Category: Books / Videos

The excerpt below is from a book entitled Starting A House Church by Larry Kreider & Floyd McClung. Published in 2007 it has elements that are a bit outdated but most of the content is solid. I especially enjoyed the comments about pitfalls when gathering. Some of those comments are excerpted below.

If we seek community with other followers of Jesus without an orientation to a new definition of church-a definition that is about genuine community and radical commission-people will revert to expectations based on older models. We must orient people to a community based on genuine relationships that require honesty, forgiveness and mercy. If we do not, churches will experience conflict and division among people, and conflicting expectations within people.

House church must be about authentic community in order to be relevant to our culture. Biblical house church is about family- something we all desperately want but aren’t generally good at doing. Unless we address this issue up front with answers from the Bible, many house churches will struggle with problems of disunity and unfulfilled expectations.

In order to experience genuine community in a house church, we have to trust other people…but there is this little problem called sin! We don’t, however, believe that sin is the greatest barrier to community, but lack of forgiveness. People in our nation are broken, and trust doesn’t come easy these days. When people consider whether or not to trust, many seem to think that the other person’s sinfulness is the problem. They are idealistic about their own lack of sin. Idealists don’t do well in community-not because they are imperfect, but because they don’t acknowledge their imperfections and received the forgiveness of God. If idealists have not received forgiveness, they will struggle with giving it to others.

It’s important to get this right. If you are part of a small community, sooner or later someone will do something to hurt or disappoint you, and you may once again have good reason to avoid “the Church.” But Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out in his book Life Together that the Church is not a place for idealists and humanists. Rather, Church is a community of forgiven sinners, a family of people who need mercy from those who have learned to forgive like Jesus.

Another trap to avoid is fear, particularly fear of what people think. House churches are largely unproven entities in today’s church world. They are new to many people and depend upon sometimes-inexperienced people to provide leadership. Despite these challenges, house-church leaders must act in faith, not in fear. They must build what God has called them to build and gain the courage to press on even when they encounter people who question their nontraditional approach to church. Even though house churches may lack credibility, what they lack in status can be made up for by courage and vision.

Fear of our own mistakes is another thing that can hinder us. Bible teacher Bob Mumford once said, “I do not trust anyone unless he walks with a limp.” He was referring to Genesis 32, when Jacob, after wrestling with the Lord and demanding His blessing, was touched in his thigh and from that day forward, walked with a limp. When God lovingly deals with us through difficult times, we walk with a spiritual limp the rest of our lives. This is the stuff of which true spiritual fathers and mothers are made.

Peter, the disciple who became an apostle of the New Testament church is another example of a spiritual father with a spiritual limp. After denying Jesus and then experiencing His complete acceptance and forgiveness, Peter lost his abrasiveness and became a true father in the faith. From that time on he “walked with a limp.”

Both Jacob’s and Peter’s examples testify to the fact that we all make mistakes. They also teach us that we must not give up. We may be doing all the right things, but problems will still arise. Or we may be tempted to go back to something easier than dealing with the shortcomings of humanity. Being a spiritual parent to believers in a house church is not easy. But it is rewarding.

The Bible says that all things are possible, not that all things are easy! Even Jesus dealt with problems while investing His life in the 12 disciples. They all left Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. He felt alone and forsaken. But He knew that the last chapter was not yet written! Fifty days later, Peter stood with the 11 and preached at Pentecost, where 3,000 people came to faith in Christ. No doubt, Jesus was just as proud of fearful Peter preaching to a multitude as He was to see thousands believe in Him.

Getting involved in a house church can be discouraging. Why? Because it’s not like going to a mega-church where everything is done for you. You are not a spectator, but an active participant. It is a community to belong to, not a set of doctrines to believe about Church. In the early stages, it is new and fun. Then comes a stage of involvement, which is about going deeper in relationships, working through personality differences and learning to open up your life honestly in ways that may be difficult for you, even threatening.

Then comes the stage that is the biggest challenge: realizing that you are responsible. Everyone has to accept responsibility for what happens-otherwise, things don’t happen. Things won’t get fixed unless everyone shoulders the load.

At this stage, many battle the temptation to quit. The enemy may try to use discouragement to take you out of the game. In a sense, you are a pioneer, and pioneers pay a price while others receive the benefits. Someone built the highway in your city, but now you drive down it without even thinking about the massive sacrifice someone made to build it.

If you believe that the Lord may be calling you to labor with Him to build His Church according to the principles that are outlined in this book, you will probably have to cross your own river. After you cross, there is no turning back. But then, who wants to go back to the wilderness? Let’s march like Joshua, through the river, with a confidence that the Lord is saving the best wine for last. He is waiting for you and me to prepare the wineskins so that He can pour out His Spirit, from house to house, city to city and nation to nation.

For more information on Larry Kreider you can check out his website here. You can check out Dove International here.

