reChurch Podcast
Welcome to the reChurch Podcast, hosted by Justin and Brooke Knoop.
As we speak, there is a massive number of people leaving the institutional Church...but interestingly, they aren’t walking away from Jesus. Many of us have noticed a significant gap between what we see in the Bible and what we experience on Sunday mornings. Let’s talk about it.
reChurch Podcast
What Happens When You Stop ‘Going to Church’ | #reChurch Ep. 23
We challenge the picture of church as a stage and a program, and rebuild it as family around a table, a body with many parts, and a people sent into neighborhoods. Honest stories and Scripture reshape how we read Acts, handle accountability, and practice mission.
• redefining church beyond buildings and brands
• asking if we could function without Sunday services
• accountability through small, known communities
• what church is not versus what Jesus designed
• envisioning Acts 2 around the dinner table
• every member functioning as a vital part
• mission shifting to neighborhoods and workplaces
• simplifying discipleship to meals, prayer and obedience
• from where you go to who you walk with
✅ Follow Justin:
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https://www.youtube.com/@reChurchPodcast
So today I want to give the people a new vision of what church actually is. We're going to talk about what it's not, we're going to talk about what it is. But here's what I want to do throughout this episode. I want people to leave this episode. And when they get into the scriptures, say they're reading the book of Acts, they're reading one of the letters, I want them to have a more accurate picture of like when they close their eyes of what was taking place. Because I think sometimes when we read the scriptures, in our minds, we're thinking of our current experience.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it is so far removed from what was actually taking place during that time. We immediately start from the wrong foundation. And so now we're trying to apply scriptures to our wrong vision of what was taking place in the context of that time. And it's hard to even get back to really understanding those scriptures, right? The question that I want to start off with is this is a hypothetical, but if all the church building doors, sound like a if all the church building doors close tomorrow, would the church still exist?
SPEAKER_02:In most people's eyes, they would say, no. Growth. Like growth will happen.
SPEAKER_04:Follow-up question. Because I hope your answer to that question is yes. Like the the people would still exist. The follow-up question would be, would you know how to function as a Christian, as the church? And if the answer to that question is no, like that's okay. But we need to talk about that. Because if we're putting millions of dollars of resources, of finances, of time into what we do on Sundays, and then saying also if the doors close to the building, the government shut it down, if another COVID happened, whatever that, whatever the reason is, that nobody would know how to function other than streaming it on their computer, then we're we're missing it somehow because we're not actually able to obey Jesus without an organization.
SPEAKER_06:Right.
SPEAKER_04:That's scary. I think that was one of um way back it's been a while, but I read the the book uh Letters to the Church by Francis Chan, and that was one of his his arguments was like, hey, if I drop a believer off in any place in the world, obviously there's language barriers, but say you're American anywhere in the US, any city, they should know what to do with knowing no without in knowing anybody.
SPEAKER_02:We kind of did that to ourselves.
SPEAKER_04:We did, yeah. It was scary and an exciting experiment because we're like, does this thing really work other in other places? I think once you the last episode we talked about stepping out of the institutional church uh structure. There's a lot of people that are in that transition. And I want you to guess, I have it down like, what do you think people's first question is when they step out that goes through their mind?
SPEAKER_01:You mean the person stepping out? Um, now what do I do?
SPEAKER_04:That's exactly what I had written down.
SPEAKER_01:I get we get that question all the time. Yeah. Probably 12 times a week.
SPEAKER_04:I need to set up like an auto response and like Instagram. The DM that says, now what?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it's a valid question, but it shouldn't scare you. It shouldn't scare you. It should just let you know that we haven't been properly trained. Because if we if what we were doing was working, we wouldn't ask that question. That's right.
SPEAKER_02:I've never thought of it like that. Why are people leaving and they're having to ask that question? Now what do we do? Because they don't know what to do. Oh, so it's not working. Number 155,000 reasons why it's not working. And here's the thing like going back to the first phrase you said about like what hypothetically, what if every church in the US got shut down? It could happen again because if you're a 501c3, the government tells you what to do. Joke's on you. They could shut it down tomorrow if they want to, right? You're under the government's rules. So, okay, government decides to shut down every single nonprofit, right? Shut every church door. What do we do at that point? And my my thought process is in that you may be shunning the very thing that might be the answer to that question. Because golly, do people condemn what we do? Even pastors, you know, children, people of God, Christians. I don't get shunned by non-believers, y'all. They're actually like, wow, I really like this. I actually think I would consider Jesus now. You know, unbelievers are not the ones putting me into timeout. It's the believer, you know, it's the religious person. And so I sit here and I think, like, what if that happened? Because most believers, most Western world thinkers, specifically 45 plus, believe that the world's going to hell in a handbasket, right? And that it's going to get either so bad. Hopefully, some people hope they get taken out before it gets real bad and things like that. If that is the case and that is your hope, what if church is shut down and what we're doing is all that you can do, and you've been doing nothing but trying to rip it apart and nitpick it and call it names. It's like, why, why? Like, what if it's the answer to what you pray for, Jesus return? And in your mind, Jesus returning means things got to get real bad. And you get persecuted for your faith. You think the 501c3 is just gonna be like, yeah, keep doing what you're doing. You're like, no. Sorry.
SPEAKER_04:No, it's good. I I mean, I had a person say recently, I think one of people's biggest arguments is once you step out of that setting, um, what does accountability look like? It's like this, again, kind of the same questions over and over, but this this I feel like they're all fear-based, but what does accountability look like? Like, how do you know someone's not going to preach a false gospel? How do you know it's not gonna turn into a cult? Like all these common questions. I'll give you my response to that was do you think that organizational structure stops false gospels?
