Maybe You’re Not Leaving Church—Maybe You’re Finding It

[0:00] I promise this will be the last video about the church that I do for at least a little while. But I keep getting so many comments from people who are saying that this is very helpful, that this has been an extremely enjoyable reframe for them even to understand what the church is and what its purpose is from the pages of scripture. There are few things about which we have more damaging or incorrect ideas from thousands of years of strange developments in the story that aren't actually rooted in the Bible than the area of what is the church. What I'm hoping this video does ultimately is set you free. God willing, if I've done my job right, you will have the freedom to know that you can choose whatever path forward is the best for you. I want to rid you of guilt. I want to rid you of confused thinking and allow you to have a cleareyed path forward for whatever God is calling you

[0:48] to do. Here's a conversation I've been having with a lot of Christians lately. It usually starts with a whisper, something like, "I love Jesus, but I'm struggling with church. I feel like I'm drowning in my own community. Like every Sunday I show up, I sing the songs, I listen to the sermon, I shake hands during greeting time, and I walk out feeling more alone than when I arrived. I love Jesus more than ever, but I'm starting to wonder if something is wrong with me. That tension, that gap between devotion to Christ and the experience on a Sunday morning is not just this other person. It's not just you. It's not just now. In fact, this conversation is happening in coffee shops and living rooms all across the country. faithful, Jesusloving people quietly wrestling with the same question of is this all there is? But it's my belief that this tension isn't a sign that you're drifting away from God. I actually think it's an invitation from the Holy Spirit

[1:36] stirring something deeper in you calling you to discover what church was always meant to be. So before you make any decisions about walking away from your current church community, watch this because you might not be leaving church at all. Finally be finding it. So, let's start by being really honest about what's happening. And I need to say this clearly. If you're feeling disconnected from the building centered model of church, as we've talked about in multiple of my previous videos, you're not alone. We've already deconstructed things like the denominations and why we can't define the church that way. Why celebrity pastors are killing us. And today, we're talking about how to find the church really. So, if these are your questions, you're not alone. You're not rebellious. You're not ungrateful. And you're certainly not less spiritual. You just might actually be awake. See, across the globe, millions of devoted

[2:24] followers of Jesus happen to be feeling the same disconnect. It's not because they don't love Jesus. Many of them love him more deeply than ever. It's not because they don't value community. They're actually longing for deeper community and real relational intimacy and even accountability. Certainly more than what they've experienced thus far. And it's not because they don't understand the importance of gathering. They're hungry for gatherings that actually transform them rather than just inform them. The issue isn't in their hearts necessarily, although it can get that way. People do become embittered by this process if they don't handle it carefully. And I want to be honest about that, too. But I would still locate the issue as a system that Jesus never designed. Let's show you what I mean by walking through three fundamental ways that the building centered model often falls short of what our souls are actually craving from God. So first,

[3:11] when the church becomes primarily about building in a service, it naturally shifts toward that performance rather than presence in community. Think about the language that we use. When someone mentions church, what do we ask? How was the worship? How was the sermon? Did you like that new song they did? We're essentially reviewing a performance, not describing an encounter with the living God and with his people. And over time, this shapes everything. The words that we use, the way that we describe things has a pretty profound impact on how we understand what they even are. And the people who operate that system, their metrics become attendance numbers, giving totals, program participation, not transformation, love, and disciplehip to Jesus. We measure success by how many people showed up, not by how many people's lives are actually changed by an encounter with God and his people. I think this is probably what Paul was

[3:59] warning about in 2 Timothy 3:5 when he said that there would be people having a form of godliness but denying its power. The form is there, songs, sermons, this structure, but transformative power is often missing. I'm not sure it's the right context, but this passage from Ezekiel comes up and it wrecks me every time I read it. God is speaking to this prophet about his people and he says, "My people come to you as they usually do and they sit before you to hear your words, but they do not put them into practice. Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them, you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words and do not put them into practice. That's from Ezekiel 33. Did you catch that? God says his people have turned him into entertainment. They come to hear the beautiful voice, to appreciate

[4:46] a skillful performance, but they walk away unchanged. And that's the risk. When church becomes a performance we attend rather than life we share in intimate ways. We become connoisseurs of worship music rather than participants in transformation. We rate the experience instead of being transformed by God. And here's really what's heartbreaking. Many people walk away from these performances feeling like there's something wrong with their spiritual life, thinking, "If everyone else was so encouraged and everyone else is walking away so transformed by this amazing experience, why not me?" when the truth is a lot of us are just posturing and pretending when we're in that service. We know that's how we're supposed to feel and we've become really good at acting like it. I'm not saying it doesn't happen sometimes. For some people it absolutely does. I think it's incidental. The reality is a lot of people are simply starving for God and

[5:35] meaningful connection with others. Things that rarely happen in rows facing a stage. And second, our consumer mindset has dramatically reshaped our understanding of the church. This might be the most subtle and most dangerous shift of all. We've been trained to shop for churches like we shop for products. We compare worship styles, preaching quality, children's program, the facilities, how pretty is the building, how close is it to our house? We ask questions like, "What do they offer? And what can I get out of it?" We even talk about church shopping like it's the most natural thing in the world. Again, our first problem is that the church is all of God's people everywhere they can be found. So, it's kind of a weird way of like describing this process. The other problem is that when you approach that sort of church search as a consumer, you inevitably become a spectator rather than a participant. You're not looking