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Written in 1952 by Emil Brunner, The Misunderstanding of the Church is a deep read. You can get a flavor of the book by reading the excerpt below. If you’re like me, you might have to read it a couple of times, intentionally. Blessings.

The Word of God is truly and effectively in the Church as the word of the Holy Ghost, implying therefore a unity of “logos” and dynamic energy which lies beyond all comprehension. From this unity, which later ceased to exist or to be understood, flows the hidden life of the primitive community. It forms the secret both of the fellowship and of its moral power; for upon the inspiration of the Holy Ghost rests the Koinonia, the communion of men with each other, the fact that they are knit together in an organism which includes both equality and difference, the fundamental equality of all and their mutual subordination each to other. The significant mark and the essential being of this communion consists in the quality of agape-the new ethos of the fellowship and its members. It is understandable that a later time, when this original power and unity no longer existed in the same abundance, should seek to find a substitute for what was lacking and to secure the presence of what was fast disappearing. This attempt at security and replacement assumes three different forms: the living Word of God is secured-and at the same time replaced-by theology and dogma; the fellowship is secured and replaced-by the institution; faith, which proves its reality by love, is secured-and replaced-by a creed and a moral code.

It is so much easier to discuss from an intellectual and theological standpoint the ideas implied in the revealed Word of God and to analyse them conceptually than it is to allow oneself to be transformed at the centre of one’s life by the action of the Holy Ghost: and further, theological ideas can be handled and arranged as one desires at any time-not so the Word of God.

It is so much easier to secure the life of the fellowship, its coherence and its indispensable hierarchy by means of solid legal forms, by organization and offices, than it is to allow the life of communion to be continually poured out upon one, to allow oneself to be rooted in it by the action of the Holy Ghost. You can handle and shape as you please such things as law and organization, but you cannot act thus towards the Holy Ghost.

And finally: it is so much easier to assent to a creed, a dogma, a firm body of teaching than it is to believe in such a way that belief is inseparable from love. Above all: one can mould as one will creeds and moral codes, handle them, teach them, learn them, but one cannot thus control that faith which is active in love.

The order intrinsic to the fellowship springing from the Holy Spirit was diakonia-service-the same therefore as flowed from true faith and revealed itself in a new relationship to one’s brother. But the organized hierarchy presupposing the office had neither the character of brotherly communion nor had it a unity wherein equality was consistent with differentiation-a unity characterized by reciprocal subordination. The delicate structure of the fellowship founded by Jesus, and anchored in the Holy Spirit, could not be replaced by an institutional organization without the whole character of the Ecclesia being fundamentally changed: the fellowship of Jesus Christ became the church. The apparent similarity between the official organization and the New Testament order of the Spirit shows upon closer inspection that at every point there has taken place a change in essential character. The paradoxical unity of things which everywhere else exist in disparity was no longer present as the decisive factor. Now there was dogma- without the dynamism of the Spirit-filled Word of God. Now there was faith, in the sense of correct, orthodox belief, but separated from love. Now there was a community in the sense of a Church with offices, but no longer the solidarity of reciprocal service.

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The best book I’ve read so far on church history is a book by Dr. Kim Tan entitled Lost Heritage. Over and over again our brothers and sisters, who just wanted to follow Christ, were martyred and exterminated because they did not tow the Church/State line. It’s a heartbreaking read but we need to understand our heritage. The excerpt below is the final chapter in the book.

Church history is the story of how the Church lived out its faith in the world. Some retreated into their monasteries to live out “church”, while others became more and more integrated until they were part of the establishment. Still others fought bravely to be in the world but not of it. The “City of God” must coexist with the “Earthly City”. Where one is emphasised to the exclusion of the other, it has proved harmful to both. These two kingdoms, while in conflict, have to continue existing in an uneasy equilibrium. Sadly, the lesson from church history is that the world has often proved stronger than the Church, and for much of the time, the Church has not been distinctly different from the world. It seems the world has usually found a way of infiltrating the Church. It is no different today. The world’s materialism, injustice, indiscipline and lack of respect can be seen in the Church today.

There is much obviously that we can learn from the past. The issues and battles faced by the Church are not that different from ones we encounter today-more subtle perhaps, but essentially the same.

History is a process; it is dynamic and not static. Nothing stays the same. In the midst of enormous social and political upheavals, God’s people have been able to find a Rock in their Lord and Saviour who does not change. In times of trouble, he has been their refuge and his Word has been a source of inspiration and instruction. Amid the uncertainties of our world today, the Church needs to find its way back to God and return to his Word with a fresh hunger. There will be new challenges and we can only face them when we have a sure knowledge of God and his Word.

We learn also from history that it is dangerous to presume on God’s blessings. He has shown that He will move on when the Church deviates from his original intention. No segment of the Church has a monopoly on God at any time. We have also seen that God’s blessings can in the end lead on to complacency and become a hindrance. His past blessings are no guarantee of his continuing presence. Every generation needs to know his presence for itself. We cannot live on the spiritual capital of the past.

