What should a church gathering look like? Should it look like a classroom? Should it be a lecture hall? What about a huge concert stage? Do the scriptures give us any directions as to how to gather?
What then is the right course, believers? When you meet together, each one has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation (disclosure of special knowledge), a tongue, or an interpretation. Let everything be constructive and edifying and done for the good of all the church.
1 Corinthians 14:26 AMP
The New Testament is pretty clear about what our gathering should look like; however, most modern-day Western church services don’t resemble what the scripture mentions.
Sadly, most gatherings of the Body of Christ look more like college lectures with mini-concerts to kick it off. One person or a small group of people has all of the attention. They are the only ones to speak, sharing their vast knowledge with those they see as the low-intellect wannabees (laity) in the lecture hall.
(That may not be the intent, but it sure is how it is portrayed in many modern-day teaching churches, as well as in church history.)
In the New Testament model, the gatherings should look more like a family meal than a college lecture. Everyone is to be a contributor. Everyone is to be a participant. Everyone helps.
But not in a lecture. One person speaks. One person is in charge. Everyone else sits there and listens to the expert.
I believe the modern church is not what Jesus had in mind for gathering His Body. It certainly doesn’t align with what occurred in the Book of Acts.
The pastor is not a CEO. The New Testament English translations only translate the word as pastor one time. Every other time, it is translated as a shepherd. A shepherd’s role is to watch out for the sheep, lead the sheep, and care for the sheep—even the unpleasant tasks of caring for the animals. A shepherd’s role in the church is to do the same. It involves guarding, overseeing, and directing. It is not a lecture.
Today’s pastors know very little, if anything, about the majority of their congregation, even in smaller congregations. Outside of a weekly greeting, if that, they seldom even see the people they believe they are leading. Honestly, most pastors feel the need to distance themselves from the flock to preserve and perpetuate the false view that they are somehow superior. It doesn’t help keep the rouge if you see the flaws of their personality.
Today’s pastor is seen more as a CEO and lecturer. They lead non-profit corporations and lecture to those in attendance each week. They spend most of their week having business meetings about budgets and marketing and preparing for their upcoming lecture.
On the other hand, shepherds in scripture are seen more as fathers than CEOs. They know their children intimately and watch out for their best interests. They protect, guide, listen, and are involved in their lives. They leave the 99 to find the one. They are not just there to lecture to the crowd on Sundays.
The model of church we have today is far from Jesus’ model. To be what Jesus desires, the church can’t be a CEO-driven corporation striving for recognition and position. It must be a family, caring for one another, with paternal leadership as caring fathers for their children, guiding, listening, overseeing, but not lecturing.
While processing this, I tried to recall some of the best lectures I heard in college. Even though it has been 40 years since I was a college student, there must be one memorable lecture.
After several hours, I came up with three memories from my college lectures. The first one was from a Music Ed class, where the professor, Larry Tynes, played an old LP recording of “Accentuate the Positive.” I learned never to mess with Mr. Inbetween.
A second memory was from Dr. Rooney, ranting about how we don’t do this because “No-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-no, this isn’t haah skyoo.” Thinking back, that didn’t do much for me because I did teach high school.
Finally, my last and favorite memory was Sam Cross (he had his doctorate, but he didn’t want you to call him that) telling the two young men in the back row to go outside and frolic on the lawn since they didn’t want to listen. (Yes, I may have been one of those young men.) I’m unsure if that helped me, but I recall a lovely frolic on the lawn after class.
I’m sure I learned something in those years of lectures, but nothing stands out. Most of what I learned about teaching was from teaching others and interacting with other teachers. It wasn’t because someone spewed information at me for hours in a lecture hall.
I long to see Jesus’ Ekklesia established in our world. It’s not just about how or where we gather but how we function as His Body. Instead of lecturers spewing opinions and teachings, the church must begin to focus on empowering and equipping the saint to do more in the world than go to church. (Ephesians 4:11-12)
In every godly family I know, the father always wants to see his child surpass his accomplishments. In the institutional church model, however, the pastor strives to keep people in their proper place for fear of losing their position and power. The senior pastor cannot allow a more popular assistant pastor to have a position for fear of him or her taking over. But a true father would rejoice to see his son or daughter accomplish more than he did. A true father wants to empower and equip his sons and daughters to be more prosperous than he ever was. But this is not so in the current church model.
