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One Body in Christ

This is a beautiful and concise work from Kokichi Kurosaki (1886-1970). It’s interesting to hear his perspective of western religion’s departure from one loving community to the sectarian institution it has become. You can read this, and other works free, from the website awildernessvoice.com. Here is an excerpt below.

This koinonia–living in fellowship with God and Christ, having access to God and meeting Him in love and faith–is the real Ekklesia. In such experience of life, Christians will meet together, worship God together, help one another and do various good works in cooperation. As is natural in human society so in the Ekklesia, there will be division of labor according to the varieties of gifts (I Cor. 12:27-28). Everything will be controlled by the Head, Christ and each member will do his own part in obedience to the will of the Head. No human institutions, rituals or ceremonies are necessary to realize this. The Ekklesia cannot be formed by human knowledge and human activities. Indeed, it was of these products that the tower of Babel was built. The institutional church may have some outward likeness to the Ekklesia, but spiritual fellowship with God and Christ is more stifled than helped by the formalities of the church.

The legal unity of human organization, which is so often governed by men appointed by human methods is substitute for spiritual unity. By its very nature–being an institution–the organized church is prone to become fleshly rather than spiritual. Also, the existing sectarianism is itself a proof of fleshly-mindedness. “For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving like ordinary men?” (I Cor. 3:3). The Ekklesia, on the other hand, is a product of the Spirit. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary that spiritual means be employed in its government and edification.

If we do not give the rightful preeminence to koinonia with God through Christ as the center of Christian faith we cannot but fail, for there are only two courses before us. Aside from secular atheism and the materialistic concept, if we do not find satisfaction through communion with God–for which we were created–then, invariably, we will try to find reality and satisfaction in the “Churchianity” of institution, forms and doctrines. Lacking spiritual “life,” we turn to “religion”–the lifeless corpse.

Kokichi Kurosaki, One Body of Christ
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The Great Ecclesiastical Conspiracy

This work by George Davis and Michael Clark is very informative, easy to read and well worth the time. It’s only about 100 pages and can be downloaded free at awildernessvoice.com. How and why did words like church, apostle, deacon, bishop, priest, pastor, obey, submit and many others enter our vocabulary and distort the very essence of Christianity? An excerpt is below.

Because the true church is relational, not institutional, it makes sense only in a social context, a family context. In every truly healthy family, there is second and third generation communion. You have the grandchildren, the parents, and the grandparents. In that context, the grandparents are the elders. They possess the wisdom of years and if godly, are in a position to teach by their words and example as no other family member can. Satan has done all he can possibly do to destroy the very concept of family, and to encourage the young in disrespect for the elderly, ignoring their counsel. Thus, we have witnessed the breakdown of the family and the church. The church is a family. It began in the heart of a loving Father who sent his only Son to bring many sons to glory. Oh, what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God!

Paul wrote to Timothy, telling how he should relate to the elderly (presbuteros) in the family of God:

Rebuke not an elder, (presbuteros) but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; The elder (presbuteros) women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity. (1 Timothy 5:1-2)

The context of this scripture is completely relational, not institutional, and makes sense only in a family context. There is the mention of father, mothers, sisters and brethren. This sounds like a family to us. In the Greek, presbuteros is used for both old men and old women. In an attempt to institutionalize, all of these dear family terms became offices in the papal church. And since they could not recognize any title without ordination, everything that was once relational and family was displaced, and all but lost in the institution. Leadership gradually became more and more hierarchical until the supreme leader of this fallen church bore both the temporal and spiritual swords, sitting on a luxurious throne in extravagant robes wielding the kingly scepter of power and rule. Such men have bequeathed to us much that is called Christian leadership today.

I (Michael) am reminded of a story that a brother in Christ told me. One day a pair of Mormon missionaries came to his door and they introduced themselves as Elder Jones and Elder Smith (not their real names). My friend said that the oldest one could not have been more than twenty years old. Finally my friend, who was much older than them, asked, “Elder to what?” They were totally flustered.