Complacency is a great danger within the Church. At the peak of Israel’s power during the reign of King Solomon, the nation enjoyed the bountiful blessings of God. But within a generation of his death, King Shishak from Egypt had invaded Israel and taken away all the treasures from the Temple (2 Chron. 12:9). These were the sacred things of God, made at great cost (Ex. 35-38), and part of the treasures of Israel. King Rehoboam then substituted the golden shields taken by King Shishak with some bronze replicas. We have here a lesson confirmed by Church history. When the early Church became complacent and thought that it had arrived, the enemy entered and took away its treasures-as we have seen, the Church was robbed of many truths for a very long time. Instead of recovering the “golden” truths however, it often settled for poor quality “bronze” replicas of the real thing. In our day, complacency is still a major threat and unless we are watchful and seek to walk humbly with our God, we too face the same danger.

We also need to look to God to restore other truths to the Church. The issue of radical discipleship and lifestyle has been mentioned. From the Catholic tradition, there is the challenge of the monastic movements. Furthermore, I believe that in our day, we need to recover a love for the mystics. These were Christians who touched depths of devotion to God and whose experience of the Holy One is foreign to the modern Church. We need them to lead us into a much deeper devotion of our God that will enrich our individual and corporate worship. It is indeed sad that the modern Christian knows little of the writings and hymns of mystics, both ancient, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Tauler and Fenelon, as well “recent”, such as Faber, Watts and Tozer. This is our loss and the Church is the poorer without their contribution.

This brief survey should make us grow in our appreciation of the richness of God’s work across history. We will be less inclined in the future to imagine that everything exciting began with us! We should see now that we have many spiritual ancestors. This should both humble and excite us. We are the product of many streams, and more and more we are seeing these converging. Catholicism today acknowledges the necessity of faith and honours preaching, but the centre of its religious life is in the sacraments rather than the sermon. Classical Protestantism, especially in its Lutheran form, ascribes value to the sacraments, but its emphasis is on an evangelical faith through the preaching. Pentecostalism values both the sacraments and the sermon but sees the work of the Holy Spirit as of paramount importance in every aspect of Church life. We are inheritors of these truths. To that we need the merging of the Radicals’ stream with their emphasis on discipleship, community and non-institutional forms of church government. As we have seen, distortions have resulted from taking any one of these emphases alone as characteristic of the nature of the Church. It is only when all these features are present, that we will see the kind of Church which Jesus intended.

How do we keep movements fresh, alive and on the rails? How do we prevent dynamic groups from settling down and becoming independent of God? Perhaps it is impossible; it is human nature to settle down and enjoy what has been gained. Looking at Church history, I am pessimistic as to whether any movement can stay fresh and dynamic over several generations. Perhaps it is God’s intention that in every generation, there should be a fresh movement of the Spirit.

It is difficult to summarise such a wide sweep of history, but if there is one overriding lesson we need to learn, it is this: we are a pilgrim church called to a walk of faith. While on this journey, we should learn to be less dogmatic, more loving; less bigoted, more humble. Above all, we should have a real hunger for the Lord Jesus; seek to love Him with all our hearts and minds and to love our neighbour as ourselves. We should get on with the task of mission and get the Bride ready. He is coming back. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus, come!

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Another great book by Jon Zens entitled We Are Christ on Earth. Jon’s books are easy to read and understand and are great gifts for friends and family who might be interested in relational gatherings. The excerpt below talks about the forgotten horizontal dimension of the cross. To check out Jon’s books go to jonzens.com.

Traditional systematic theologies have dealt with Christ’s cross-work primarily in terms of its vertical dimension-that He died to heal the alienation between the Creator and humanity. This aspect of Golgotha is indeed vital and foundational. But the New Testament goes further to reveal the multidimensional realities of the Cross. The cosmic dimension is found in Col. 2, the charismatic dimension is found in Eph. 4, and the communal (horizontal) dimension is revealed in places like Eph. 2 and 1 Cor. 12:13.

Francis Schaeffer called this horizontal dimension the “sociological healing” that flows out of Gospel salvation. In other words, as each individual is baptized by the Spirit into Christ, they also come into His body, where there is no Jew or Greek, bond or free, or male and female (1 Cor. 12:13).

This ekklesia setting, then, becomes the “display case” of God’s multi-faceted grace and wisdom (Eph. 3:10). Thus, in the New Testament, salvation is not individualistic (people saved alone), but rather corporate (people in relationship with others). In Ephesians 2, Paul pointed out that the Law required that Jew and Gentile be kept apart. Jesus came, honored and fulfilled the Law, then took away the barrier of the Law so that the two would be one in a “new humanity.”

For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the hostility, which is the Law composed of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two one new person, in this way establishing peace; and that He might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the hostility. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father (NASB).

From this context, we can see that it is crucial to affirm both that Jesus died to atone for our sins (vertically, toward God), and that He died to create a “new person” (horizontally in relationships), which was the culmination of His eternal purpose in Christ.

