I Quit Going to Church PDF Print E-mail
I.    “This is a Church”
Vince Lombardi, perhaps the most famous football coach of all time, had just been hired by the Green Bay Packers.  This was before he led them to one championship after another, before they won the first two Super Bowls, before the victory cup was called the Lombardi trophy.  Standing in front of his men at one of their first team meetings Coach Lombardi picked up a pig skin, held it before them and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.”  The message was clear.  No matter what you think you know; no matter how good you think you are, we’re going back to the basics, the fundamentals of the game.

Ladies and Gentleman, please repeat after me.  This is a church.   This is a steeple.  Open it up…and see all the people.  Now let’s try that together.  You do the hand motions as well this time.  I want everyone involved.  No one is too advanced, too mature, too self important to do this.  This is a church.  This is a steeple.  Open it up…see all the people.  Now what’s wrong with what we just said?  This is not the church, whether it has a steeple on it or not.  This is the church.  The church is not a building.  The church is not even the programs and activities that take place in the building.  The church is not pastors or sacraments or sacred services as important as those are.  No, the church is the people, the people of God, filled with the Spirit of God, becoming the very body of Christ alive in the world.

When we speak about going to church, as we do often do, we misspeak.  It is not just a slip of the tongue; it’s more than a way of talking.  It has become a way of thinking and acting that is leading us astray.  So beginning today, I want to invite all of us to quit going to church.  Don’t ever go to church again.  Ever. 

Instead, let’s be the church.  Acts chapter two, verse 42 (let’s start reading in verse 41).  Those who accepted Peter’s message, his message about Jesus, were baptized; and about 3000 were added to their number that day, the day of Pentecost.  On that day the church was born…instant mega church.  They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
   
II.    The Essence of the Church
Now before I read any further, I want to offer a word of caution:  Please do not idealize the early church.  Do not picture the early church as a perfect church; because it was not. The truth is the early church was full of challenges and problems because it was full of people.  In Acts chapter 5, for example, you will read about a couple who tried to deceive church leadership about the sale of some land and an offering they’re making.  Unfortunately, that lie cost them their lives.  But that’s not the only messy situation in the early church.      In Acts chapter 6 a deep conflict arises between Greek speaking and Hebrew speaking Christians over the care of their widows and orphans.  Then in Acts 15, a church council is called to deal with a problem that is literally threatening to divide the church, divide Jewish Christians from Gentile Christians, and divide Peter from Paul.

In other books of the New Testament we read about church members taking each other to court; about a man committing adultery with his father’s wife and that adultery being tolerated in church.  We read about church services bordering on chaos, congregations divided by their preference for one leader over another.  We read about church leaders who won’t talk to each other, church potlucks where people won’t eat with each other.  There are false teachers, false gospels, and false prophets in the early church.  There are lukewarm Christians and baby Christians and Christians who turn from the faith never to return again.  The early church was not a perfect church.

But for all the problems recorded in the pages of this book, there are moments, shining moments.
Moments in which the Spirit of God is so powerfully present that the church literally shines with the presence of Christ.  Acts chapter two is one such moment.  This is the church at its best.  This is the church living in the afterglow of the resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.  There are problems and persecutions yet to come but in this moment of new birth we see the church shining in all its glory and we see the essence of that church, its DNA, if you will, revealed. 

The first thing we see is these new believers were devoted to the Apostle’s teaching.  They couldn’t get enough.  They wanted to hear about Jesus, everything he had said, everything he had done.  The meaning of his death and resurrection; what it would be like when he came again to earth to rule and reign.  How they were to live in between those times.  That’s what the Apostle’s teaching is all about.  Guess what?  We still have the apostle’s teaching in this book.  The church is still at its best when its people are devoted to that teaching.  When we can’t get enough; when we will do whatever it takes to understand it, and to teach it to our children, and apply it to our lives.

So the first church, when it was first filled with the Spirit of God, was a learning church.  It was also a living church.  This church was alive with the very life of God.  Listen to how that life manifested itself.  Verse 43:  Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders…The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.  There is so much in these few short verses, but let me draw your attention to two things.  The first thing is that these people were not just learning about God, they were experiencing Him.  The resurrected Jesus Christ was present in their midst thru the person of his spirit.  He was present when they worshipped in the Temple, and gathered to hear the Apostles preach.  He was present when they met together in each other’s homes, present in the breaking of the bread and the taking of the cup, remembered by his body broken and his blood shed.
   