[6:21] for what you can contribute to a community of people that needs your gifts. The question instead becomes, "What can this church do for me?" Instead of, "How can I love and serve these people?" Jesus never said, "Come and watch." He said, "Come and die." He called us to take up our cross daily, to love one another sacrificially, to lay down our lives for the sake of other people. And that's literally the opposite of a consumer mentality. Look at the back end of Acts 2. I think verses like 42- 47 or so. The early Christians didn't church shop. They didn't write their experience on the way home. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. They were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had any need. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. Notice the language

[7:09] here. Devoted together, common, gave, shared, ate together. This isn't the language of consumption. I mean, eating in some sense is, but a community thing, right? It's the language of family. It's the language of people who have recognized that they belong to each other, not just to some other institution or organization or club. And when we reduce church to a consumer experience, we lose the very thing our souls are longing for, authentic connection with God and genuine community with others. We end up isolated in a crowd, entertained but not transformed. That's why so many people can attend church faithfully for years and still feel spiritually malnourished. They're being fed a steady diet of religious programming when what their souls are craving is a spiritual family. And this leads to what might be the most painful reality of all. Many devoted followers of Jesus feel empty despite

[7:57] faithful attendance. Week after week, they show up. They sing the songs with genuine hearts. They listen to the sermons and take notes. They volunteer in ministries and serve on committees. They give their time, their money, their energy, and yet something is missing. They walk out of that sanctuary feeling unchanged, sometimes even more isolated than when they arrived. And they start to wonder if there's something wrong with them. Think about where Jesus did his most transformative work. Very little of it happened in what you might call the formal religious spaces of his day. Instead, he ministered on hillsides, in homes, at wells, around tables. He knew that the context matters. He knew that some environments naturally foster engagement while others can actually inhibit it. And the key is that every one of these areas is in line with your real life, not a separate purpose-built place. We rarely actually

[8:45] change in some manufactured big moment elsewhere than our real life. Real change happens in the roots, in the nitty-gritty, when you're drying dishes and cooking food together and sitting around at a meal like you do every day of your life. And it's a long game, but let's think about the woman at the well. When the woman at the well met Jesus, it wasn't during some kind of religious service. It was an ordinary conversation about ordinary water that became an extraordinary conversation. When Zakius was transformed, that was not at synagogue. It was when Jesus invited himself over for dinner and had a frank conversation with him in his own home. When the disciples hearts on the road to Emmas, when their hearts burned within them, it wasn't during some formal gathering. It was walking and talking and breaking bread together at like a sit-down meal at what you might consider like a side of the highway restaurant.

[9:33] Even that's too fancy really. But Jesus understood something that we seem to have forgotten. That's transformation happens best in environments that are marked by relationship, vulnerability, and shared life, not performance, production, and this professional distance. Now, please hear me clearly. I'm not saying that the existence of buildings is evil or that formal gatherings are wrong entirely. Some beautiful encounters with God do happen in cathedral sanctuaries and simple church buildings. Some of the most powerful sermons can change your life. Some worship services, as we might call them, become thin places where heaven sort of touches earth. The building isn't the problem. The programs aren't the problem. At least not in and of themselves. The problem is that this container becomes more important than its contents. When the structure becomes more important than the spirit. When the methodology becomes more important than the mission. When we confuse the means

[10:21] with the end, we end up protecting systems while people starve. We end up defending structures while souls wither on the vine. We end up building our own kingdoms while missing the kingdom of God that's breaking in all around us. And that's exactly what many faithful church attenders are experiencing. They're starving in the midst of what they would expect to feel like plenty. Longing for the very thing the church was supposed to provide, but somehow isn't. So, if we've built what often falls short of what our souls are craving, what did Jesus actually describe when he talked about his church? Of course, we know when we go to the Gospels and read where Jesus never describes a building. He never outlined a service format. He never mentioned denominations or committees or capital campaigns. What he described is something a little more scandalous, honestly, more simple and far more revolutionary than anything we've constructed around it. We've discussed this at length, but it bears repeating until we all get it. The word church in

[11:10] the New Testament comes from the Greek word eklesacia, literally meaning the called out ones. It's not about a place you go. It's about people you are. It's not about an event that you attend. It's about a reality you live out in your daily life second by second. Let me read you something that might be the most revolutionary statement about the church ever made. It's from Matthew 18. And Jesus says this, "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." Pause right there. Let that sink in. Yes, I know this is about church discipline, which people use to kind of dismiss this, but the point is that it's about church discipline, and it involves two or three people gathered in Jesus's name. Jesus is giving us the absolute minimum requirement for us to understand where church can be found. Two or three people gathered in his name and has promised to be present. Not a minimum attendance threshold of 50 or 100 or