Tragically, and for a number of reasons, the centrality of this horizontal fabric of the believer’s life has been virtually forgotten. Consider, for example, the content of most gospel tracts. The focus is on “getting saved,” but nothing is said about the fact that in this new life they are to function in His body by the Spirit.

A book that years ago opened up my awareness of the horizontal dimension of the cross was John Driver’s Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church (Herald Press, 1986). This work deserves your attention if you wish to explore further this dimension of Jesus’ work.

What are some implications of the horizontal/communal dimension of the Cross for our practice of ekklesia? It seems to me that one of the key implications would be that in our living and in our presentation of the Gospel we consciously connect new life in Christ with life in His ekklesia.

In other words, we are not just asking people to say a prayer and invite Jesus into their heart. Instead, we are inviting them to a full-orbed life of following Christ-a life of knowing Christ and functioning with the brothers and sisters in His body. This organic reality entails a whole lot more than just “going to church.”

Another implication would be that Jesus-communities should be displaying the Lord’s goal of “the two being made one” fellowships where Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, rich and poor, educated and uneducated can all follow Jesus together in fervent love.

That is why Paul had to correct Peter publicly: his removing of himself from table fellowship with believing Gentiles when certain friends of James came, contradicted the “sociological healing” that a watching world should see in the New Humanity.

Realizing that horizontal realities are embedded in Christ’s cross opens up new vistas for understanding issues the early church faced. For example, in post-apostolic times the Lord’s supper became an individualistic ritual where believers examined themselves regarding sin in their life. But when Paul told each of the Corinthians to “examine themselves,” the context indicates that he had in view one’s relationship to others in the body. The way they were coming together reflected schism, not bondedness. They were not eating together as a unit. The poor were thereby being humiliated. The giving nature of Christ was not reflected in the way they shared food with one another. In such circumstances, the Supper could only be done “unworthily” because the way they were acting was a denial of all that it signified. If we miss the social dimensions of the cross–the New Humanity—the New Testament will always be a veiled book to us in crucial ways.

The movement in post-apostolic times from vibrant body-life to dependence on leaders, from Spirit-led ministry to institutionalized forms, and from free-flowing relationships to political backing and intrigue all combined to eliminate any consciousness of the horizontal/relational purposes the Lord had in Jesus’ cross-work. The horizontal healing accomplished by Jesus’ cross was largely buried and forgotten.

We should, therefore, be encouraged by the emergence of sensitivity to, and concern for, the body dimension of the believer’s life in Christ, as evidenced by the books, talks and articles on the subject. May the Lord give us grace to make intentional efforts to see this vital aspect of Christ’s work become rooted in the life of His ekklesias.

Check out Jon Zens website at searchingtogether.org.

I found this PDF online, anonymously written called Church Life As Taught In Scripture. The first edition was published in 2008 and then revised in 2024. It’s 118 pages, has lots of scripture, is interesting but hard to get through. You can get a taste of what I mean from this one paragraph excerpt. I also included access to the PDF file below. The only identifier I found was “simple by Design“.

