I’ll never forget going to jail years ago to visit a dozen men who had become one of many relational participatory churches that some of us helped start there.

For several months, we had poured our lives out for them through intense discipleship.

Most were brand-new believers, and from those efforts a church had emerged in their housing unit.

This time, as I joined them, I sat quietly and watched as they gathered and engaged in powerful ministry to one another, just like we had taught them.

After nearly two hours, they suddenly stopped, saying that after all I had done for them they had decided earlier that week to do something for me.

Did you know that our English word “sermon” originated from the Latin word “sermo,” meaning “conversation or discourse.”

In Classical Latin, sermo applied to common speech, or “the way people talk” with each other.

Hmmm …

Over time, it morphed into weekly staged, monopolizing, monologue lectures by a professional, institutional class of churchmen called “clergy” who arose in the 4th Century.

Unfortunately, they quickly corrupted not only our words, but so much more, by switching the New Testament focus from relational participatory gatherings for ministry to one another …

To scripted, spectator “church services” that focus on them.

These days, “discipleship” seems more about prepared messages …

Than prepared people.

And the problem is …

Most folks seem to want it that way.

The building is not the church.

The stage and the spectator seats are not the church.

The “worship service” is not the church.

The preacher and his pulpit are not the church.

But we – yes we – might actually become the church …

When we start gathering to mutually build up each other through ministry one to another.

You know, like the New Testament explicitly says.

Do this …

And all that other stuff becomes just a distraction.

The highest expression of Christ’s Lordship is not just personal but rooted in community.

For example, Paul only refers to Jesus once as “my Lord” …

But fifty-three times as “our Lord.”

The implications of this are profound.

As we all know, the New Testament teaches:

That church services are where we go to hear a sermon and worship God;

At a church led by a senior pastor who preaches from a pulpit;

With everyone reverently assembled before him and his worship team to receive ministry each week;

And place their tithes in a collection plate to help pay for it all.

Really?

Where do you actually find any of that in the New Testament???

You don’t.

Sigh.

It’s time to stop being led astray by unexamined presumptions …

And start being the church once again.

Worship?

I don’t know anyone who denies the New Testament imperatives that we sing God‘s praises together when we gather.

But in addition to the vertical component of directing our praises to God, we’re also seeing a growing acknowledgement of the horizontal component …

Which is the explicit, additional New Testament command that we do it for the purpose of encouraging one another.

As a result, there’s a renewed recognition that such praises – although commanded of us in our gatherings – are not defined in Scripture as worship.

Rather, true worship is another, separate aspect of our walk with the Lord.

I don’t care if someone’s non-essential pet doctrine is pro or con:

Once saved always saved;

Calvinism vs Arminianism; or

Some particular end time timeline.

It’s not that I don’t have my own views. I do.

And it’s not that I’m never willing to talk about them. I am.

But when someone is always making everything about their own non-essential theological fixations, rather than learning to humbly prefer each other above ourselves …

Then they’re not yet ready for relational participatory church like commanded in the New Testament, where we gather for the mutual edification and building up of one another.

In fact, they shouldn’t even try.

They’ll only do more harm than good.