[11:58] 500. Not a specific leadership structure with pastors and elders and committees. Not a denominational affiliation nor a statement of faith or a building fund. Not even a Bible study curriculum or a worship leader or someone with a seminary degree. Just believers together acknowledging Jesus as Lord. That's church. But here's what's remarkable. This wasn't Jesus giving us the bare minimum so we could go build something bigger and better. This was Jesus revealing essentially the DNA of what he was building. Two or three people gathered in his name with his presence among them. That's not the starting point for church. That is church in its purest form. Think about that right now. If you're watching this video with another believer and you pause to pray together, you're experiencing church. If you text a Christian friend and say, "I'm struggling. Will you pray for me?" And they do, that's like a unit of church stuff happening. When you sit around your kitchen table with believing

[12:45] friends and the conversation naturally turns to Jesus, that's not preparation for church. That's church itself. This is the scandalous simplicity of what Jesus described. It's so simple that we miss it. We walk right past the real thing because we're looking for something more elaborate, more official, more impressive. But Jesus wasn't impressed by the temple system of his day. It was a system with massive buildings, elaborate ceremonies, professional priests, and religious hierarchies. Instead, he was obsessed with what it represented, himself. And he spent his time with fishermen around fires, with tax collectors in their homes, with ordinary people in ordinary places having extraordinary encounters with the living God himself. So when you read the New Testament, what becomes crystal clear is that the early Christians understood church as a living community, not a religious institution. It can be experienced in groups as small

[13:32] as two or three or a little larger like a community of people gathered in a home. And it can even be the church at Rome, the church at Ephesus, the church, the holy ones at Galatia, an entire city of people, or at least the people within an entire city who are faithful to Jesus living as a family together in some small way. In fact, let's look at Acts 2 again. Notice what's conspicuous by its absence as much as what's present. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, breaking of bread, and to the prayers. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to

[14:21] their number daily those who were being saved. Notice what's there. Teaching, fellowship, shared meals, prayer, generosity, daily connection, meeting in homes, meeting in public places, genuine joy, and people being drawn to Jesus. Notice what's not there. Buildings they owned, professional clergy, worship services, denominational structures, mission statements, strategic plans, or anything that resembles the institutional church as we know it. They devoted themselves to learning together, eating together, praying together, and sharing life together. That was church, not a program they attended, but the life that they shared. And it was apparently so attractive, so compelling, so lifegiving that Luke tells us that the Lord added to their number daily. People were being drawn to Jesus through this thousands strong in terms of numbers, community of love, not through evangelistic programs or marketing

[15:08] strategies, but through the daily life of shared love and devotion to Jesus, which I think is what Jesus meant when he outlined his own evangelistic strategy in John 13 when he says, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." The church's greatest apologetic isn't our arguments, it's our love. It's not the size and beauty of our buildings and our budgets and our programs. It's the quality of the community we share that makes the world stop and wonder what we have that they're missing. And if we don't have that to give, then how will they learn to want it? I've said it before and I don't know, it feels a little cliche, but that kind of community doesn't happen in rows. It doesn't happen when people gather once a week for an hour and then disperse back to their separate lives. It happens when believers actually share life together. When they know each other's stories,

[15:56] carry each other's burdens, celebrating each other's joys, and walk through each other's struggles. Paul describes this pretty deliberately with organic and relational metaphors throughout his letters. The church is a body, for example, where each part should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. The church is a family where we're no longer foreign and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of his household. The church is a temple, but it's built of living stones where we together are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. That's from Peter. These aren't organizational charts or strategic plans. They're pictures of life, relationship, and organic connection. When the New Testament describes church, it's not talking about some organization that you join. It's talking about a living, breathing organism that you

[16:45] become a part of. And this brings me to perhaps the most important distinction of all. Jesus didn't say, "Build my church as a command to us." He said, "I will build my church." It's not primarily something that we can create. It's something that Jesus creates that we recognize and participate in. It's not a human invention to be managed, but a divine reality to be discovered. Just think about this. If the church is an institution, what does that mean? An institution is a concept instituted by someone else who has the right to define what it is and what it is not. Think about the institution of marriage. Most of us as Christians would be very very careful when it comes to how we define the institution of marriage because it's actually not even ours to define in the first place. God defined the institution of marriage and we want to be very careful to define it the same way that

[17:32] he defined it that he used when he created this thing because he's the one who has the right to say what it is and isn't. It's the same thing with the church. If the church is an institution, it's one that God himself had the right to define. Not us. We can't go out and sign some paperwork to create a 501c3 nonprofit persona and then say that is a church. It's not ours to define. This again should change everything. When we think church is something that we build, we focus on these structures on systems and strategies. We worry about growth plans and facility needs and leadership development. We measure success by the metrics that we can control, attendance and giving and programs. But if the church is something that Jesus builds, we focus on what he's already doing. We look for where his spirit is moving, where his people are being drawn together, where his love is being

[18:20] expressed in tangible ways. We measure success by transformation, not just attendance, by depth of relationship, not just breadth of programming. The church is not a human invention to be managed, but a divine reality to be recognized. This means that church is happening all around us all the time in ways we might not even recognize, including in the buildings, which is where we're going to get to this eventually. Think about it. If your church is in the building, and that's how you define it, and an unbeliever walks in, are they part of the church? Well, they're in the building, right? They're attending this service, they go to this church in that way, are they but are they really part of the church? If they're not saved, if they're an unbeliever, they've never put their trust in Jesus to rescue them from their sins, they're not really part of the church, are they? They're coming to an event. So, of course, the walls of that building and what it contains can't actually define the church. It's the people inside that building who have