This practice of meeting in homes was continued long after the Apostles had passed away. This was not because of persecution (nor because of a lack of other informal social venues such as coffee shops) but simply because it was the way believers functioned properly as churches. We see for instance in Acts 2:46-47 that while they were meeting in houses, they were also “having favour with all the people.” In fact, there was no empire-wide persecution of the church until the Roman emperor Decius in 250 AD (followed by Gallus, 251-253 AD, then Valentine, 257-259 AD, and finally Diocletian, 303-311 AD). The Roman officials themselves often intervened to protect Christians from persecution, even by unbelieving Jews (Acts 16:35; 17:6-9; 18:12-16; 19:37-38; 23:29; 25:18-20, 24-27; 26:31-32). So persecution wasn’t always an issue, and even when it did break out, meeting in houses did not keep Saul from knowing where to go to arrest believers (Acts 8:3). Where Christians did at times in history have to respond to persecution by literally meeting underground, this, too, happened in smaller, home-sized congregations. So where the Jews had synagogues and the Gentiles had their temples, Christianity did not need any special building for the church to meet in. But when the Roman emperor Constantine became a ‘Christian’ and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, he ordered the construction of 19 Christian buildings in 327 AD, known as basilicas, which were the most popular style of the time (basilica literally means ‘royal hall’). Until then religious buildings were seen as shrines. These were constructed in three places, namely one in Bethlehem and two in Jerusalem (for Christ’s birth, crucifixion and resurrection), nine in the city of Constantinople, and seven in the city of Rome, and initially had no pews. In Constantinople, the new capital built on the site of the old Byzantium, these buildings were primarily built for this brand new city in the east. This city also had many pagan temples, each named after a god or a goddess. Constantine similarly ordered that each one of these nine Christian buildings be named after first century saints. (He also gave Greek pagan names such as Eirene, meaning ‘Peace,’ and Sophia, meaning ‘Wisdom,’ to some of the other ‘church buildings’ there, although pagan worship was not recorded in the new city of Constantinople.). One of the seven Christian buildings constructed in Rome that year was a shrine placed on the side of a hill just outside the city walls of which the slope of the hill was called Vaticanus…(Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome was established as the seat of the ‘bishop’ of Rome, who later became the ‘pope’ of what is today known as the Roman Catholic Church, or Western Church. The structure’s basilican form, rebuilt in the sixteenth century, became important as a model for later ‘church buildings.’ Many of the features in Constantine’s ‘Christian basilicas’ were copied from pagan basilicas.) These buildings later came to be known as ‘churches,’ and were constructed throughout the empire, with no new pagan temples being built or repaired. Existing pagan temples were also later transformed into cathedrals, and in addition to those built, were handed over to the ‘bishops’ who by now had developed into powerful church leaders. This happened by government decree, and believers were driven out of their house meetings into these large basilicas. Even then many still
met in homes, especially since that was what they knew church to be. Then, just over half a century later, in 380 AD, ‘bishops’ Theodosius and Gratian ordered that there should be only one state-recognised orthodox church, and one set of faith the orthodox dogma. Each Roman citizen was, to put it lightly, forced to be a member and was made to believe in the ‘lex fidei,’ the law of faith. Other groups and movements-including those meeting in homes were forbidden. This led to many Christians over time wrongly believing that God dwells in a special way in ‘church buildings’ (similar to the Jews who considered God to physically dwell in the temple before it was destroyed in 70 AD). This later even led to the church proudly establishing graveyards close by the ‘holy church buildings,’ where people felt their mortal remains would be safe from the monsters and dragons of the deep. So historically we see that there is no evidence of meeting places larger than homes before Constantine, nor is there any literary or archaeological indication that any such homes were converted into church buildings. The reality is that everything in the New Testament was written for a home-sized church, where ideal church life and church meetings take place in a smaller, family-like setting in the homes of church members conducive to the kind of intimate table fellowship demanded by the Lord’s Supper.

Readers are Leaders! My friend Buff Scott, Jr. had three books published that have now been converted to PDFs. These are free to read and distribute. The first one is called Mad Cow Disease about the blunders and digressions of the Institutional Church. Another book is entitled Roman Catholicism and discusses if Jesus Christ was the author of Catholicism. The third book is unique as two men take sides as to whether the institutional church is Apostate or Authentic.

Mad Church Disease

Roman Catholicism

The Apostate Church and The Authentic Church

Buff Scott, Jr. produces Reformation Rumblings a weekly newsletter that covers all topics faith related. To be added to his email list please contact him at renewal@mindspring.com.

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The book House Church and Mission:The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity by Roger Gehring is hard to find at a reasonable price. I’m not entirely sure why. I did find a 15 page pdf summary by John White, author and Co-founder of LK10.

Gehring’s thesis is that house churches are at the center of the missional strategy of Jesus  and the early church. The implications of this idea are huge! For one, it requires that we  rethink our understanding of what we call The Great Commission in Matthew 28. 

Rather than bringing our own ideas and strategies for fulfilling this Commission, we must  now ask how Jesus went about that task. Gehring makes a compelling case that Jesus had  a clear strategy for making disciples of all people groups. At the center of that strategy  was the birthing of house churches (small, family-like communities of faith), which  became bases of operation for His mission. Jesus implemented that strategy himself and  then taught it to His disciples. (The clearest description of His strategy is found in Mt. 10 and Lk  10.) Those disciples continued with that same strategy throughout the New Testament.  

Gehring demonstrates this strategy through five stages: Jesus’ ministry, disciples’  ministry (pre Easter), disciples’ ministry in Jerusalem (post Easter), disciples’ ministry  transitioning to the Gentiles, Paul’s ministry. He also demonstrates that an understanding of oikos (household) is critical in understanding not only the nature of mission but also the  nature of the church and of church leadership in the New Testament. 

Because this book was written as a doctoral dissertation, it is rather long and difficult to  read. For that reason, I’ve taken the liberty of gathering and organizing, in the paper  below, the key quotes from the book. 

As evangelicals, we affirm that “Scripture is our authoritative guide for faith and  practice”.  House Church and Mission brings new clarity to the “practice” of church and  mission in Scripture. How will this understanding now guide our “practice” of church  and mission today? 

If you would like to learn more about how to start and nurture house churches, go to our website at LK10.com 

John White 

The LK10 Community 

John.LK10@gmail.com

You can check out the Simple Church Europe website here.

The Open Church by James H. Rutz was published in 1992. Rutz and contributing writer Gene Edwards encourage pastors in “closed churches” to begin the process of opening up their services to the laity. I’ve read other books written in this same time period that also encourage institutional churches to do the same or add cell groups. Unfortunately it never caught on and doesn’t seem to work. The book does have some great historical content and I enjoyed the excerpt below written by Gene Edwards.

