Church or Unchurch - What is Happening to the American Church
 Recently I have begun attending a small bible study / fellowship of believers. We are jokingly calling ourselves the "unchurch" because our meeting together so completely does NOT resemble what happens at a regular non-denominational church service.
Now I should qualify what regular church means to me. I was raised Catholic. At 16 I rebelled against the ritualistic and seemingly empty practices of the Catholic Church. Now before you get all upset...I do believe that there are many different ways to do church. Catholic is just not one of them for me. While I am at it, any particular denomination that ritualizes the service at "church" pretty much sticks in my craw.
I do not go to church for the stability of a weekly ritual.
I go to church for fellowship with other believers and to hear from God through good teaching.
So after rebelling against Catholicism's uniform structure of ritual I went off the deep end and got involved in the New Age movement, drugs, and really crazy stuff. Jesus found me a few years later and said hey...wanna go to hell? Just keep doing what you are doing. That kind of freaked me out...however Jesus did that it was effective. He communicated to my spirit that Hell is a real place and that I did not want to go there.
So I got saved at a Bible Study on the book of Revelation.
Then I began jumping into non-denominational churches and eventually started serving on worship teams in various capacities as guitar, vocalist, drummer, electric guitarist, worship leader...etc. It was a great season or several seasons as God moved me from one church to another to develop the gifts He had given me.
What I have found over time is that a church may start small and then through the moving of the Holy Spirit it's numbers begin to multiply in an authentic movement of God's purpose for this body of believers. However, over time, any church that gets too big has to begin implementing order and limiting access to the staff of it's church and the leaders of it's church as it prioritizes who will handle what in the body.
After a while a church gets so big that it can no longer effectively communicate with all it's members and some become alienated. The level of personal interaction, accountability, encouragement, admonishment, exhortation, and fellowship drops off and the church becomes somewhat of a club for Sunday believers.
I think the best thing a believer can do is get together on a regiular basis with others who are in need of personal fellowship and spend their time eating together, praying, watching or listening to good teaching from various sources, and worshipping together. The small group dynamic lends itself to more personal time with one another in the body of Christ.
All that being said...I truly believe that as scripture states, there are differences of ministries, administration, but the same Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:4-7
4Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. 6And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. 7But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
That pretty much sums it all up. We should not judge what others are doing in their personal walk as long their focus is Christ. There are people as christians who live in all different aspects of life, and our learning at their own pace, walking with God and being sanctified for His use.
What is most important is that the focus of a believer stays on Christ and that in some way...they do not forsake the gathering together of the brethren to have fellowship with one another.
Be comfortable with where God has you in your walk. Seek out other people that witness to your spirit that Jesus Christ is Lord. Find others that understand you...and where you are in your walk...but don't get dogmatic about how someone else goes to church. Share what God is doing in your own life. Be blessed.
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The new Webster’s international dictionary, 1909 edition, gives this definition of the word:
“Church (church), n. [ME. chirche, fr. AS. circe, fr. Gr. kyriakon the Lord's house, fr. kyriakos concerning a master or lord, fr. kyrios master, lord, fr. kyros power, authority; akin to Skr. gram mighty , bold Olr. caur, cur, hero. Cf. KIRK.] 1. A building set apart for public worship, esp… 2. A place of worship of any religion, as, formerly, a Jewish or pagan temple or a mosque. Acts six. 37.”
There were pagans using the word “church” long before Christians ever began using it. The word “church,” originated from the Greek word “kuriakon,” which later evolved to chirche and to “church” in English. To the pagans the word kuriakon meant "belong to the lord", it was a house or building representing their pagan lords in which they met.
“CHURCH: From the Greek kuriakee, "house of the Lord," a word which passed to the Gothic tongue; the Goths being the first of the northern hordes converted to Christianity, adopted the word from the Greek Christians of Constantinople, and so it came to us Anglo-Saxons (Trench, Study of Words). But Lipsius, from circus, from whence kirk, a circle, because the oldest temples, as the Druid ones, were circular in form.” (Fausset's Bible Dictionary)
A building would more serve the purpose of a religious group with a built-in hierarchy. Christians originally didn’t use buildings, which distinguished them from the pagans whose focus was on buildings, statues, ritual and physical objects. From its earliest usage, the word “church” has been understood in pagan traditions, then later in Roman Catholicism and now in this present day as a building, but never has the word “church” been demonstrated or justified from a biblical stand point to represent the Greek word ekklesia. Church was a pagan concept and not a Christian one.
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