[19:07] placed their faith in Jesus that are the church. And they continue to be the church when they leave the four walls of the building. And in every second of their daily life outside of that, they continue to be part of the church. And they minister to one another in love whenever they gather, even in a group as small as two or three. So that conversation where a believer speaks truth in love to another believer, that's Jesus building his church. That moment when Christians gather around someone who's hurting and pray with them. That's Jesus building his church. That dinner where believers share a meal and their lives just get a little bit more intertwined. That's Jesus building his church. We don't have to make church happen. We just have to have eyes to see where it's already happening, hearts to participate in what Jesus is building, and the desire not to choke it out with a bunch of manufactured activities. This is why Jesus could say with such confidence that the gates of hell will

[19:54] not overcome it. He wasn't talking about an institution the way that we think about it or defending a system. He was talking about a living spirit empowered reality that no human force or demonic power could ultimately defeat. Because the church Jesus is building isn't made of bricks and mortar. It's made of redeemed humans. It's not sustained by budgets and boards. It's sustained by his presence and his spirit. Neither is it limited by geography or denomination. It can be found wherever his people are learning to love him and each other more deeply. So when you begin to understand what Jesus actually described as church, it should bring incredible freedom. Freedom from performance anxiety. You don't have to put on a spiritual face or pretend to have it all together. Church isn't a performance you attend. It's a family you belong to. Broken parts and all. Freedom from religious obligation. You don't have to feel guilty about missing a service or not volunteering

[20:43] for every ministry opportunity. Your value as a believer isn't measured by your church attendance record. Freedom from institutional loyalty. You can love Jesus and his people without having to defend every decision made by a church organization or denominational structure. But most importantly, freedom to experience church anywhere, anytime with anyone else who loves Jesus. In your living room with a few friends, studying scripture and praying together, at a coffee shop, encouraging another believer who's going through a hard time in their life. Around your own dinner table, sharing a meal and sharing your lives with other families who follow Jesus. in a text thread where believers encourage each other throughout the week. Or if you're like me, during a game of Dn D with other believers who love shared storytelling and mutual encouragement and fellowship, during a walk with a Christian friend where you

[21:30] process life in light of God's truth. None of those require a building, a budget, or a professional. But all of them require what Jesus said was essential. Two or three gathered in his name with his presence among them. Doesn't mean that structure is evil. Even organic life has structure. Where does all of this leave you? I imagine some of you are standing at like a crossroads wondering whether to stay in your current church setting at the building in the denomination attending the services or to walk away. I know from personal experience as I was going through this and all the thoughts that were racing through my head as well as conversations I've had with a lot of people since then that it's a wrestle. It's a fight. That it's a battle, an internal fight. wrestling with whether you're being faithful or rebellious, trying to figure out how to honor God in your life and choose the right path forward for community in him without

[22:20] becoming bitter or isolated. So the question for some people feels like stay and approve of everything that's happening or go and choose something radically different. But this might be a false dichotomy because once you understand what church truly is, you realize that going to church was never the point. being the church is and that can happen whether you stay or go. Don't choose sides in some culture war between institutional church and organic church. It's not about proving that one way is right and another is wrong. What we want is to prove that Jesus is building his church in all kinds of ways through all kinds of people in all kinds of places. And your job isn't to defend a system or attack a structure. Your job is to follow Jesus into the fullness of what he's building wherever that leads you. We are coming up on the one-year mark of a transition out of a church community where my family and I were dealing with

[23:07] a lot of what we might call spiritual abuse. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus. I will not name names. That's not my goal here. Suffice to say that I wrote a letter that was intended to stay private between myself and the pastor of that community explaining a lot of things that were being done that I found to be unbiblical with some biblical evidence for it. telling them that the decision for me had been made to leave that community because there was not much healthy going on and it was a very controlling and abusive environment. They smiled to my face, thanked me for all the time I had spent there teaching and waved goodbye. This was about Father's Day of last year. No fanfare at first, no speaking, no public recognition that we were leaving or thanking us for anything that we had done, which is fine. I'm not here to earn praise. But the following Wednesday, I simply posted on my Facebook feed saying, "Thanks for all the time that we spent together. We love

[23:54] you all. If there are any birthday parties that you'd like us to be invited to, feel free to invite us. And if our kids have a birthday party, we'll invite you guys to. If you see us at the grocery store, say hi. But I closed the post off by saying, if you want to know what happened, it would probably be better to talk to me and to them so that you have both sides of the story. And that's it. I felt as though that was the most measured, calm sort of response I could give. As a result, an emergency leadership meeting was called in which I was compared with the devil. It was said in that group that I said I was the real pastor of that church and that I didn't believe that most of those people were saved. People were warned that I was going to try to get a bunch of people to follow me out the door and start my own church. My name and the name of my family was slandered and dragged through the mud. The contents of my letter were misrepresented and a lot of families were destroyed because of a series of