SPEAKER_02:I'm watching them preach all the time on YouTube.
SPEAKER_04:Do you think that organization organizational structures stops corruption?
SPEAKER_02:There's not alone than there ever was.
SPEAKER_04:How many businesses are corrupt, let alone churches?
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Do you think organizational structures stops uh cults and and heretical groups from forming?
SPEAKER_02:Well, my my question would be like 2025 has been the year of corrupt pastors.
SPEAKER_04:Well, they've been corrupt for a long time. That's the that's the scary thing.
SPEAKER_02:But it's been the exposure. The year 2025 has been the exposure. Like every time I pull my phone up, it's like another pastor's got a lawsuit, you know, for embezzlement or sexual immorality or pedophilia or whatever the case may be. And it's like, has it stopped that?
SPEAKER_04:And some people are they don't like that. Like they hate when they see all that stuff coming out, not because it's bad stuff and it needs to get exposed, but because they say it makes the church look bad.
SPEAKER_02:Well, what if I told you most I'm not saying all hear what I'm not saying or don't hear what I'm not saying? Most megachurch pastors are just really smart businessmen. You see what I'm saying? Like, what if I told you half of them don't even know Jesus, but they do know how to run a good business and they know how to scale things.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's the scary part is that's where they're you can grow and you can grow and market a church with your your marketing skills alone, your branding skills and stuff like that. And I see it all, it's funny when I see it. I'm like, why? I see it on Facebook all the time. There's like ads that pop up and it's it's branding for for churches and stuff like that. And I'm like, like, what are we what are we doing? Yeah. I posted this quote not too long ago, and it was um, you know, the early church didn't multiply because it had good branding, it multiplied because every believer knew they were sent.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. So good. So good. I love that.
SPEAKER_04:But think about what we have to do. If if we have passive Christians sitting in the church that don't understand it's their responsibility to actually share their faith and multiply, so to become mature, to obey Jesus and to multiply, then the church isn't going to grow unless we do what?
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04:Bring in artificial means to make it grow.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_04:That's paying marketing dollars. Like, can you imagine? This is what I like to get people to think about is like, can you imagine Jesus like sitting down with his apostles and he's like, all right, listen, um, we're not growing as quickly as we wanted to. So uh let's see, Judas, uh Peter, can do you do you still have that contact, that marketing contact? Like, let's let's go ahead and put out ads, put out some advertisements in their day. It might have been like, you know, signs that they just hold up and like pay so-and-so to stand over in, you know, this city and hold a sign up that say, like, Jesus' church is in town, you know, uh, send out flyers, let's get some flyers. And it's like, when we think about it, it sounds so silly that we're trying to do that. I'm not saying that's a that's a bad idea for businesses.
SPEAKER_05:No, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Like it makes sense. Marketing is not evil. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying all of these things.
SPEAKER_00:I market my business, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you market your business because you're that's how you make a living and you are trying to offer people value and you market because you want people to be aware of the value that you bring them. That's right. Now, when we translate that over to the the world of what we're doing with discipleship, that's where it like it seems like okay on the surface, like, yeah, why wouldn't we do that, you know, with the church? Why wouldn't we want to market Jesus? Why wouldn't we want to spend dollar to do that? And I heard this this um thing, uh uh our friend Nathan and Chris posted this. It was like uh occasionally they'll post videos that they see from different churches who are trying to raise money and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_05:They're funny.
SPEAKER_04:Did you see it? And he he the guy's on there and he's like, hey, we want you to sign this pledge for our next uh campaign. It's a pledge campaign. And he's like, because he said this, because we never want to turn anyone away from hearing the gospel. So that was the the reasoning behind why they were they wanted you to sign up and raise money for the campaign to build another building on the church, is because we never want to turn anybody away from hearing the gospel. And we hear that and we breeze right past it, and we're like, yes, we don't want to do that either. Of course, I don't want to do that either. But why would why would you building a another wing of your church building have anything to do with turning away someone from hearing the gospel? They could hear it at McDonald's, they could hear it in front of the building, they could hear it at your house. Like we're making these false dichotomies, and that's the thing. I don't believe that in his heart, this guy's got horrible intentions or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00:But again, we've everybody else.
SPEAKER_04:We've we've been deceived and corrupted by this system that we're we're functioning in.
SPEAKER_02:But it's okay to say that stuff.
SPEAKER_04:That it's okay to do stuff like that. It makes sense. Why? Because the guy that I look up to and who has mentored me has said the same thing. Yeah, it all makes sense. We're all playing by the same rules here. It's okay. It's okay. We can compromise here and there. Like these are the conversations that I I have with people that people, a lot of people won't say on social media or they won't say openly. But when you talk to them privately, they're like, Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it behind closed doors. I've seen the like stuff that goes unheard of and or that goes kind of under the under the carpet, and people overlook it because I trust that guy. Again, back to what we talked about before with like the relational equity. I'm not going to question that because I've got a relationship with him and I trust him. And it's like, accountable? You're worried about accountability outside of the walls of church. There ain't no accountability there. Who Bob that is in the Bob poor Bob and Joe, we talk about them all the time. Bob that's in the congregation. Do you think a congregation of 2,000 people, do you think he's being held accountable to anything? Right. No. If he doesn't he doesn't show up on a Sunday, nobody even knows.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You know what I'm saying? Like the small group changes every six months. Like there is no real accountability. Most of those groups that I've been a part of are, you know, extremely superficial. I'm not saying nothing happens, like stuff happens, but they're so superficial and they change so much that you never actually get to get to get to do life.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_04:And this is this is one thing that I heard before. Like we've exchanged shared life for shared space.