The resurrected Jesus was also present in the signs and wonders performed by His apostles, his designated representatives on earth.  The people were filled with awestruck wonder.  The first thing I want you to notice after their devotion to the Apostle’s teaching is the way the people in this moment were filled with awe in the presence of God.  And they worshipped.  They worshipped in the temple.  They worshipped in their homes.  I dare say they worshipped as they went on their way through the day because that’s what people do when they actually experience the presence of God, not just talk about it, or hear someone else talk about it.  A Learning Church devoted to the Word of God.  A Living Church, experiencing the real presence of God.

Now, please notice, in this shining moment, the word, “together.”      Verse 44:  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Verse 46:  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  They broke bread in their homes and ate together… Together, together, together.  Their togetherness, did you notice it, was not just the religious kind.  They weren’t just meeting together in the temple to worship; they weren’t just gathering in their homes to celebrate communion and to pray.  No, these people were experiencing a togetherness that reached beyond their meeting, beyond their words and songs, into their bank accounts.  They were actually selling their possessions to meet each other’s needs.  Barnabas, for example, a man who would become famous for helping the Apostle Paul get his start in ministry, is first mentioned in Acts because he sold a piece of property he owned in Cypress to meet the needs of widows in the church.  This is really quite amazing.  This is the kind of behavior that most of us reserve only for family members.  It is only my family that has a claim on my possessions, my home, my food, and my investments.  But I guess that is the point.
   
These people, in this shining moment, were actually treating each other like brothers and sisters.
“Brother” was not just a religious way of talking.  It was the truth.  Like it is for some of you, some of you who have opened your home and heart to someone else’s children and treated them as your very own.  Some of you have actually opened your body and donated an organ to keep someone else alive.  Some of you are making sacrifices for your brothers and sisters in Christ that are like the sacrifices you make for members of your own family.  This is the church at its best.  People so filled with the presence of God, so overwhelmed with God’s love poured out in Jesus Christ, that they can’t stop singing His praises.  A people so filled with God’s love that they can’t keep it to themselves.  They have to give it away; they have to give themselves away just like Jesus.  A learning church, devoted to the word of God.  A living church, filled with the life of God.  A life-giving church, receiving and giving the love of God poured out in Jesus.

Did you notice the result?  Verse 47:  and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.  3000 became 5000; 5000 became 10,000.  Not because people were attracted to the music being sung.  Not because of the incredible children’s ministry or youth ministry they managed to put together.  Not because of the buildings, not because of the promise of health or wealth, not even because of the acts of service done in the surrounding community, because of their genuine experience of the reality of God and their authentic, sometimes sacrificial love for one another.  People wanted to be a part of this.  This was real.  This was compelling.  These lives matched the message they were proclaiming and the Jesus they were worshipping.  By this will all men know that you are my disciples:  if you love one another.

III.    Two Dangers
So, how we doing’?  How are we doing at becoming a learning church, devoted to the Word of God; a living church, filled with awestruck wonder at the reality of God, a life-giving Church, overflowing, that is flowing over the boundaries of our immediate family, with the love of God? The question is not, “Do you go to a church like that?”  The question is, “Are we becoming a people like that?”  As we seek to become that kind of people I feel compelled to point out two great dangers on the path, two distractions, two dead ends, and two ways of missing it.

The first is expecting the leaders to do it for you (whoever those leaders may be).  Yes, there were apostles in the early church, in this shining moment. There were elders and pastors later in the church.  We pastors and elders have certain responsibilities before God and we will be held responsible by God for fulfilling those responsibilities, not the least of which is to teach God’s word and to lead according to God’s Word.

But did you notice?  It was the people who were devoted to the apostle’s teaching.  It was the people who were filled with awe.  It was all the believers who were together and shared their possessions.  It was in the people’s homes where they broke bread and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.  It is the people of God, filled with the Spirit of God, who are the church, the body of Christ alive in the world.  So if you see people in need, brothers and sisters in Christ, do not ask, “What is the church doing about this?”  You are the church.  I am the church.  We are the Church.  What are we doing about it?

When a body is healthy every part of the body works; and the work is localized.  It is the cells right around a wound that respond to the wound.  It is the people who see the need and are near the need who can do something about it.  So let’s avoid dead end number one:  expecting the leaders or the church in general or someone else in the church to be the church. 