[24:42] lies told by the people that were in leadership there. This is a classic case of the institution defending itself. And so, as a result of all of this, for a couple of weeks, my heart was broken. I was grieving. I felt numb. I didn't know how to respond to this. I was heartbroken that this was the result of 4 years of time spent loving and ministering among this group of people. And the people I still love. I still get together with some of them. We obviously don't talk very often about what's happened because it's not helpful. It doesn't really move the ball forward at all. But I was sitting with my wife and my best friend Nate and we were talking in my living room and I uttered the words, "I will never again step foot into an institutional church building." Never again. My wife tongue-in-cheek a couple seconds later says, "Well, look, Tim, never say never. God might call us to something like that again, and if he does, then you'd have to follow and obey." To which I agreed. And then my

[25:31] friend Nate says, "Look, Tim, if you want to find a bunch of Christian friends and spend time around them and invite them to dinner, you want to know a really easy and convenient way to find a bunch of those people?" To which I threw my head back and groaned. I was so frustrated with Nate. But he was 100% right. You know, there's a building right down the street over there where a bunch of them gather every single weekend, and if you want to get to know people who are part of the church, you could go find them over there. And Nate was 100% right, which freed me up to be thinking, wait a minute, if I have separated my understanding of what the church is from what the building is and the denomination and all those things, then I'm actually free to love people wherever I can find them gathered together. So, I've come to call the thing that happens on a Sunday like a mini conference or a concert. And we've managed to find a community now that a

[26:18] year in has been so life-giving and so nourishing and so beautiful for us because there's a pervasive understanding that every person in the building is the church together and that we as a community want to serve and love God together and elevate one another. So this gives me an opportunity to give a public thanks to the people at Summit View Church here in Fort Collins, Colorado. And the four elders on staff here, Perry Pauling, Travis Swan, John Larson, and Aaron Ritter. And their families, they're amazing. And this community of people is amazing. Whether I want to validate everything about the structure or not, these are elders in God's family who have created a community of people that intentionally love God and love one another in real ways in their daily life. And I can

[27:07] conveniently find a bunch of them in a building on a Sunday morning and I volunteered to make a lot of them coffee because we have a cool espresso bar. So, there's a way of faithfully inhabiting the church structure while recognizing that what you're doing is loving God's people. And that's really the church. So, how do you begin to live as church in your everyday life? The answer is both simpler and more challenging than you might expect. You can start by opening your eyes to what's already happening around you. And then you begin to nurture that with intention. The church isn't just the event, the mini conference, or the concert on a Sunday. Some of the most powerful expressions of the church happen Monday through Saturday in ordinary moments when believers share real life together. Paul describes what this looks like in Romans 12:9-18. And it's worth reading slowly. Paul describes what this looks like in

[27:54] Romans 12:9-18. And it's worth reading slowly. Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves, never lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, "It

[28:42] is mine to avenge. I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary, even if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. No attending services regularly. No making sure you're at the building every week. He describes a way of being with other believers and even other human beings. That can happen anywhere, anytime. Be devoted to one another in love. That happens in text messages and phone calls just as long as it does conversations over coffee. Be faithful in prayer. That happens when you pray for someone who's struggling. Or when a group of believers pauses in the middle of dinner to pray for a friend in need. Share with those in need. That happens when you notice a single mom is struggling and you quietly help with her groceries. Or when a friend loses a job and you band together to cover their rent. Practice hospitality. That happens when you open your home. Share your table. Make space

[29:30] in your life for others to belong. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn. This happens when you show up. really show up for the celebrations and the devastations of people's lives. Whether they've just had a baby and you're bringing them food as part of a meal train or whether their family member just committed suicide and you're bringing a meal to just help them to hold on one more day. This is church happening. This is the eklesia being the eklesia. No building, no budget, no professional staff required. But it does require intentionality. You have to start looking for these moments and creating space for them. You have to begin to see your everyday interactions with believers as sacred opportunities to experience and express the life of Christ together. Don't rush past conversation. Lean into it. Ask better questions. Share more honestly. Pray together before you leave. That text

[30:18] thread with your believing friends. Don't just use it for logistics of getting together and sending funny memes, but for actual encouragement, prayer requests, sharing what God is doing in your life. The coffee meet up with a fellow believer. come prepared to really listen, to speak the truth in love, to point them toward Jesus. He's already building his church all around you. The question is whether we have the eyes to see it and the heart to participate in it. We live in a hyperconnected, digitally distracted world, which makes the simple act of showing up revolutionary. Put down your phone during a conversation with another believer. Create that space for them to be loved. And frankly, if I'm pointing at you and that one, I've got three more fingers pointing right back at me. And it won't happen spontaneously. Like any relationship, spiritual community requires intentional rhythm and pattern. In the Jewish culture that Jesus grew up in, community was built around shared

