Unchained

There was a time when people used to "bleed" those who were sick because that's what you did to help them get better - you drained them of their excess blood and/or "bad humors".

There was a time when people used to look at early automobiles and say, "That will never replace a good horse or horse-drawn wagon", it's just too impractical.

There was a time when people would capture, enslave, and sell their fellow countrymen to foreigners from distant lands for money because that's what you do for money.

People used to do a lot of things that we accepted as perfectly normal that we look back on as being way off base, short-sighted, or just completely wrong.

For me, the way we "do church" is not too different. It's something we've learned to do over time that is disconnected from what God was and is doing with humanity through Jesus.

I don't believe God replaced the temple sacrifice/worship system with the local church sacrifice/worship system where you are "required" by God to gather to run through some activities to be pleasing to him.

That's the short story.  Below is the slightly longer version of it.

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It is for freedom that you've been set free. But don't use your freedom simply to go indulge your flesh - that's just another kind of slavery - instead use your freedom to serve other people instead of using them. And by all means, don't abandon your freedom and go back into trying to "be right with God" by trying to follow The Law or rules or "being religious" or whatever. Stand confident that you are good with God because of what Jesus did.  (a rough summary of some of Galatians 5)

The early believers got together, that we know. Whether or not they did "church" like we do it today in popular culture...well, we can be pretty sure it didn't look a whole lot like what we do. 

Because of traditions that we accept as being "the way to do things", we often assume that God told people to get together on Sundays to "have church" and that there was/is a list of things you're supposed to do to worship properly, make God happy, and not make him displeased with us/you.

There's certainly nothing wrong with doing that, but it's not exactly what you pick up from scripture IF you don't try to read what we do and accept as "the way to do church/Christianity" back into scripture. 

We assume that we're supposed to worship God this certain way because that's what we've grown up with and it's what people have done for hundreds of years. And surely people doing things for hundreds of years can't be off base or misleading or easily misunderstood!

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In the Bible, there's this guy named Paul who was given the task of sharing what God is doing in the world through Jesus and his special focus was on sharing that good news with people who didn't grow up Jewish. 

God sent Paul to share the good news to the other nations/the Gentiles. And in doing so, Paul had to help these new believers "catch up" with scripture, the gospel, etc at the same time he was encouraging new believers who were Jewish in background "catch up" with the new thing God was doing in Jesus and to leave behind things that were no longer bound on them and/or no longer needed/necessary.

And so a part of their being shaped in this new way was for them to get together and learn together and share what they were learning with each other.  You can read through all of Paul's letters in the New Testament to see what he said to them in detail. 

One of the more interesting things that is missing is what we'd call "going to church" or worshipping God "at church". 1 Corinthians 11-14 is probably the closest any of the New Testament comes in showing what those times were like or supposed to be like.

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Again, what we experience in church gatherings today isn't "wrong" as it were, but it's certainly something that can and does skew how we as believers see ourselves, see God, think about what it means to "worship God", think about how we "do life" and so on.  

As believers, we are set free from the "old way" of coming to a building to worship God because he doesn't live in a building, he lives in us through his spirit. We aren't called to come to a building to offer "a sacrifice of praise", but instead to give our life over to him - all the time, not just Sunday!

Romans 12 reminds us that, in view of what God has done for us in Jesus, we need to think completely differently or, in other words, be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are changed in our lives by changing how we think about everything - in view of what is true in God.  

It has so very little to do with "going to church" and a lot more to do with how we see life - like all of life, all the time. I think most Christians think 90% of their duty to God is fulfilled by "going to church" and I'd say none of it is. Zero.  

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Gathering with other believers is a good thing!  In doing so, we access the gifts that God has placed in his family/the church - we learn from each other, we can help sustain and encourage each other, we can help clear up things we have learned that are wrong, we can help each other see and think better, and so on.  

But that's not often what happens "in church" or at least in many church congregations. If that's happened for you, then great!  I'm just reflecting that it's not my experience, nor the experience of many. 