In the New Testament we have Timothy, who some call an apostle and others call a pastor (the scripture calling him neither), being instructed to relate to the elderly man as he would his father, with honor and respect. There is something unnatural about the young rebuking the elderly. In an ecclesiastical, hierarchical context, where authority is positional rather than relational, the issue of age is irrelevant. It all depends upon who has the title and position. In today’s institutional churches it would be perceived as a compromise of a pastor’s authority to relate to any untitled individual as his senior. However, in the family esteeming others as better or superior to yourself is normal, or at least it should be. (Philippians 2:3) The church itself has become the greatest enemy of the family by its institutionalized example. This was a masterstroke of the enemy. God wants his family back!

George Davis and Michael Clark, The Great Ecclesiastical Conspiracy
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The Normal Christian Life

I included a couple of excerpts from Watchman Nee’s Christian classic book below. Although not specifically about house church it is highly recommended.

When the Galilean boy brought his bread to the Lord, what did the Lord do with it? He broke it. God will always break what is offered to him. He breaks what he takes, but after breaking it he blesses and uses it to meet the needs of others. After you give yourself to the Lord, he begins to break what was offered to him. Everything seems to go wrong, and you protest and find fault with the ways of God. But to stay there is to be no more than just a broken vessel-no good for the world because you have gone too far for the world to use you, and no good for God either because you have not gone far enough for him to use you. You are out of gear with the world, and you have a controversy with God. This is the tragedy of many a Christian.

My giving of myself to the Lord must be an initial fundamental act. Then, day by day, I must go on giving to him, not finding fault with his use of me, but accepting with praise even what the flesh finds hard. That way lies true enrichment.

I am the Lord’s, and now no longer reckon myself to be my own but acknowledge in everything his ownership and authority. That is the attitude God delights in, and to maintain it is true consecration. I do not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher; I consecrate myself to God to do his will where I am, be it in school, office or kitchen or wherever he may, in his wisdom, send me. Whatever he ordains for me is sure to be the very best, for nothing but good can come to those who are wholly his.

May we always be possessed by the consciousness that we are not our own.

Regarding Mary anointing Jesus (Mark 14:6-8)

Of Mary the Lord said: “She hath done what she could.” What does that mean? It means that she had given up her all. She had kept nothing in reserve for a future day. She had lavished on him all she had; and yet on the resurrection morning she had no reason to regret her extravagance. And the Lord will not be satisfied with anything less from us than that we too should have done “what we could.” By this, remember, I do not mean the expenditure of our effort and energy in trying to do something for him, for that is not the point here. What the Lord Jesus looks for in us is a life laid at his feet, and that in view of his death and burial and of a future day. His burial was already in view that day in the home in Bethany. Today it is his crowning that is in view, when he shall be acclaimed in glory as the Anointed One, the Christ of God. Yes, then we shall pour out our all upon him! But it is a precious thing-indeed it is a far more precious thing to him-that we should anoint him now, not with material oil but with something costly, something from our
hearts.

That which is merely external and superficial has no place here. It has already been dealt with by the Cross, and we have given our consent to God’s judgment upon it and learned to know in experience its cutting off. What God is demanding of us now is represented by that flask of alabaster: something mined from the depths, something turned and chased and wrought upon, something that, because it is so truly of the Lord, we cherish as Mary cherished that flask, and we would not, we dare not break it. It comes now from the heart, from the very depth of our being; and we come to the Lord with that, and we break it and pour it out and say: “Lord, here it is. It is all yours, because you are worthy!”- and the Lord has got what he desired. May he receive such an anointing from us today.

Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life
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Books / Videos

Finding Organic Church

What a great book filled with practical guidelines on how to start and sustain an Organic Church! This is in depth study of how churches were started and guided by the early apostles and why it’s necessary today to have apostles/itinerant workers laying the foundation and giving guidance for healthy church development. Below is an excerpt from the book.

Paul formed Christian communities by fathering, mothering, and nursing the Christians with whom he worked (1 Thess. 2:7-12; 1 Cor. 4:15). He showed the church how to fellowship with its Lord, how to mature in Christ, how to function in its gatherings, and how to solve specific problems endemic to community life.

Tragically, these are things that many (if not most) Christians in the institutional church know little about. To put it bluntly, being a seasoned Christian does not equip one to be a functioning member in an organic church setting. Nor does it prepare one to be a contributing member of a Christian community. In addition, finding oneself two thousand years into Christian history and five hundred years down the Reformation pike does not prepare one for such a task.