Then, let’s avoid dead end number two:  expecting the programs of the church to be the church.
Do you know the difference between scaffolding and a building? Of course you do.  We all do.  But do we really?  I remember visiting a cathedral in England and being terribly disappointed because that cathedral was under repair.  Covering most of the exterior of that beautiful building was scaffolding.  Where there wasn’t scaffolding there was this thick plastic, with scaffolding underneath.  The purpose of the scaffolding was to allow the workers to get close enough to the building to be able to clean hundreds of years of dirt and grime from the surface of the building.  If only I could have gone to that cathedral after the work had been done, and scaffolding taken down, what a glorious sight that would be!

My friends, so much of what we do in the modern church is scaffolding.  Scaffolding is good.  Scaffolding is sometimes necessary but scaffolding is not the building; and scaffolding can get in the way.  What in the world am I talking about?  Well, think about Cub Scouts, for a moment.  What is the purpose and point of Cub Scouts?  What is Cub Scouts for?  Why do we have a Cub Scout Troup at this church?  Is it the badges? Is that the purpose of Cub Scouts, so kids can get badges?  Or, maybe it is the handshake or the uniform; how about the camping trips?  We have Cub Scouts at this church so boys can go on camping trips.  Of course not.  We have Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts so men can spend time with boys teaching them how to become men of God.  The badges and the camping trips and the uniforms are all scaffolding.  It is something we construct to get men and boys together so they can love each other.  And a Cub Scout Troup that focuses on the badges or the camping trips, or heaven forbid, the uniforms, not on the relationships between men and boys, is mistaking the scaffolding for the building.

Or, let’s take Sunday morning worship services.  What is Sunday morning all about?  What should we be focused on when we come into this place?  The skill of the musicians and the quality of the vocals?  How about the clarity of the sound or its volume?  How about the style of the music, ancient hymn or modern songs, lyrics that fill the mind or move the heart?  How about the charisma of the leaders or the clothes they wear?  Is that what the worship service is about?  No, all that is scaffolding.  The purpose of all that scaffolding is to bring us into the presence of God together and to enable us to express our awestruck wonder at who He is and what He has done.

It’s not that the scaffolding is unimportant.  There is well made scaffolding and poorly constructed scaffolding.  Some kinds of scaffolding help some people better than other kinds.  But when it comes to worship the primary purpose of the scaffolding is to disappear, to become transparent, and to bring us to the foot of the cross and into the throne room of God. 

What is true of cub scouts and Sunday morning music is true of every ministry in this church.  A church like ours is filled with structures, programs, activities and events, women’s Bible studies, men’s breakfasts, youth groups, small groups, fellowship groups, outreach programs, like Caring Closet, Alpha Dinners or the Wednesday after school programs.  There are mission trips and service trips and camping trips and trips to the hospital.  All these programs, activities and events can be good, very good, if…if they function like scaffolding, if they bring us into the presence of God and help us love each other with the love of God.  If they enable us to be a learning church, a living church, a life giving church, overflowing with the love of God.  Otherwise, they’re just getting in the way. 

If the scaffolding is not bringing us to God and each other then it needs to be taken down.  If the scaffolding is becoming the focus of attention, not the means of attending to God, then either the scaffolding has to go or we have to learn how to use it properly.  If you and I are so busy building scaffolding, or fixing scaffolding, or talking about scaffolding, or even arguing about scaffolding, that we do not experience the reality of God’s love, then the scaffolding has to go or we have to learn how to use it.  When you invite someone over to your house for dinner, what’s that about?  What is on your mind and heart?  What should be on your mind and heart?  How clean the house is?  How beautifully the table is set? The gourmet quality of the food or its presentation?  Those things can be good or they can be ‘not so good.’  The whole point of inviting someone over for dinner is to share your life.  It is to get to know them and to love them.  Whatever helps you do that is good; whatever gets in the way is bad.

Jesus said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.  Jesus is asking us to invite him in, into our church, into our homes, into our very lives.  When Jesus enters in he shares our life, and he shares his life with us.  Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst.  That’s what the church is all about.  Sharing God’s life together and then inviting others into that life.  I think sometimes the scaffolding is blocking the door.  Sometimes we don’t even hear Jesus knock. 

So let’s stop going to church.  Let’s be the church.  Let’s invite Jesus in and be with him together.