[31:05] rhythms. Sabbath meals, festival, celebrations, daily prayers. Not like a burdensome obligation. These are life-giving patterns creating space for relationship to deepen over time. So, what would it look like for you to create similar rhythms with other believers in your life? Maybe it's a weekly dinner rotation between three families where you take turns hosting and the conversation always includes sharing what God is doing in your lives. Maybe it's a monthly hiking group where you and several Christian friends combine some physical activity and spiritual conversation, praying for each other while you walk and enjoy God's creation. Maybe it's looking for quarterly service projects where you and your believing friends serve your community together, then debrief over dinner about how you saw God at work. Maybe it's as simple as committing to have coffee or lunch with one believer every week. Maybe not the same person every time, but let's ensure that we're regularly going deeper with other people who share our faith. But again, the key is consistency and intentionality. These

[31:53] aren't programs we're attending and structuring. This is a rhythm we create and maintain because we recognize that there's value in forming spiritual community together. And here's what's beautiful. When we start to create that rhythm, we often find that other believers are hungry for the same thing. They've been waiting for someone to take the initiative to create space to invite them into something deeper than surface level connection. Even if they've been bogged down, and maybe especially if they've been bogged down with some program at the institution that isn't actually serving that purpose. Maybe it was intentionally doing so. Maybe it was intended to do so, but that's not the result. But let me be clear again once more about something. This is not an eitheror proposition. You don't have to choose between organized gatherings and organic expressions of the church. Many believers find that a healthy rhythm includes both. The real issue is whether you've reduced the church to only that, missing the everyday reality of being

[32:42] the church wherever you go. Hebrews 10:24 and 25 tells us not to give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day of the Lord approaching. Do not prioritize attendance for attendance's sake. Let's get together to spur one another on toward love and good deeds and to encourage one another. Transformation and mutual encouragement, not institutional loyalty and denominational obligations. If your Sunday gathering accomplishes that, if it spurs you towards love, good deeds, and genuine encouragement mutually one to another, then by all means, keep going. Embrace it. Let it be one expression of the church in your life. But don't stop there and don't put all the pressure on Sunday morning to be everything the church is supposed to be in your life. And lean in because you have a gift to offer. Maybe not as part

[33:29] of a volunteer team, but as a human being redeemed by Jesus Christ, occupying his kingdom and spreading yet that influence and expanding the borders of his kingdom everywhere you go in life in relationship with other believers as you form a team to go and work his things out in the world. So for those of you who are choosing to stay, some of you are going to find that the church setting actually helps you live as church throughout the week. The teaching feeds you. The relationships encourage you. The structure actually provides helpful accountability and opportunities to serve and love. In that case, feel free to stay and thrive and let that be one piece of how Jesus is building his church in your life. But I want to challenge you to go deeper. Don't let that Sunday morning be the extent of your experience. Use an organized gathering as a launching pad for the kind of deep authentic community we've been talking about. Build relationships

[34:16] with people in your church community that go beyond the building. That couple you're always sitting near, you can invite them over for dinner. That single mom who is struggling, you can create that support network around her that functions throughout the week. You can in this way be a bridge between the institutional and the organic. If they're open to it, and this will be a huge marker, unfortunately, of whether this is a possible healthy development in this community or not, help your church leaders understand what authentic community looks like by modeling it in your own relationships. create space for that deeper connection within and around your formal structure. You don't need permission from church leadership to live as church throughout the week. And if they're suspicious of you doing that, that's honestly a major red flag. You can start building the community you're longing for right now with the people of God that he has already placed in your life through the church community and maybe even the building and the event

[35:04] and the service that you're a part of already. But some of you are going to find that your current church setting is actually hindering your ability to live as church. that the emphasis on programs is crowding out relationships or the consumer mentality is making you passive or the institutional demands for loyalty are draining your spiritual energy rather than filling it. I have been in both of these positions. If that's you, it might be time to step back and create space for more organic expressions of the church to grow. This doesn't necessarily mean making a dramatic exit or burning bridges. In fact, I'd recommend you don't do that. It might mean gradually reducing your involvement in programming while increasing your investment in relationships. Maybe you step back from a committee that's been sucking your energy and instead use that time to host dinners for believers in your home. Maybe you stop volunteering for that ministry that's become more burden than blessing and instead start a

[35:51] prayer group that meets in a coffee shop. The goal isn't to leave in protest, but to create space for what God might be calling you into. Sometimes you have to let go of the good to make room for the better. But don't discount the possibility that you might have to leave. If these things that you start doing as you do them cause people to look at you as scants or with some suspicion, it's probably healthiest for everybody if you make a polite, loving exit. Not from relationships with the people, but from participation in the system. And some of you are going to find a middle path. Maybe staying connected to an organized gathering once or twice a month or even every Sunday while investing the majority of your church energy in smaller, more intimate expressions of community throughout the week. This can be a pretty healthy balance for many people. I'm doing this myself always with the recognition that the church is the people and I can find them at the mini conference or the concert or the whatever we call it on the Sunday. I find a lot of them there.