As A. W. Tozer once put it, the modern church “is an asylum for retarded spiritual children.” It’s a nursery for overgrown spiritual babes, most of whom do not have a clue about how to function spiritually with their fellow brethren in a coordinated way. And why is this? Because they have never been shown how. Instead, they have been habituated to stay silent and passive. (Except, of course, when it comes to sharing the gospel with the lost. Preachers have been pounding that into the heads of Christians since the days of D. L. Moody.) God’s people, therefore, need to be unleashed and empowered to minister in the house of God.

For this reason, the Pauline ministry of planting churches is still very much needed today. Again, far more goes into building a church than leading people to the Lord. Winning converts is merely a first step. Enriching, equipping, and empowering them to get on with God and with their fellow brethren make up the rest of the trip.


To use Peter’s language, to lead a sinner to Christ is to convert a dead stone into a living stone (1 Peter 2:5). But the accumulation of
living stones is not God’s purpose. Today, we have many living stones on the planet, but they are scattered and isolated. God’s goal is for all of those stones to be formed into a house-His very own dwelling place (Eph. 2:22). Therein lies the main calling of the Christian worker (1 Cor. 3:9-10). It’s not merely the conversion of dead stones into living stones; it’s to build the house of the living God with those stones. And that takes far more than simply preaching sermons once or twice a week. It means equipping the people of God to function in the church meetings, to take care of one another, and to witness to the glories of Christ before the world as a close-knit, Christ-centered community.

Consequently, if Paul were in the Western world today, it’s extremely likely that he would seek out the lost sheep as well as the isolated sheep. To be sure, Paul would present the gospel to lost souls. But hungry Christians in the traditional church would doubtlessly attach themselves to his work as well. Would Paul refuse to minister to them simply because they were “already” converted? Not a chance.

Paul’s goal was a kingdom community. It was a shared-life assembly that lives by divine life and is held together by Jesus Christ and nothing else. So he would undoubtedly minister to all the Christians who were open to him-new converts and institutionalized believers. He would enrich them to know Christ, equip them to express Him corporately, and empower them to function in a coordinated way.


Genuine workers in our day do just that.


Not to put too fine a point on it, Paul’s passion was to establish Christian communities marked by every member functioning, and that expressed the fullness of Jesus Christ. It was not to rescue individuals from eternal judgment (though that was included). We can be confident that if Paul were with us today, he would not be hindered from this all-consuming mission.

Frank Viola, Finding Organic Church
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Biblical Church

Preparing The House

I recently came across this quote from T. Austin Sparks.

The truth is that subjection to Jesus Christ is not a miserable life as a vassal.  It is a life of triumph, a life of victory, a life of glory, a life of fullness. It is the blinding work of the enemy with men, to make them think that to belong to the Lord, to have the Lord in their lives, means they are going to lose all that is worth while, and be shut down, and then all the time be poor cringing creatures, hardly able to lift their heads up, going about as beggars. That is Satan’s lie.  The Old Testament brings it out here so clearly that, when all things were subject to, submitting themselves to, God’s appointed king, it was a time of fullness, such as the people had never known: and so it is when Jesus is Lord with us in heaven.

T. Austin Sparks, God’s Spiritual House

The Old Testament scripture he is referring to is found in 1 Chronicles 24. In this chapter, David is preparing to hand over the many resources he has collected to Solomon, so he can begin construction of the House of God.

Now David said, “Solomon my son is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the Lord must be exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all countries. I will now make preparation for it.”

Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies all around. His name shall be Solomon, for I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his day.

I Chronicles 24:5, 9

As we examine our lives, are they full of victory, glory and fullness? If not, maybe there are a few things to consider. Have we been blinded by the enemy to believe that life truly devoted to Christ is slavery? In this case, we hold back from completely surrendering to our Lord. We want to keep various portions of our lives separated from Him. It’s hard to give up everything.