SPEAKER_02:That's that's like a yeah. It makes your brain hurt when you're like, oh duh.
SPEAKER_04:Like so it's a lot of a lot of replacing things with this. So I want to read a list of what church is not. And then uh and then we can talk about what it is. So church is not a building that you go to.
SPEAKER_03:Check.
SPEAKER_04:Check. A lot of people would agree with that. A lot of people don't practically apply that. Otherwise, you wouldn't say what church does.
SPEAKER_01:Where do you go to church? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Where do you go to church? Church is not a service that you attend. But if that were true, we couldn't we couldn't say I'll see you at the 1030 service.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You know church is not a brand or an organization. That doesn't mean that there's not a brand and an organization in a logo.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Like what was Jesus' logo?
SPEAKER_01:Sandals.
SPEAKER_04:Jesus was the logo.
SPEAKER_01:That's so good.
SPEAKER_04:There's gotta be a nice one.
SPEAKER_01:No nerdy, only nerdy people get that one. Justin's a big nerd.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know if y'all are actually logos. Yeah. Okay. Church is not a weekly performance. I'm slowly making these statements because I'm hoping that it's sinking in that this is literally what we do in action. Church is not confined to Sundays. But literally, like every single organization has their event on a Sunday at around the same time. It's like, what why are we, you know what I'm saying? It's like, oh, well, it's convenient because people work during the week or whatever. It's like, okay. But are we boxing ourselves in? Like, yeah, we of course it's a huge event. We've got to do it at the same time, same so so people can kind of build their lives around it. Again, we're operating out of like convenience, right? Instead of actually like thinking about what Jesus wants us to do because there are people that were they can't get out of it, they can't, they have to work on Sundays. You know what I'm saying? That's why it's so cool to have small groups of people where you can actually talk about people's real life situation and be like, no, actually, it works on a Tuesday at 8:30 better. So to or a Tuesday at 2 30 in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Like, you don't know. There's no fruit, there's no flexibility. It is what it is. Church is not something you plug into. Gotta get plugged in.
SPEAKER_00:Gotta get plugged in.
SPEAKER_04:What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Plugged into what you need to get plugged into Jesus, nothing. That's right.
SPEAKER_02:It says the vine, not the building. The 501c3 model.
SPEAKER_04:We're offending all kinds of people. Uh church is not man-led.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's so good.
SPEAKER_04:I mean the majority of our churches are literally man-led.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:People are like, well, you have to. I always get this pushback. Well, you I know what you mean. Like, Jesus is leading, but there has to be a person leading also. And I'm like, where's that scripture? Church is not about hierarchy or titles. But go to any website and the first thing you see is a CEO rundown. Is hierarchy and titles.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Senior this.
SPEAKER_04:Senior that. Associate assistant.
SPEAKER_02:You can just change it for CEO this.
SPEAKER_04:There's no difference. Yeah, you can look at the website of a corporation and the website of a church.
SPEAKER_02:Some pastors even hire their lawyers and ordain their lawyers and call them pastors so that they can have free uh consultations.
SPEAKER_04:Housing, housing allowance, yeah. Yeah, it's so wild. And so, you know, these are things that it it's it's so important to have these conversations about what what it is not because what it does is bring us to the realization of that is that the the majority of what we're functioning and what we're doing is what it's not.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_04:And so you have to ask yourself, why are we doing all these things if this is not actually what Jesus has has asked us to do or or what he said the the church is. The church is is is a is a people. And so why are we doing all these things? Um it's because instead of fixing the actual problems, we just keep tacking things on. That's right. And eventually, 50 years down the road, we're just gonna have 20 additional things that we do to try and make it better. And all it does is distract you from the actual problem that is at the root and is that at is at the core. And that is we need to be stripping things away and getting to simplicity.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Instead of adding things and adding staff, it's just going to become more and more expensive. So, what is church? And so, this is what I want to do in the beginning of this episode. I talked about kind of re-envisioning what it is and giving people a vision in their mind. And this is what I picture. So if you look in Acts chapter two, Acts chapter two, that's the first picture that we see of people engaging as that's where that where they would say the church is birthed, you know, the Acts Church, and we see them engaging in activities together. And I had this picture, like if you can imagine what a um a first century home looks like or something like that, maybe you can't, you don't know exactly. But it says in Acts chapter two that they were sharing meals together, right? Right. So, like, what if you were reading and you close your eyes and you actually could smell? I can this is easy for me because you make sourdough. So I'm like, and you just pictured like sourdough bread in the oven. Yeah. And like you could smell the bread. And then I it's very easy for me to think about because we experience this now. But I like picture us sitting, we're sitting in the living room, and you know, maybe, you know, John's John's there or uh or or Kelly or one of our friends is there talking, and then another person, uh, we hear the door swing open and they walk in, right? And do we always share meals together? No, but like just these are different elements, and it reminds me of like a family kind of coming together. And nobody's there's no pressure, there's no like no one tapping their watch, like we got to get started. There's no like band on stage who has spent hours practicing, like all this stuff. It looks very similar to what a family dynamic. What we do every other day of the week.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:With our family.