I have watched gifted youth pastors be fired, held down, or forced out because of the perceived threat felt by the senior leadership. This is not Jesus’ model for His Body.
(Please note, I am not promoting the idea of the nepotistic pastor/TV Evangelist who is grooming their children to run their family business.)
What if our gatherings were more about empowering the individual saints to do what God has called them to do rather than making a display of the oratory skills of the pastor? What if a pastor saw himself as one who equips the saints rather than one who lectures them to show his superior knowledge? How much further along in this world’s process would the church be than where it is today?
Teaching is not just sharing new information in each session. Actual teaching is about guiding people to take their gifts and develop them into something God will use for His Kingdom. A true teacher raises apprentices, not to be mesmerized at how good the teacher is, but to become like, and even better, than the teacher.
An apprentice, a disciple if you will, follows and learns from the master teacher and then goes and does likewise. Hopefully, the student will one day surpass the teacher’s accomplishments.
Is that your ears itching?
The modern church, sadly, is mainly lecture-focused. People who believe the same things gather to hear a speaker who will say what they already believe, reinforcing their opinion that their opinion is correct. This sounds like heaping up teachers for themselves to appease their itching ears. (2 Timothy 4:3)
Most people won’t take an honest look at this topic because this is what we have become accustomed to. But when people shop for a church, they search for a place that will affirm their opinion–where the preacher says what they already have chosen to believe. Their itching ears like to hear someone reinforce their views.
Regardless of your opinions on different teachings or doctrines, you can find a weekly lecture to reinforce your opinion. There are at least 45,000 different opinions proclaimed every week. You can find one that tickles your ears. Everyone claims they are teaching the truth and that everyone else is at least partially wrong.
But what happens in a family?
In a family, everyone comes together. Everyone participates. Everyone has a voice. The father doesn’t just stand up at the head of the dinner table and lecture everyone for an hour. Honestly, a true father probably listens more than he talks. He listens to his kids. He watches them. He steps in when things get out of hand but is the voice of reason and wisdom.
He is training his children how they should go, not just lecturing them.
A true father wants to see his children succeed. He wants to see them grow. He wants to see them go farther than he ever did in spiritual things and things of this world.
So am I saying we should do away with all of the teaching? No, absolutely not. If Paul shows up to your house to teach all night, by all means, let him teach. I’m not saying do away with the teaching gift. That is a gift that Jesus gave the church. But at the same time, the church gathering shouldn’t be 95 percent preaching and teaching week after week after week. EVERYONE is supposed to play a role in the Body — not just the shepherd/teacher.
James writes to the body and says, “Don’t be hearers only, but be doers.” Yet, the church focuses on making everyone hearers and not doers.
The clarion call of the modern-day church is “Come and hear!’ Not, “Go and do!”
If you attend a large holiday family gathering, you will find yourself doing something. You may be carving a turkey, mashing potatoes, setting the table, or washing dishes. Regardless of the task, you are involved. You don’t just sit and watch one person do everything. And if you do, I’m sorry to say that is a perfect picture of dysfunction.
I believe the way most modern-day institutional churches function is completely dysfunctional from what Jesus designed and what Scripture teaches. Unfortunately, that is pretty much what people have grown to want. They want a place to go, sit, and be served so they can check the “Went to church” box for the week.
It’s time to change.
I believe, however, that a growing number of Jesus’ followers are no longer content to go to church and watch the professionals. They sense God urging them to do more than sit and listen to a sermonar.
May the Body of Christ hear the call of heaven to stop just going to church and begin empowering and equipping each individual to use their gifts so we as the whole Body can function as His Ekklesia in His Kingdom and not a modern-day church in the pastor’s kingdom.