However, I think there is something more troubling. Consider our corporate church culture. We are taught that we need to help our church/pastor fulfill his vision for his house. We are given gifts and talents to help build up the ekklesia but instead we use them to build up a man’s vision of his church. You might think this is harsh but would you consider the fruit of the church today to be “exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all countries.” Would you consider that the church is at rest with our enemies? It appears something is not working. Church based and founded on dynamic personalities will never achieve this. I know from personal experience.

So the question is, whose houses are we building? I truly believe, and have experienced, that when we submit ourselves to our King, not a dynamic leader, our lives and the life of the ekklesia will be exceedingly magnificent.

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Books / Videos

The Pastor Has No Clothes!

I just want to honor Jon Zens for sharing truth since 1965. I’ve just recently learned about Jon and read and reviewed a couple of his books. This one is a gem and well worth your time and money. Jon totally debunks the idea that the corporate church and/or even what we call House Church needs a centralized leader/pastor. Below is an excerpt.

We are afraid of doing church without a human leader. Except, the truth is, we do have a Leader – Jesus Christ. Further, the practical reality is that every group will have leadership each time they get together. His Spirit always leads the saints to express Christ one to another in diverse ways; not in a traditional, concrete pro forma format. One sister may share something that becomes the theme that others build on – in one meeting or in several; for a day or for months, even years of interaction. Another time, a brother may tell how the Lord ministered to him in the past week, and that leads to different things, which go on from there. The point is, in organic meetings His Spirit leadership is gracious, fluid and over a period of time involves everyone. If a group looks to the same person time after time to get and to keep things rolling by solely providing the essential content of the gathering, then the living Christ blossoming through all the parts is soured.

Sadly, in this way I am convinced that we are all like Israel – we want a visible king. Read 1 Samuel 8 and see how Israel was not satisfied with having the invisible God as their Leader; they wanted to be like the nations around them who had visible human kings. It underscores human desire of having someone else tell us what vision to follow, where to meet, what to do, and what to believe – in short, to spoon-feed us like children – thus, we reject the Lord’s leadership, substituting a vastly inferior system in his place.

We all will have a king. The crucial question is, will our king be visible or Invisible? Will we run church like the corporations in the world – in other words, be like the world – or will seek higher satisfaction in following the One, whom having not seen, we love?

Do not be mistaken! These behaviors are not limited to the traditional “church” experience. I have seen this phenomenon kill the life expression in simple gatherings just as frequently. It is the existence of pastor-wannabe’s, elder-wannabe’s and former church officials who come to such a group claiming a false non-scriptural basis to “improve” their gatherings. Even among those who have completely left the institutional church, too often there is tendency to look for former “leaders” in past settings to provide the impetus for what takes place in the new one. 

Those from leadership positions in the institutional church must take their ambitions and history of being “up front” to the cross. They must take their proper place as just another brother or just a sister amongst other brothers and sisters. If not, the group will inevitably revert to an institutional form usurping Jesus’ leadership. Simply meeting in a home does not, in any way, ensure that a Christian group functions under Jesus’ Lordship. The pressing issue here is whether or not a person or group takes the place of Christ at the center of any fellowship meeting.

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God’s Spiritual House

This book by T. Austin-Sparks was published in 1942 and is a true inspirational work. Unlike many books on my Resources page, this work focuses on what the Church is spiritually.

What, then, is this spiritual house? What is this Church? Let us not have an objective mentality about this, thinking of it as something somewhere outside of and apart from ourselves. What is it? The answer is a very simple one. The spiritual house of God is Christ Himself. Yes, but not for Christ personally alone, but Christ in you, in me, the hope of glory.

T. Austin-Sparks, God’s Spiritual House

We have lost so much in this day and age. Generally, our thinking and reasoning is shallow, our attention spans are short and we communicate using memes. Reading a book of this caliber is refreshing and is certainly recommended. Below is another excerpt from the book.