SPEAKER_02:Well, one girl came to our fellowship this Sunday, and it's her second time coming. She's kind of new. And she's like, you know, I didn't want to go to my church building today because like I knew exactly what was gonna happen. She's like, I just in my spirit, I just needed fellowship. Like, I just need to be around believers. And she was like, so when she walked in, she came in like about 20 minutes late. She's like, So what do we discuss? And I'm like, we're just fellowshipping today. And it was like so beautiful. She's like, that's exactly what my soul needed today. And to hear that, I was like, like, I didn't have to put my sermon to the side or whatever, you know, I didn't spend hours preparing for this sermon. Like, my life is ready at any point in time to discuss my faith and my walk with the Lord because I'm plugged in to the vine, not to uh a group of people that call themselves something, you know, I'm plugged into Jesus. And it was like the most beautiful Sunday together. I mean, we started at 1:30, nobody left until six. And they kind of trickled out when they were ready to go.
SPEAKER_03:That's true.
SPEAKER_02:You know, and I looked at the clock, I'm like, oh no, it's 6:30, I gotta make dinner. You know, so it's just so beautiful. But yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And people would freak out if they were like, oh, you had church, but you didn't like, you didn't crack your Bible, you didn't get into the scriptures. And it's like, yeah, but the previous work week, maybe that's all we did, or the the week before that, maybe me and me and old girl on the corner over there, we went through like Genesis to Revelation together.
SPEAKER_02:Like, you know what I'm saying? Like the conversation, it's like, uh, again, they didn't have Bibles, first of all, in the um, in the early church, but they were talking about testimonies of Jesus and what he taught. And so we're just telling testimony, sharing scripture. I mean, that right there is like eating the word of God. Like Jesus is the bread of life. And when you live with him and like him and for him, your whole life is like eating bread, you know. So she felt fed. I felt stirred up, I felt fed. Like it was just so, so sweet.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And that's what people I think wrongly envision is they see Paul standing up teaching a couple times, yeah. You know, like a uh like in the synagogue while everybody sits passively and listens. And it's like, that's not that read it again.
SPEAKER_05:Read it again.
SPEAKER_04:Were there instances where Paul taught? Were there instances where there was public teaching or preaching and stuff like that? Yeah, absolutely. But that's not what they were doing primarily. That's right. And so this is what we tell people a lot is like we've got things backwards. We do large gatherings, which is fine. Like, I don't agree with having to make it a big event, but I'm not against large gatherings.
SPEAKER_02:Or charging money, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You know, what?
SPEAKER_02:Or like charging money, like in the sense of like come sit down and pass this offering plate, you know, it's a form of charging. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04:I gotcha, I gotcha. I was confused. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What?
SPEAKER_04:But um, yeah, we don't charge money. Uh but yeah, and so there's nothing against having uh an open air meeting or a gathering or stuff like that. But that was not the primary thing that they were doing in the New Testament, right? It was the relational family gathering. So if you can start to reframe your mind around that, I know there's gonna be a lot of people that listen to this and then they start reading the book of Acts and they're gonna be picturing something different, very different in their mind. And for them, I wanted to give them this vision because I've experienced this, but maybe you have not experienced that. So you're just stepping out of what you're used to, and it's hard for you to read the scriptures and not picture what you've experienced in the institutional church. But if you can try to wrap your mind around um the central piece of a church gathering being the dinner table. If this is all that you take from this podcast episode, I want you to think of the central piece of the New Testament gathering as the dinner table and not the stage.
SPEAKER_02:Such a different dynamic.
SPEAKER_04:It will change how you read all of scripture. And it changes the the feeling, like that's such a different environment. It's not all like professional and everything's gotta be perfect because rarely are you gonna share your deepest, darkest secrets with people or get into repentance or all of that stuff from a stage.
SPEAKER_02:Unless you're me. Unless you're Justin's like, you went too far. I'm like, sorry about that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. But you will do that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you will do it around a dinner table.
SPEAKER_04:So again, I always tell this to people, we've said it in past episodes, like we always go back to the family unit when we're looking at what church is.
SPEAKER_02:You know, and I think too, like when it comes to talking about church, like we talk it about, we talk about church as like this intimate thing, even even megachurch, we like they somehow in their marketing skills and scheme make it feel like it's this intimate personal thing, right? But I'm like sitting here thinking to myself, like the pastor gets up there, he's not transparent and vulnerable, like maybe a little bit, like to what's comfortable for him, but like no one gets to respond and be vulnerable back. You know what I mean? Like, where has it become church has become this monologue where one man speaks to a bunch of people and no one can say anything back to him or even sit down and really ask questions after, you know? So it's like, ugh, I just it's so artificial. I keep going back to that incubator for like the premature baby. Like, what's more ideal? The natural womb for the baby to stay in for 40 weeks for sure is more healthy than a baby coming out at 32, 33, 33 weeks, putting it into a plastic box. Um, the results are different.
SPEAKER_04:So, do you know what I've seen as a response to that before? A scheduled QA with the pastor.
SPEAKER_02:Love those.
SPEAKER_04:I'm like, can you imagine? I love those. I'm like, guys, guys, guys, guys. Like, yeah, like where what are we doing? Um so listen to this. I have this written down. I think we crave belonging, but we settle for attendance. And that's where I said we have replaced shared life with shared space. So we're we just want to belong. And so I think that's what attaches people to traditional church so much, is it does give you a place to belong. But what it turns into is just regular attendance.
SPEAKER_06:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And so because people want that and it's not really available to their knowledge, that's what they settle for.
