Matthew 22:37-40:
“And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.”
This is the true gospel which Jesus commissioned his disciples to teach, not just in words but primarily in deeds.
Love, always.
It would be amazing to see if peoples faith was truly their own or if it would fall apart without the social and cultural structure of the building.
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