You see, corporate life is spiritual and is life. It is a matter of life. Our union, our relationship with Christ, is on the principle of life. “Unto whom coming, a living stone…ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house.” Again I say, God is not dealing with us as bricks: God is dealing with us as with living stones. That means that He is treating us as those who have a common life with the Lord Jesus, and our relationship with the living stone is the relationship of one life. It is a spiritual relationship and it is that life which
brings about the corporate expression. It is all the difference between this corporate expression on the basis of life, and a society, a club, an institution. You can join a club, you can come into a society, and you may agree on many things with regard to conviction and procedure, and yet not be bound together by a corporate life. But the Church is this latter thing. One life in all the members links all the members with the Head, and thus by that life it expresses Christ wherever it is. It does not just proclaim things about Christ. It brings Christ in and says that here, though it be but in two or three or more, here Christ has come in. It is not a claim made. You see, the Roman church will make that claim, that very claim, that where that church is, Christ is. Ah yes, but there is a difference. It is not just a claim, but a fact borne out, that where these spiritual and living stones are, the Lord is there in very truth and people know it, and there comes about that of which the Apostle wrote. When someone comes in from the outside and things are as they should be, when they are after this kind, the outsider comes in and falls down and says, “God is indeed among you.” Ah! that is what we want. Whether people begin to fall literally or not, that is not the question. The point is that inwardly they go down; prejudices, suspicions, fears, reservations go down. One thing rises supreme with them and brings down everything. I cannot get away from it, the Lord is there! If only we would surrender to that and all that means it would be very much better for us. But that is the great matter, namely, bringing in the Lord. The Church exists to bring the Lord into every place, even where represented by but two or three. May this all be true in our case. I am sure our hearts respond to that. Well, let us get to the Lord about it, that so far as we individually are concerned as living stones, it may be true in our case; that we are a ministration of life, a representation of Christ, that we are bringing glory to God, that we are setting forth the exaltation of His Son.

T. Austin-Sparks, God’s Spiritual House
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A Church Building Every 1/2 Mile

This excerpt is from the third section of Jon Zens’ book describing Four Tragic Shifts. This is the introduction to that section. Check out Jon’s website here.

The church portrayed in the New Testament was a dynamic organism, a living body with many parts. The church from around A.D. 180 onwards became an increasingly hardened institution with a fixed and complex hierarchy.

We claim to take Christ’s revelation about the church in the New Testament seriously, yet the reality is that too often we are more attached to the inherited way of doing things – which is based on human traditions. What does it mean to be faithful to the New Testament’s teaching about the church? In what sense are the examples of church life “binding” on us?

For instance, some assert that since the early church met primarily in homes, we are obliged to emulate this example. I think the primary theological point of the New Testament in this regard is that under the New Covenant there are no alleged “holy places.” Contemporary Christianity has almost no grasp of this significant point. Taking their cue from the Old Covenant, people are still led to believe that a church building is “the house of God.” In actuality, believers are free to meet anywhere in which they can foster, cultivate and attain the goals set before them by Christ.

The problem today is that many church structures neither promote nor accomplish Christ’s desire for His body. Homes are a natural place for believers to meet, and the early church flourished well into the first and second centuries without erecting any temple-like edifices. In places around the world where persecution reigns, house-church movements have flourished. Someday in America, if our religious infrastructure falls as a result of economic and political turmoil, true believers will be forced to meet outside of traditional church buildings. But the issue still is not what type of believers gather in, but what form their committed life together takes as they wrestle with the many duties and privileges flowing out of the priesthood of all believers.

I believe that it is far more important to capture the spirit of church life as we see it unfolded in the New Testament than it is to attempt to woodenly replicate certain cultural aspects of first century life. We do not live in the first century, but the concepts and principles in the New Testament endure and will come to expression in any culture. Christians must take their stand and devote their precious energies to building up the body of Christ in ways that return to the original patterns of the New Testament.

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Reimagining Church

This is the second excerpt about counting the cost. Thank you Frank for being honest and encouraging.

Let me be clear. There’s a price to pay in responding to the Lord’s will for His church. You’ll have to reckon with being misunderstood by those who have embraced spectator Christianity. You’ll bear the marks of the cross and die a thousand deaths in the process of being built together with other believers in a close-knit community.

You’ll have to endure the messiness that’s part and parcel of relational Christianity – forever abandoning the artificial neatness afforded by the organized church. You’ll no longer share the comforts of being a passive spectator. Instead, you’ll learn the self-emptying lessons of becoming a responsible, serving member of a functioning body.