SPEAKER_00:It's really sad.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but it's time to stop settling. That's right. And realize this is this is the reason we're not finding a solution to this is because there's not enough people that are saying I'm not going to settle. And if it doesn't exist, I'm going to create it.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. So good.
SPEAKER_04:It takes a generation of those people who are willing to step into the unknown.
SPEAKER_02:It's kind of like Jesus. He's like, Oh, what I'm looking for isn't happening. So I'm going to come down in the form of a baby. I'm going to live and I'm going to create what I'm looking for. Like God tried to do that. You see him trying to like, you know, rescue all the fallenness through Noah and Abraham and King David and Isaac and all these things. And it was like it wasn't producing what he was looking for. So Jesus is like, I'll strap on flesh. I'll come humbly as a baby in a manger in the middle of Bethlehem, a no man's land, and I'll live this humble life and I will create what I'm looking for, you know. Like, but it took a lot of discomfort. It was hard. There wasn't really a blueprint, you know. He had to walk by what the father was telling him to do. Um, and he gave us the perfect example. And I just don't see what he did looking like what we're doing.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I think it wasn't even that he created like he created something new. He created that in the beginning.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. He was just getting it back.
SPEAKER_04:Correct. Because so many generations had passed to where we've lost that original vision of garden relationship with the father in community. And so what happens is that people don't realize it's like it's literally history repeating itself. So when man fell into sin and they left the garden, that relationship with God and that type of community, like if God gives you a picture of his ideal in the Garden of Eden, do you see any like I'm not talking about I understand that like organizational and legal structure and all that didn't exist in the garden? Like, I'm not saying, you know, whatever. Do you see anything that even resembles that whatsoever in that original picture of God in his relationship with mankind?
SPEAKER_02:Well, the whole you do I get what you're saying, saying like the legal jargon, but the Jewish, the Jewish people had a strong legal structure developed with so many rules, laws, and regulations. Same governmental system we have, rules, laws, regulations, things you have to abide by. And then Jesus came and said, you know, I'm coming to just, I'm coming to fulfill that. And I'm coming back to be back into that relationship with you where we don't have this um law-based relationship. Yeah. So it's like, but then what do we do? We come in and we bring in this 501c3 model who has all these regulations, rules, and stipulations, you know.
SPEAKER_04:I would say more so it's it's a picture of like the Tower of Babel. Right. Uh, or us trying to build, you know, a temple for God. Like we we want to do something for God. And people are like, it's so funny when people argue workspace, but the the works they're arguing against is like you actually putting action to your faith or like not what the Bible actually commands. They're struggling with baptism, but yet they're building temples for God. And I'm like, Yeah, about that. Come on, guys. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, how far do we go before? Because that's the argument. It's like, well, is God too too uh like against us putting all of our resource? They think that putting more resource in building bigger buildings and having bigger events is in some way glorifying God because we're showing how great we can create something for God.
SPEAKER_02:But we'll condemn baptism, repentance, holy spirit, deliverance, and healing.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, I'm like, well, when he didn't ask for that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:We can't do all that and then neglect the things he did ask us to do, like care for the widow and the woman.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's like, you know, if you leave your kids at home. My kids are at the age I can leave them at home now. And, you know, when I leave, I'm like, hey, can you do these few things? And when I get home, they're like, I did everything but that. But is that, are you happy? It's like, I mean, I love you, so I'm not mad at you, but I'm confused.
SPEAKER_04:I love there's an old example that uh Francis Chan had, and he gives it out. He's like, So say like a parent gives their uh to-do list to their kids and like leaves it, and he's like, I'm gonna be gone for the weekend, and this is what I want you to do. This gives you instructions on how to clean your room and everything I want done in the house when I get back. I expect it done. And they're like, Okay. He comes back uh, you know, Sunday night or whatever, and everything's still the way it is. And he's like, What happened? And they're like, Oh, it went amazing. We read completely through your letter.
SPEAKER_02:We memorized it.
SPEAKER_04:We even memorized it. We brought, then we invited people over and we all read it together and we memorized. Different sections and he took this part and you took.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But I never did it.
SPEAKER_04:You know, and on top of that, what we're experiencing now is that we, on top of reading it and memorizing it, we just did something completely different than he's asked us to do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:God, why don't you bless it? So I hope that gives you a better picture of uh church's family and what God's original intention was when he gave us that picture. I don't think he created the family unit and was just like, hey, this is a cool idea for how you live, but it has nothing to do with the church or or my relationship with mankind. That's why he uses even the even the marriage, the marriage relationship is symbolic. It's a symbolic picture of Christ's relationship with the church. In the same way, I believe that the family unit is a picture of how the church is meant to function on earth. Makes so much sense when you talk about fathers and mothers in the faith raising up children. But that relationship changes over time as the children mature, with the goal of eventually training them so that they would go out and start their own families. And therefore, you don't keep that same level of like, uh, your just relationship shifts and changes. I'm not going to go into my 36-year-old kid's house and start telling him what to do for his family. Do you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_04:But we think that like your senior pastor is supposed to do that for the rest of your life and feed you and take care of you. That would be like me saying, My son is supposed to be 60 years old and I'm still supposed to be cutting up his food and feeding it to him at the table. Not how that works. So family unit, beautiful picture of church. The other thing we see in the scripture is sourdough, that stuck out to me when you said that. Sourdough. So when you read the scriptures, when you read the book of Acts, I want you to think of family. I want you to think of sourdough. I want you to I want you to smell sourdough bread. If you've never smelt it, learn how to bake it and smell it and then read the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_02:We eat a lot of sourdough bread at our house. Lots of sourdough bread.