The modern concept of the pastor grew out of Wittenberg, Germany, and was but an adaptation of the pastoral duties of a priest! If you aren’t shocked, you sure ought to be.

From that day on, people have written literally millions of books on every theological issue conceivable to the mind of man, yet almost no one has closely questioned the Biblical basis for the all-in-one pastor, a superior being who operates as the heart and soul of the church. He is just there. I repeat, he was not born as a result of profound scriptural study. He just grew like Topsy out of the swirl of events in Wittenberg from 1525 to 1540. Before that he never existed, nor was he ever dreamed of.

In all of the millions of debates in church history, there has not been so much as one day of controversy over his scriptural right to exist! Yet there is not one verse of Scripture in the New Testament that describes such a creature, and only one verse that even uses the term “pastors” (Ephesians 4:11). Nonetheless, he is the center of the practice of Protestant Christianity.

One of the most fascinating things about the modern day practice of the CEO/pastor is that ministers seem to know-or sense-that their job is non-scriptural. As a pastor, then later as an evangelist, and until this very hour, I have brought up this question to scores of fellow ministers: “Where is the practice of a pastor in Scripture? I cannot find it.” The most reaction I have ever received was either agreement or a resigned shrug! No honest pastor will defend the role of today’s pastorate in light of the New Testament.

Today’s version of Protestantism rests on the concept and practice of the pastor, but he exists nowhere in New Testament Scripture. Yet ironically, he’s the fellow we hire and put in the pulpit to call us all to be faithful to the Bible! O Consistency, where are thy children?

I’m throwing in this extra little section at no additional charge. Call it “the confessions of a minister who hated being a pastor”!

Please do not look upon these examples as indicative of any lingering pique remaining from my years in the pastorate. Whatever traumas I may have suffered as a pastor have long since been faced, forgiven, and nearly forgotten. Besides, I gave up grumbling for lent!

The snapshots below are only to show you how the theoretical problems of an unscriptural pastorate have real-life consequences…

1-“Ladies and gentlemen, this evening we are gathered together to see the hockey team from Montreal get out here and murder the hockey team from Seattle. They’re going to beat one another senseless with clubs and sticks and knock one another over and hit each other. Also there will be riots in the stands. But just before that happens, we’re going to have the pastor of the First Baptist Church come and lead us in prayer.”

(Have you ever tried to think up a prayer for two groups of men who are about to kill one another over a hockey puck?)

2-The local businessmen’s club is about to start…amid chaos, noise, dirty jokes, swearing, bragging, and cocktails. Then the announcement: “Will Reverend Edwards please lead us in prayer?” And 1.001 seconds after the prayer, the carousing resumes.

But that pales in the presence of number three:

3-“Hello, pastor. Uncle Kurt died this morning. I’d like you to do his funeral Tuesday.” (“Who is Uncle Kurt?” I wanted to ask!) My reply: “Why, of course, sister. What time will it be?” (I have to say that. I’m a pastor. We alone bury the dead. I know: It’s not in Scripture; it’s a Catholic practice brought over from heathenism. Nonetheless, we Protestant preachers bury the dead. We dare not do otherwise!)

The reply I wanted to give: “I’m sorry, that just wouldn’t be right. I never did know him very well, and for the life of me, I can’t think of a single kind word to say about the old hypocrite. Let someone in your family do it. Let a neighbor do it. Preaching over the corpse of a man who may well be on his way down, not up, is something I refuse to do. Plus, funeral services are a holdover from Old Testament and pagan customs, anyway. Christians didn’t even have funerals in New Testament times.” (Burials and mourning, yes; funerals, no.)

Why didn’t I say that? Because that reply would have won me first place in the unemployment line within 24 hours.

4-“The Democratic Party this evening is gathered to hear the Honorable Sam Squeak speak, and now will Reverend Edwards lead us in prayer?” Maybe Reverend Edwards is a Republican, but he still has to pray. Why? Because he is a pastor. That’s what pastors do.

But even worse is number five:

5-The telephone rings, and a devout Sunday morning attendee says, “Pastor, my daughter wants to talk to Santa Claus. Be Santa Claus for my daughter. Here she is.”

A little bitty voice asks, “Is this Santa Claus?” And for five minutes I play Santa Claus on the telephone. My salary of $55 a week and a parsonage depend on it!

How would you like to have to do things like this? And wear a suit at all times except in the shower or in bed?…See your wife and kids subjected to constant, town-wide scrutiny?…Never be allowed to be angry, depressed, short-tempered?…Be required to talk piously all day long and do and say some of the most stupid things imaginable? It’s all part of the job description. But it is not in the Scriptures.

There is not an honest man alive today in the ministry that has not wished to unload and drop this whole masquerade and be an ordinary human being. None of this has anything to do with the Christian faith. In fact, the Christian faith stood against this kind of thing for the first few centuries.

But number six is the darkest snapshot of all!…

6-A conversation that is a blend of many true incidents: The telephone rings. “Hi, Pastor, this is Benedict. Pastor, my wife and I just want you to know that we love you so much.”