In addition, you’ll have to go against the harsh grain of what one writer calls “the seven last words of the church” (we never did it that way before). You’ll incur the disfavor of the religious majority for refusing to be influenced by the tyranny of the status quo. And you’ll incite the severest assaults of the Adversary in his attempt to snuff out that which represents a living testimony of Jesus.

Add to that, living in organic church life is incredible difficult. The experience is fraught with problems. Read the New Testament letters again with an eye to discovering the many hazards the early Christians encountered when living in a close-knit community. When we live in the same kind of community life today, the same problems emerge. Our flesh gets exposed. Our spirituality gets tested. And we quickly find out just how deep the fall goes.

As one person said, “Everybody’s normal until you get to know them.” This is all too true for those who take the plunge of living in organic church life. The problems are endless. It’s much easier to become a “pew potato” two hours on Sunday morning in an instititutionaal church. Anyone can be a perfect Christian then. Organic church life, however, is a wedding of glory and gore. But this is the genius of God. It’s His prescribed way to transform us into His image. For “iron sharpens iron” (Prov. 27:17).

Yet regardless of the suffering that follows those who take the road less traveled, the glorious benefits of living in body life far outweigh the costs. The Lord builds on broken lives; His house is constituted out of conflict (1 Chron. 26:27). This being the case, “Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore” (Heb.13:13). For it is there that we may meet the Savior’s heartbeat.

Frank Viola, Reimagining Church
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Reimagining Church

Masterful work by Frank Viola, here is the first excerpt on rediscovery.

To borrow a term from scientific philosopher Thomas Kuhn, we need a “paradigm shift” regarding the church before we can properly rebuild it. That is, we need a new worldview regarding the meaning of the body of Christ. A new model for understanding the ekklesia. A new framework for thinking about the church.

Of course, the “new paradigm” that I’m speaking of is not new at all. It’s the paradigm that undergirds the entire New Testament.

Our day is not much different from that of Nehemiah’s. In Nehemiah’s time, Israel had just rediscovered the Law of God after being without it for many years. But once it was discovered, it had to be reexplained and reinterpreted. Consider the words of Nehemiah:

They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that people could understand what was being read.

Nehemiah 8:8

In the same way, twenty-first-century Christians must relearn the language of Scripture with respect to the church. The original meaning of countless biblical terms like “church,” “minister,” “pastor,” “house of God,” and “fellowship” have largely been lost.

These words have been invested with institutional power. A power that was foreign to those who originally penned them. Therefore, a pressing need today is the rediscovery of biblical language and ideas. We need to rethink our entire concept of church and discover it afresh through the lens of Jesus and the apostles.

Because of common misteaching, we have many deeply buried assumptions that are in need of excavation and examination. Many of us have been mistaught that “church” means a building, a denomination, or a worship service. And that a “minister” is a special class of Christian.

Since our contemporary notion of the church has been so entrenched in human thinking, it requires a conscious effort to view it in the way that all first-century Christians did. It demands that we rigorously plow through the thick and tangled weeds of religious tradition until we unearth the virgin soil of organic Christianity.

As we rethink the church in its scriptural context, we’ll be better equipped to distinguish between the biblical notion of church and those institutions that pose as churches.

In the eyes of those who see the world through institutional glasses, unless a church meets in the “right” place (a building), has the “proper” leadership (an ordained minister), and bears the “correct” name (one that indicates a “covering”), it’s not an authentic church. Instead, it’s dubbed with innovative terms like “parachurch.”

Hence, among those who haven’t yet grown weary of running on the program-driven treadmill of institutional “churchianity,” that which is abnormal is considered normal and that which is normal is regarded as abnormal. This is the unhappy result of not basing our faith and practice upon Scripture.

In brief, nothing short of a paradigm shift regarding the church, coupled with an impartation of fresh light from the Holy Spirit, will produce enduring change. Readjustments to the old wineskin, no matter how radical, will only go so far.

Consequently, in my personal judgement, the church doesn’t need renewal. It needs a complete overhaul. That is, the only way to fully renew the institutional church to wholly disassemble it and build something far different. The brittle wineskin of church practice and the tattered garment of ecclesiastical forms need to be exchanged, not just modified. Some may disagree. But this is my conviction based on my experience, and I’m not ashamed to state it.

Frank Viola, Reimagining Church