SPEAKER_04:That's too funny. And so also the the church is described as a body. I'm not saying we have a certain picture when we think of that, but the way that we functionally act in the church is that the body is made up of one part.
SPEAKER_02:Not many parts.
SPEAKER_04:Or if the church is a body, Jesus is not the head, the pastor is the head. And he instructs the rest of the body what to do. That's right. But if you picture the body as one part, like say it's just an arm and the rest of the body is paralyzed, like that's how we're functioning as the church. And the arm's like doing all the work, and the rest of the body is just sitting there watching the arm do all the work. And the arm is exhausted, but the arm is like, ah, what do we do? Let's get an assistant arm in here. And he can help. And now you've got a main arm and an assistant arm.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And you're doing all the work. And let's just keep adding arms while we look at the body that is completely paralyzed. First Corinthians 12, 12 through 27, in uh if I could condense it, says, uh, the hand cannot say to the foot, I have no need of you. But yet we do that with our actions in institutional church. So if a church is a body, then every believer is idle, uh, is vital, is idle, yeah. But they need to be vital, they're vital as if one of your organs is missing. Every believer is a vital organ. And so I like I take this seriously, and I don't think we take that scripture seriously enough. Is if if every believer is a vital organ in the body of Christ, then why are we neglecting them or stopping them from functioning? We're scared, like we can never do that. We can never let every Christian function in a meeting. It would be chaos. Okay, so it's instead of figuring out why it would be chaos, we just don't do it. It would be chaos because your meetings are too big.
SPEAKER_02:No, sorry. I've never been in a chaotic meeting with eight to ten people.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So it's like, what does that here? I have uh you can see how like when you look at the true understanding of of uh of the church operating as a body, a great example is Corinthians, where it talks about uh you each person bringing something to the table, uh, bringing something to the gathering, they're expressing Christ, whether that be a song or a teaching or a revelation or a tongue or something like that. And then you can see how it doesn't work in our current setting. And again, that goes back to then we need to change the setting. We don't need to just say, like, hey, we can't do this, so let's create another side program where we can fit that in. And we still don't do it. So let's just, I don't know, maybe it's just not important.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And then we hammer the church because they're not actually doing what they should be doing. But yet every sermon we preach, I feel like is is um, or that you hear preached, is very focused on individual relationship, overcoming obstacles in your life, or five steps for this and how to overcome this, but none of it on practical application on how to obey Jesus and share the gospel with people and multiply that, like the things that he's actually asked us to do.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_04:There's gonna be a lot of people that stand before Jesus and are completely blown away that they spent their life doing a lot of the stuff that Jesus never actually asked us to do. But what do you what do you think that looks like? I know we talked about this a little bit, but like in in our lives and what we've experienced, what does that look like practically outside of the walls of the institution of church, the church acting like a body?
SPEAKER_02:What does it practically look like? Yeah, I think that's where I mean, we see it in our fellowship all the time. Um, we have two people who are extremely pastoral in our group. And then we have, you know, me who is very evangelistic and more prophetic. We have you who's the teacher, you know, and it's like when we all come together, it they we just naturally start to exercise the gifts that we walk in or are comfortable with, you know. Um, so when we come together, like each person not only knows what they are and what they're they carry, but they get to actually get really good at it. So when they go out into the world, it becomes natural to them, you know, it's natural for me to share my testimony everywhere I go. Justin's like, and there she goes. I know exactly what, you know what I mean? Because it's just become so natural. Same for you. Like when a certain topic, I know exactly what you're gonna say, you know. Um, and the same for the shepherds in our group, they're gonna say, like, hey, tell me your story. You know, they want to hear like where you come from. And it's such a beautiful dynamic because when you all come together, all needs are met. Um, everyone feels like they've been in, they're in, they are involved because they're actually expressing the gifts that they walk in. Um, so when they go out into the world, they actually people at work are like, wow, you're such a good listener, you know, or so somebody like me, oh wow, you're so bold. Like, or somebody like you, like, gosh, you you really have studied this thing out, you know what I mean? Like, and you have something to say and bring to the table. So I think that's what's so important. When you, when you don't get to come together and actually bring your active body parts together and use them, when you go out into the world, you have like muscle atrophy. You don't know how to use your gift, like your your calf's not gonna work, you know. And people are like, well, when I I just get stuck, like you know, my pastor tells me I need to be sharing my faith with people, but I just I just don't even know what that looks like. And it's like, well, because we all see what it looks like to shepherd and pastor and teach and prophesy and all those things in our organic setting because everyone has the opportunity to do that. We know what it looks like to do it when we leave that place. Yeah. Right. So I think that's what it looks like.
SPEAKER_04:And it's a setting that is that you can replicate. That's right. That's the right word. So it just hit me when you were saying that. If my example of someone sharing the gospel is the pastor from the pulpit, I'm never in a pulpit if I'm the believer in the pew. That's right. So how do I think it doesn't translate? And so I'm being told to do something I'm not being actually shown how to do.