“Thanks so much, Benedict. You’re a fine person to say so. God love you, brother, for so thoughtful a nature.”

“Pastor, we’re going on vacation to the French Alps for the next month, and we have a country retreat house out on the lake. Lulu and I just wanted you to know that it’s yours every week while we’re gone. You can take your family out there, and rest and pray and enjoy it.”

“Why, Benedict, that’s the most gracious and Christian thing a person could do. God bless you, dear brother. My wife and I think so highly of you.”

They both hang up. Each has-knowingly-“scratched the other’s back.”

Benedict feels all warm inside, knowing God must love him because the pastor does. The pastor hangs up knowing he has gotten something out of another layman with the scepter of religious blessing. It feels so good, and the rich seem to need it more than the poor do. (Maybe they have a guilt complex about being rich?)

This kind of co-dependent relationship sometimes grows up between pastors and laymen (even poor ones) to the point it almost becomes a science. I, the pastor, bless you, the layman; that means God loves you. You, the layman, bless me (and buy God’s favor) by giving me gifts, special attention, special meals-and sometimes a weekend retreat house. You, the layman, become a sycophant, treating me as someone special. And I, the pastor, use my sacred call from God for ego gratification or material gain. While this sort of thing goes on, reality lives in some other part of the world-and heaven weeps while hell chuckles.

Symbiotic relationships will continue as long as we have a rigid division between clergy and laity. Psychologically, in fact, this just might be the main reason we have a hired servant of God and an endowing laity: so that laymen can shirt tail into God’s favor without doing all the heavy work!

If open church life is ever to be widely known on earth, the whole mentality that spawned the modern CEO/pastor/priest role must go. It demeans the layman and exalts the pastor-at the expense of God.

W. Carl Ketcherside lived his life teaching and attempting to bring unity amongst his brothers and sisters in Christ. His book In The Beginning is one of the best books I’ve read on the topic of unity and what true fellowship means. You can download the book free at the end of the excerpt below. I have also included a short testimony of his life in the Unsung Heroes section.

My father had six children, and they often differed with each other and even with their parents, but it never once occurred to me to deny they were my brothers and sisters because we argued loud and long. We were brothers not because of what we had done but because we were introduced by birth into a family state or relationship. The relationship into which we are introduced by the new birth is the fellowship of the new covenant. We have been in fellowship with a lot more people than we ever realized, or even yet realize. I am in fellowship with every saved person on this earth, that is, if I am saved. When I was younger, the family of God was a little one but now that I have grown out of my own provincialism, that family has increased perceptibly. Praise His name!

Every person who has received Christ Jesus, and thus has been born of the water and of the Spirit, who has experienced the riches of the glory of God’s mystery “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,” is in the fellowship. They are partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, having been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of the Messiah. Having been called into the kingdom and glory of God, and having been sealed by the Holy Spirit they are in communion with God and with every other person on earth who has been born again. They are the beneficiaries of the grace of our Lord, of the love of God, and of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14).

When the apostle wrote to Corinth he told them they had been called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ. They were torn by partisan strife, tolerant of immorality, intolerant of the scruples of the brethren, impleading each other in heathen courts, and even so factious they could not eat the love feast together. He was fearful of coming among them lest he find quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, deceit and disorder. Yet he did not tell “the faithful” to go and start a “loyal” congregation! He did not even intimate that he would split them and take out a group when he arrived. He asked, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?–unless indeed you fail to meet the test” (2 Cor. 13:5). What was the test? Was it an attitude as to classes for Bible study, individual cups, fermented wine, unleavened bread, orphan homes, etc.? These are tests which men have concocted to shatter and split into factious groups those who are in the fellowship.

God devised no such tests. Jesus Christ can be in men, who in their weakness and ignorance, differ in opinion as to these things. Paul said “What we pray for is your improvement” (2 Cor. 13:9). Not once in all of the divine revelation of God was a congregation of believers ever advised to split or separate. Not once was a group of believers told to come out from, or separate themselves from the other believers. If so, where is the place? Paul did not advise the congregation of Corinth to divide. He did not advise the establishment of two “Churches of Christ” in Corinth–one a “heathen courts congregation” and the other an “anti-heathen courts congregation.”

Here is what he wrote: “Mend your ways, heed my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” Never in the checkered history of the saints has this exhortation been needed more than at present. Every word needs to burn and sear our hearts until “we put no obstacle in any one’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry” (2 Cor. 6:3). The Christian life is difficult enough in these days without adding an extra burden of hate and animosity kindled by the factious spirit. Let us labor for unity!