[36:39] I serve a lot of them coffee. But the goal is to maintain that connection to the broader body of Christ through occasional corporate gatherings while finding your primary spiritual community in more organic expressions. But be intentional about your choices instead of just drifting. Don't attend sporadically out of guilt or habit to check a big box on your religious scorecard. Make deliberate decisions about when and how you'll participate in organized gatherings. And be fully present when you do participate. And be honest with church leadership about your choices. You don't owe them an explanation, but if you've been healthily involved in your stepping back, a gracious conversation can prevent misunderstandings and maintain those ever crucial relationships. There's no one-izefits-all answer here. But there's a key principle. The structure should serve life, not the other way around. Whatever combination of organized or organic church expressions you choose, they should be helping you love Jesus more, love others

[37:26] better, and grow in spiritual maturity. If they're not doing that, if they're actually creating barriers to transformation rather than pathways to it, then it's time to make some changes. And look, do I still feel down in the bottom of my heart that the best thing that could happen to most church communities is that their building burns down and all of their possessions go up in smoke so that they realize that all they've ever had was God and one another. Yes, I do still think that would be beneficial for most things that we call church communities. Do I think that dissolving our denominational boundary lines that we're using to kick people out of the kingdom would be a better thing than sitting around judging each other with crossed arms all day, shouting at each other across the aisle and never actually sitting down to speak with one another? Yes, I would rather we get rid of those denominational barriers, but I live in the world of the real and I always want to find a way forward, not just old man shakes fist at sky energy. So whatever you decide,

[38:15] whether you stay, go, or find some kind of middle path, I want to talk to you about guarding your heart. It is possible to recognize the limitations of a system without becoming cynical toward the people in it. I narrowly dodged this bullet, and it was because of the love and care of my wife, my best friend, and a community of people that, thank God, he'd surrounded me with at that time that I avoided drinking the poison of bitterness. Bitterness is a poison. It will destroy your ability to experience the church in any form. If you leave your current church situation carrying resentment, criticism, and judgment, you'll take that poison with you wherever you go. And it will taint every future church experience you have. In fact, it'll prevent you from seeing the love of God in the relationships that are currently right in front of you because all you'll do is sit around airing past grievances and rerunning past offenses. Listen to Paul's words in Ephesians

[39:02] 4:31-32. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you. Not all, but many pastors and church leaders are doing their best within the systems they've inherited. They didn't set out to create institutional barriers to authentic community. They're often just as frustrated as you are by the limitations they face, and they don't know a way out of it. I know pastors who lie awake at night wondering why their church feels more like a business than a family. And they hear this stuff, and they open their Bibles, and they don't know where to begin to dismantle the system that they find themselves in. worship leaders exhausted by the pressure to create a wow experience every Sunday. I know small group leaders who are desperately trying to move beyond surface level Bible studies to create real community. Many of these leaders entered the

[39:50] ministry with genuine hearts to shepherd God's people and they're navigating pressures and expectations that none of us really are even aware of. Board pressures, denominational requirements, financial constraints, attendance expectations, the list goes on. That doesn't excuse poor leadership or unhealthy systems, but it should temper your criticism with some compassion. Most church leaders are doing their best with imperfect systems just like you are. And they've believed the lie that their sole job is in reality the work of 30 people, but it's all on their shoulders. We should have compassion on people who are misconceived in this way. So here's what I really want to challenge you toward. Instead of becoming a critic of what's wrong with church, become a builder of what's right about church. What would it look like if we took all the energy that we might spend criticizing and trying to tear down the institutional church and invested it instead in creating the kind of church community we've longed for? What would it look like if we stopped waiting for church to happen to us and

[40:38] started making church happen around us? What would it look like if you became the kind of believer who creates authentic community wherever you go? Who turns ordinary moments into incredible sacred encounters, who transforms casual friendships into spiritual family, who makes space for Jesus to show up in the everyday rhythms of life. Well, by my estimation, that would mean you'd start looking like Jesus himself. And that's not a small thing to aspire to. But this is what I'm seeing happening all over the world. believers who have stopped waiting for the perfect church community and started being the church. Who have moved from consumption to contribution, from spectatorship to participation, from criticism to creation. People hosting dinners where believing friends gather to share those meals and share life. Not elaborate dinner parties necessarily, although there's nothing wrong with one of those, but simple gatherings where the focus is on

[41:25] connection rather than perfection. It's a pretty unique person in this day and age that really focuses on building friendships that go deeper than the surface level and create accountability for spiritual growth. And you have an opportunity to be that person if you keep the right mindset about it. So, here we are at the end of this journey together. And if you're like most people who have wrestled with these questions, you might be feeling a mix of emotions right now. Hopefully, if I did my job right, you're feeling some relief. Relief that you're not crazy. That the tension that you've been experiencing is actually shared by millions of other believers. that you're longing for something deeper isn't a sign of spiritual immaturity, but possibly spiritual awakening. Maybe you're feeling hope. Hope that there's more to church than what you've experienced. That the community you've been craving might be closer than you thought. That Jesus really is building something beautiful that you can be a part of. Maybe you're feeling a little overwhelmed because now you have to