SPEAKER_02:So, like, even like, you know, I feel like what the Lord's taking us through, we've kind of gotten to operate in a lot of roles. Like we've been pastoral in seasons, we've been evangelistic in seasons, we've been, you know, teachers in seasons, like we've kind of got to practice quite a bit of those like apex gifts, you know. Um, but it's so funny because when we're in these groups, like I've learned from other people who are naturally more shepherding than me. Like I have this one friend I think of, like, there's this way she like listens and engages with people. And Justin's like, why do you go mm when people are talking? And I'm like, because I have a friend who is extremely um shepherding. And when she talks to me and connects with me, like I feel like I'm heard and seen. So I started doing that because when people talk, I want them to feel heard and seen, even though it's not natural for me, you know. Like, I want to just tell you about how many demons I got last week and like this person got free and this person got baptized because I'm evangelistic, you know. I want to be like, let me tell you these testimonies, you know. But you have to be able to, but I know what it looks like because I've experienced it with other believers around me that I actually sit around and watch them practice their gifts with people. Yeah. So it's really cool to watch. It sharpens you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, absolutely. Um, so yeah, so we talked about uh different, you kind of envisioning something different when we read the scriptures about um the church as a family, picture a dinner table and not a stage. And we talked about the church as a body, picture a whole body and not one body part, right? Just an arm. And now the last part of that is the church is on a mission. So we know what the church is, right? It's the people of God that function as a family and also as a body, and those people are on a mission. It's not the church's mission, it's God's mission. That's right, right, and we become a part of his mission. And so when you think of mission, I want you to think of neighborhoods, not auditoriums.
SPEAKER_00:So good. Change the mission field.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, when you think about the mission field, I don't want you to think about third world countries or your auditorium. I want you to think about your neighborhood.
SPEAKER_01:And your workspace.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Like where where are you? Okay. Because again, you're not standing in front of the pulpit sharing the gospel from a stage. And so what I have here is the church doesn't gather to escape the world, it gathers to be sent out into the world. So many times that's right. I just like to stop and think because like let that sink in because these are what we're saying is things that we do that we shouldn't be doing, and then how we should be doing it. The church is not supposed to gather to escape the world. That's what we do. We're like, let's get in our Christian bubble, let's escape the world. And then we'll keep inviting people out of the world into the into the church so we can continue to escape it. And this is this is full experience. This is not just like we're making this up. What happens is we start to talk to so many Christians that have escaped the world, and we're like, hey, why don't you invite your friend over, you know, and we'll share the gospel with them or blah, blah, blah. And they're like, I don't know anyone.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know any unbelieving friends. I'm like, what? Like, you don't know anyone that's an unbeliever? That's really scary to me. You know what I mean? Like, not that we should be in fellowship with them.
SPEAKER_05:Right, right.
SPEAKER_02:But you don't have any type of connection with any unbeliever around you. That shows me you're hiding from your mission. That shows me that you don't know how to share your faith because if you did, you would be in those places. You know what I'm saying? So it's really sad. We detach the church. What the church teaches us now is come into our space that we're comfortable with. We'll we'll clean you up and dust you off. And then we're gonna actually cut you off from the world in a bad way, not like living separate and holy, but cut you off from any influence you could have in a good positive way. Because we're gonna put you into this spiritual bubble and teach you a bunch of Christianese, to where when you go back in there, like you have no ability to even influence these people because there's no, there's zero connection there anymore. Um, now bad connections, yes, break them off completely, separate yourself from the world. But once you're separate, you go back into and begin to rescue people out of it. So when I go into a space that's not holy necessarily, does it make me unholy? No. I'm going in to bring light, and where there's light, darkness will flee. Because my goal is that if just one person or maybe 15 people in that unholy space give their life to Jesus, that space can become holy. I think about where you and your friend meet on um for coffee. You know, it's one of the darkest coffee shops, probably in Austin. Yeah, it's pretty dark. Uh tarot cart readings are going on and crazy stuff like that. But like they're sitting there with the word of God open for hours every week, dissecting the word and holding one another accountable and talking about hard topics and talking about Jesus. Like that environment will change. Um, something will happen, you know. So I just think it's really cool.
SPEAKER_04:Well, last week there were or the week before last, there was no parking spots at that coffee shop because it's open 24-7. So we had to meet at a bar. Actually, a brewery.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. That's even better.
SPEAKER_04:That's funny. We don't, I don't drink. We didn't drink, but yeah, you know, it's funny being there and like watching people drink and party and stuff like that. And you got your Bibles out. I'm sure someone's like, what the heck is going on?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. It's cool just again to reframe. That's what this whole episode is about, is about reframing church in your mind. What do you picture when you read the scriptures? What do you picture when people say to you the word church?
SPEAKER_02:Well, what are you gonna tell somebody if they live in a country where it's illegal to be a Christian? Are you gonna slap them on the wrist and be like, oh, you're Forsaken gathering, or you don't go to a building? They can't. So if your standards don't fit in all culturals and contexts, like it's probably made up.