Most of the time what I've seen and experienced happening "in church" is one person or a few people "leading" everyone else toward a very narrow, focused time which encourages everyone to keep coming back to this group, giving money to that group, listening primarily to the leadership of that group, learning to enjoy the things that group enjoys, etc.

There's very little mutuality - very little sharing except moments designed to elicit sharing that is going to support, back up, or "high five" the point the leadership wants you to get and/or input that supports the direction and emphasis that is "approved" by the leadership.

We're not learning about God from each other's spirit led life, we're allowing one or a few to become our conscience to tell us what to believe, what to feel guilty about, how to see life through the lens of being part of that particular church, etc...and we'll even allow them to confess on our behalf "sins" they want us to feel we're committing - usually "sins of omission" so as to motivate us to do what they want.

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Often times, for those who find that church "works for them", their life kind of matches up, sociologically, with the other people there, and so they are encouraged by being around similar people doing similar things.  They don't mind being "uni-mind led" because everything "at church" matches up nicely with and/or supports their life arc as they would like to see it unfold. 

But as I've been around more people who orbit church and God, many never feel welcomed "inside", they don't "gel" with the insider stuff. It could be they are just different socially or have/are experiencing very different things that "insiders" don't get, or a whole host of things.  And so they just stay away.  Some will search around for a long time to find a congregation that fits them, but many just give up.  And I think it's the nature of how we "do church" that makes that dynamic happen over and over again. 

When churches recreate a sacrificial/worship service gathering that Jesus made pointless, they're going back again to something that we've been freed from.  It's almost like we forgot Jesus told the woman at the well that a time was coming when where you "worshipped" was not even the point.

We're not called to "come and worship God".  We're called to "be church" - to gather to encourage, teach, share, and other mutual things - but that can be a lot of different things and at different times of the week and on schedules that vary - it's not necessarily what we see around us today that was what was happening "back then".

Some time before he was put to death for things that resulted from his faith, that guy Paul, mentioned earlier, said a time was coming when people would rise up from among the believers and "use" the church for themselves.  Terrible wolves he called them.  People who'd devour the flock they're supposed to protect.

And we know from church history it wasn't long before that happened.  What began as a movement or as a way of life turned into another organized religious group with people "in control" to tell everyone what to believe, think, and do.  No need to rely on the Holy Spirit, just listen to them and do what they say.

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My tribe of origin used to pride itself on speaking where the Bible speaks and being silent where the Bible is silent.  And they were good at it!  We got to be really good at dissecting scripture like a lab specimen.

And I'm glad we did because it did open the door for a greater understanding of history, context, etc and it brought many of us back to a realization of how far "churches" stray from what God was and is doing in Jesus.  

Even though we were good at looking back through time, history, and scripture to recapture or restore first century Christianity, we did so without questioning the whole "meet every Sunday in a formal sense, do these things to be pleasing to God, etc".  

We just slightly modified what everyone else around us was doing "church wise" without questioning the whole "go to church and worship God" notion.

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"Well, now...hold on.  What are we supposed to do if we aren't supposed to be going to church to worship God?"  

That's a good question I get occasionally from people hang in there far enough into a discussion to realize that there actually might be something else that God had and has in mind.

For now, here's a short story/preview.  We are to live in faith that we're good with God - sins 100% forgiven forever, no need to keep asking for forgiveness - and that his spirit lives within us, never to leave because we've "sinned too much" or embarrassed God, etc.  We are to live in trust and dependence on him and, in doing so, he'll lead to know him and walk with him.  

Will he "use church"?  Sure, but probably not the way a lot of people think about or for the same reasons,

We're set free!  And a part of that is freedom from the way a lot of people think about church and center their understanding of and walk with God around.

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More at some point.  Trying to knock out some of these requested discussion/writings in the early AM's and it usually means rushing through and doing an incomplete/less than satisfactory unpacking of things in the hopes I can and will come back later and polish it up.

Grace and peace.