[42:13] figure out what to do with all of this, how to move forward, and what your next steps should be. But most of all, I hope you're feeling invited. invited into a reality that's both ancient and contemporary, simple and profound, accessible and transformative. And frankly, this has been so important to me that I created a Facebook group that is filled with people from all walks of life, all backgrounds, and bunches of different denominations. We have 7th Day Adventists and Catholics, a lot of Eastern Orthodox folks, other Orthodox, other organic church proponents, Baptists, Presbyterians, any number of different people, all living together with the reality that Jesus is king. that our task is to live every second of our life in light of what the Bible really says about eternity and that we all make up the church. If you want to get a part of this, you can go to the overlap.life/fb-group and you'll be able to see the Facebook group there. Just go

[43:01] ahead and answer the questions and join. We would love to have you find things like this to do in your own life, too. Before you make any decisions about your next steps, I want you to understand that you're standing in a sacred territory right now. The tension that you've been feeling, that disconnect between your love of Jesus and your experience of the church is not simply spiritual restlessness. The Holy Spirit is at work in you. God is inviting you into a deeper understanding of what he's building in the world. In John 4, Jesus told the woman at the well that a time was coming when worship wouldn't be confined to a particular mountain or temple, but that true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. That time isn't coming. It's here. It's now. It's available to you. You don't have to wait for someone else to give you permission to experience church the way Jesus described it. You don't have to wait for a new building to be constructed or a

[43:49] new program to be launched or a new pastor to be hired. You just have to have eyes to see what Jesus is already building around you and the heart to participate in it. So here's my invitation to you and it's really Jesus's invitation through me. Stop looking for the perfect church and start being the church. If that means you stay, stay in love. If that means you go, go in love. If that means something in between, do all in love. Stop waiting for the community to happen to you and start creating community around you. Stop being a consumer of those religious experiences and start being a contributor as a citizen in the kingdom of God. Open your eyes to where Jesus is already gathering people in your life and step fully into that gap. Look for those moments of authentic connection with other believers and instead of letting them pass by casually, lean into them with intention and love. Text someone today. Right now, pause the video. Stop listening to me blather on.

[44:36] Invite someone to coffee this week. Write a heartfelt letter about how much someone means to you. If there's a family from your Sunday gathering that you enjoy spending time with, send them a message suggesting a shared meal. Open up the schedule one of the nights this week and invite someone over. Maybe even someone you don't normally see, maybe one of the down andoutters, one of the people that tends to get forgotten in the social currency. Maybe host a game night with pizza where the kids can play and the adults can actually talk. Let your families become intertwined in real life, not just church life. co-workers who believe in Jesus, gather together at lunch and talk about your life. Pray for each other. Share lunch and let the conversation go deeper than just your work stress. Plan a hiking trip. Plan a camping trip. We had a camping trip last year where we had dear friends from probably eight different friend groups all gathered together, including some of

[45:24] my wife's family. And we we did the kind of cheesy fun thing about sitting around a campfire and singing Christian hymns and stuff. We brought sheet music and everything and handed it out. And it was this wonderful experience. Do something like that. Make your home a place where church happens naturally every single day where people gather in your name. In our home, four or five families, I'm not kidding. Sometimes on average in a day, four or five families will pass through our home and I'll make them coffee and we'll make them food and they can raid our fridge and they know they're welcome and they can just take their shoes off and kick their feet up and relax. You don't have to go that crazy, but start small. even if it's just one other person or family. The key is to begin to see those ordinary moments with believers as really extraordinary opportunities. When someone mentions they're struggling, don't just say an empty platitude of, "Oh, I'll pray for

[46:11] you." Pause right there and pray with them. When someone shares good news, don't just congratulate them. Pause and thank God together for his goodness. I believe that we're living in one of the most exciting times in church history. Yes, institutional church is facing challenges. Yes, many people are walking away from traditional church structures, but they're not necessarily walking away from faith in Jesus. They're walking away from the abuses of a system that is not getting the results that it was intended to get. I don't see this as a crisis. I see it as a reformation. God is stirring his people to rediscover what church was always meant to be. He's calling us back to the simplicity, the authenticity, and the transformative power of believers sharing life together in his name. And the church that is emerging from this reformation is going to be less institutionally focused and more relational, less programmatic and more organic, less about buildings and more about belonging, less about

[46:58] attendance and more about transformation. And it's going to be beautiful. It's going to look more like Jesus who gathered with ordinary people in ordinary places and turned those ordinary moments into extraordinary encounters with the living God. It's going to be marked by the fruit of the spirit in genuine honest to God relationship with each other. love, joy, peace, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Not because everybody's perfect, but because it's a community where people are learning to live in the reality of who they are in Christ, which creates a set of problems, by the way, that the scriptures are much more easily set up to actually help us resolve. And if we do so, if we love one another the way Jesus loved us, it's going to be attractive to the world around it. Not because of impressive programs or beautiful buildings, but because of the quality of the love shared between its members. People will honestly look at

[47:47] these communities and say, "I want what they have. It's going to be unstoppable." Not because it has political power or cultural influence, but because Jesus is the king of the world and his kingdom is a beautiful place to live. Remember that thousands of believers are waking up to this reality and discovering the scandalous simplicity of what Jesus described. Whether you stay in your current church setting, find a different one, or create new expressions of church altogether, remember this. You don't go to church. You are the church. And Jesus is still building it. One living stone at a