God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, has quickened us together, raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:4-6). We are together because of grace, the undeserved kindness of God. We walk with God and He walks with us and in us. Is this conditioned upon our perfect understanding of all things as God sees them? If God can walk together with me while I am learning, seeking, searching, and yearning to know more about His will, can I not walk with all others in Him who are in the same condition? Jesus walked with two disciples on the way to Emmaus, and asked them, “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?” After hearing their stumbling explanation, he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken,” and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures concerning himself. Will He who then walked with foolish men who were slow to believe all that was spoken, refuse to do so now? Or, will His gentle grace abide with us, through His Spirit, that our hearts too may burn within us while He talks with us on the road?

We are not in the fellowship because we understand everything alike, or because we have reached a certain stage of spiritual development. We did not come into the fellowship by making an “A” on a test on doctrinal matters, or by passing a test. The fact is that we are in all sorts of developmental stages from lisping babes to mature men. Even those who are mature have much yet to learn. The fact is that we will never pass beyond the disciple stage in this life. “The brotherhood we are told to love” (1 Peter 3:17) does not consist merely of those who agree with us upon some controversial point such as Bible classes, colleges, individual cups, the pastor system, contribution baskets, long hair, or a manner of breaking the bread. There are those who would like to limit it to those who wear ties, have their hair cropped and have no beard. But they are schismatic and factional in their outlook. They suffer from restricted vision and spiritual astigmatism. “The brotherhood” of Christ stems from the fatherhood of God. Jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren because we have the same Father as himself. He said “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father” (John 20:17).

This is the second excerpt from Megashift written by James Rutz. The first excerpt and my thoughts about the book can be read here. The concept of traditional church pastors becoming surrogate husbands is a topic worth exploring.

What do you want, geldings or giants?

No issue could be clearer: It’s emasculation vs. empowerment. The ordinary sit-‘n-sing church brings one, a team church brings the other.

For many of us, the most exhilarating part of the new Christianity is our rapid growth in power, versatility, and knowledge. We’ve put in too many years in the closed-church system, which locked us into piddly roles, put a cork in our bottle, and gave us burgers and beans instead of a banquet for the soul. Now we’ve got a life without limits.

The house church meeting pattern is great, but the real goal is the house church dynamic, the wide-open tornado that sweeps us into action, propelling us into countless situations where we must use our gifts, take exciting steps of faith, and grow like a radish. Perhaps we’ll even see more miracles soon. As someone has said, “If you want to see what you’ve never seen, then do what you’ve never done.” In an open church, you fall kersplat on your face now and then, but you learn to stand up, wipe off the mud, and keep going. The kersplats are part of the lifestyle. The fast-track discipleship of the new churches is not for invertebrates.

The Holy Spirit has millions of growth tracks to choose from, and your own path of growth will depend to a large extent on what gifts He has given you. Team Christianity opens up avenues of ministry for you that will utilize the full range of your current gifts plus an extended range of higher gifts that you don’t have yet. But take it from me, you’ll love the feel of the wind under your wings.

We have few spectators in open fellowships. “Every-member ministry” sucks in everybody sooner than later. Call it your pilgrim-age, quest, journey of faith, or adventure of adrenaline; the core reality is that you’ll spend the rest of your life in uncharted waters!

The emasculation problem springs from the Christian caste system, which feeds on itself: The greater the pastor, the more that people sit back and say, Wow! I could never preach like that. As lazy laymen dump more responsibility on the pastor, he accumulates a larger share of the church’s spiritual experience, and before long, he is indeed far above his flock.

Tragically, he may even begin to think this is God’s ideal, that he is supposed to hover in the heavenlies and bring down to his benighted followers a weekly blessing of wisdom and inspiration. Christianity Today, which does run a lot of helpful articles, is a leader in this sorry trend. In 1997 they featured a cover article in which the pastor-author tried to woo readers back into pre-Reformation darkness. Excerpts:

…in worship, the pastor must become priest…The pastor assumes the role of mediator, incarnating God to the people…

Through our craft, we will facilitate worship…As pastor-priest, we bring to the congregation the glory of our encounter with God. Having spent long, enduring time in the Lord’s presence, we speak to our congregations out of those encounters…And as we worship, liturgists and leaders become a priesthood, mediating God, showing the depth of their own experiences, radiating God’s glory, pointing weary souls heavenward…

I remember when one of our daughters was baptized. She stood near the baptismal font as our pastor bent over, asking her questions of faith…Later she said, “I remember Pastor coming near, and I was covered and lost in his long, black robes, and he baptized me.”

Mediator? Incarnating God? Lost in his robes? In such veneration, Christianity Today has spun out and left the track. As Paul wrote in I Timothy 2:5, “There is but one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” And Peter added that all of us are “a royal priesthood.” (I Peter 2:9)

Am I quibbling here? Perhaps a bit. But why don’t more American men attend traditional services along with their wives? Is it maybe because they’ve figured out that the pastor has taken on the role of surrogate husband of every woman in the congregation? Is it because they instinctively recoil from a game where they’re shut out and have to play a passive part? You betcha. When there’s no room left for strong men, they opt out.

Open churches offer a reason to opt back in: unlimited empowerment,which produces men of iron and women of fire.