SPEAKER_04:What you're gonna do is nothing because you're not finding the average person even engaging with someone in another country where Christianity isn't legal. We just pretend like we're not called to be involved in that and just try to give our finances to our church organization and hope that they handle that somehow. We need to wake up and realize that the responsibility is ours.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Like nobody's just gonna do this stuff.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Right? And so the church is not, it's not just this social club that you belong to where you carry no responsibility except to show up on Sunday and expect to be entertained and your kids to be watched and to be fed. So you can have a good time and come back next week, and that's what it's become. And so we need to wake up and realize if we don't take responsibility for this, it's not easier. We're not calling you to an easier, better thing in the sense of it's going to be um really nice and comfortable and it's gonna be even better placed for your kids and all of this stuff. It's like, no, we got to figure this stuff out on our own. But what it is gonna be is more fruitful. Like it's actually gonna be in line with the mission of Jesus, right? Um, because I don't think I think we've we have a mass illusion of the actual statistics and the measurements of what's taking place. We just we're just like rattling off statistics and stuff like that about where Christianity is headed and how many people are coming to Christ and all this stuff, and real realize that most of the churches at large, the church organizations are shuffling Christians around.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_04:Do you know what I'm saying? So it's like it's very odd that the megachurch is growing, but the church down the street is dying. It's like, how many of these people are actually being led to Christ and discipled? Um, or or is it just people that weren't being fed, they didn't like something that went on or the children's program, and so they moved to the newest, greatest thing in town.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_04:And that's our method. I've heard somebody say this before. They're like, you know, the statistic is that when a new church is planted, like Christianity grows, or like I can't remember the specific uh thing that they were telling me, but basically it was trying to say just keep planting new churches because the Christianity grows, like people are interested in a new church than the old church down the street. And so we just keep planting new churches. And I'm like, that's your tactic? Jesus never actually commanded us to plant churches. Yeah. That's a mind-blowing statement for some people. It's like Jesus told us to plant seeds of the gospel into people's hearts, then they would respond and it would grow in church would be birthed. The ecclesia would be birthed out of those responses to the gospel. So he builds his church while we plant seeds of the gospel in people's hearts. And that's true mission. That's what you should see. When you think of mission, don't think of auditoriums and going on mission trips uh to build buildings or paint fences. Think about planting the seeds of the gospel in your in people's hearts in your neighborhood. And then when they respond, you respond by understanding how to lead them to Christ and disciple them. And it becomes this big thing, like, oh, what is discipleship becomes a big difficult thing. Church becomes this big difficult thing because we've raised the bar so high for what church is and what is involved in it. Nobody thinks that they can do it. And so if we begin to break that down and simplify it to the basics of what we've explained in this podcast, and that is inviting other families over to your home to share a meal, to pray together and get in the word of God and edify one another in Christ, it becomes very achievable for every single person in the body of Christ. You can do it.
SPEAKER_02:That's okay. I have one cool testimony to share. Okay. Um, so talking about earlier, how we were talking about like God building his church, you know, and like we are all individual bricks that he's piecing together. So there's a couple that we discipled um and in North Carolina, and we moved to Austin a few months later. They're like, we just have this strong urge to move to Indiana. And they're like, I'm like, do you know anybody there? They're like, no, no one. We know nobody. But we feel led to go there and there's a job opportunity. And I'm like, okay, cool. So they get there. Um, they thought they were gonna live in one area. The Lord closed that door, and then he shifted them to another area, and there's a B storyline here. So there's another couple that I'm talking to, and guess where they live? Indiana. I don't even know where Indiana is on the map, to be honest with you. I guess it's like east-north area.
SPEAKER_03:You're a homeschool teacher.
SPEAKER_02:I know, and I actually do know geography pretty well, but Indiana is like not in my framework of my mind right now. Where is Indiana? Near Ohio, I'm guessing. That's what I picture. Anyways, um, so they're this couple's in Indiana, and I'm not putting two and two together that a couple I have disciples in Indiana, and now this other couple that I am. Sure, it's a whole state area.
SPEAKER_04:What are the chances?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right. And so um I get a phone call from one of these couples one night. We're at dinner with Justin and our kids, and I'm like, hmm, my buddy Chad's calling. Interesting. I'm like, it must be an emergency because he'll normally group text with his wife, like in us in a group text. And so I'm like, hello? And another friend's like, Brooke, and I'm like, this isn't Chad. I'm like, is this Katie? And she's like, yeah. She's like, the the Lord brought us together with Chad and his wife, and we're sitting here and we're sharing how we've been discipled and what the Lord's done. And both of us keep bringing up this coupled name, Brooke and Justin, and they're like, hang on, are we talking about the same Brooke and Justin? And then it is the same Brooke and Justin, and now the Lord's put us together, and now they're doing community. And they sent me a video just a couple of days ago of them baptizing someone together as a group, which was so beautiful. But it's like that's what it means for God to build the church. Like he literally just moved a family who has the pieces and parts to the gospel to a family who's trying to figure it out, and then they're being, they're being the ecclesia together, and they're actually building with living bricks a community of faith. And um, people are getting born again and and baptized and things like that. So it's just really cool to see how it works. And yeah, we get stories like that all over the US now. And I'm like, what? Like, how do you know her and her and him? And it just is really cool to me.
SPEAKER_04:So I thought about to end this episode, I want to reframe the the question that most of us get on a regular basis, and that is what church do you go to?
SPEAKER_02:Because question of the year.
SPEAKER_04:I have found that even the more you talk about Jesus and the more you take responsibility for your own faith and the more you share it around, when people see that in you, like they're attracted to it, and that's their first question because they don't know what else to ask. And I would love to see us reframe that question from what church do you go to to who are you walking with.
SPEAKER_00:That's so good.
SPEAKER_04:Because that that really gets to the the root of what we're trying to get at. Forget about the organization or the event that you attend on Sundays, but who are the other Christians around you? Because that's what I want to know about. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, what is your that and what is your relationship with Jesus like? That would be to me like in a decade or however long, if we started seeing that question pop up from people, like that would be so fruitful. Because I think that would that would make for a much better conversation than what organization do you attend?
SPEAKER_00:So good.
SPEAKER_04:You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:All right, guys. Hopefully, this uh episode was helpful for you in redefining church and really reimagining what it is. So um, yeah, next time you read the book of Acts, smell sourdough bread, and we'll see you in the next episode.
SPEAKER_00:Back us.