And by the way, Krista, I agree with you; the Bible does say not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25). During the years when I was searching for a church home, were there mornings when I was tempted to sleep in? Yes. But I got up every Sunday and went somewhere … even though I didn’t really relish being the new face in church after church (and some Sundays, I went back to the church I wasn’t happy with, just for the sake of “going to church”). Fortunately, I finally found a place that felt like home. I also continued to tithe, even when I didn’t have a church home — I gave money to a Christian theatre company and to an international ministry.

However, when my mother asked me if I was planning to join the church I’ve been attending for the last month or so, I said, “I don’t know if I’ll ever ‘join’ a church again.” For me, church is no longer about “membership” — it’s about things that are a lot more important than that.

I fully subscribe to the concept of intentional communities (Shane Claiborne et al) – to me they represent the Acts 2 church. Total interdependence, pooling all resources, focused on serving the community they are located in, intentional in worship and spiritual development. How this might expand to a large church model is something I can’t seem to envision – but perhaps staying small helps it stay “real”…but like Krista, I have concern that accountability goes out the window when individuals are not connected to some larger body of faith.

Interesting that Mike Andress mentioned Frank Viola in his post – I literally just purchased “From Eternity to Here” today. It is getting pretty good press. I heard of it on this blog by Greg Boyd: http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/from-eternity-to-here/

Sacraments….? Personally, I have no issue with a father serving communion to his family. Baptism…? Mostly I sit in the believers baptism camp – so there would have to be some witnesses to be testifying to . What I don’t want is the “I don’t go to church… I am the church” position to be a excuse for extra sleep on Sunday mornings, keep my tithe in my own pocket and an excuse to have nobody in my business…. which I fear is what it would become to most post moderns.

I think it bears repeating that Courtney and I aren’t trying to push an agenda here… and haven’t thought through all the ramifications of either position… we just like the conversation. (It’s very German to choose an opposing point of view, just to make the discussion more interesting.)

I appreciate your comments and haven’t looked at the article yet (on the road right now). I do want to say that I’m not advocating one way or the other yet. Still trying to get my grips around it. But I do have have one question:

What is the church?

You speak about a “local” church but your references are to an institution when Biblically the church is people. (The Paul’s epistles didn’t have addresses on the front of where to send them to except for a city name) So to say that people are not a part of the church because they don’t attend a local, physical address is what I have a problem with. For the people opting not to attend a local institution doesn’t mean that they are not being a part of the local church as they ARE the church. The key question is are they having regular interaction with other believers and fulfilling what the 1st century church did?

Honestly, its hard for those of us who come from life inside an instituationalized church background to understand that most of what we do in a “church” is actually recent traditions and not necessarily being the church. Its not saying what we do in “church” is wrong but that it might not be the only way of being church.

I did a lot of acting in church productions between the ages of 8 and 16, but I gave it up in high school to focus on my studies; I came back to it in 2002, but in community theatre, rather than church productions. That put me in contact with a lot of unchurched people — most of whom had been turned off from the church and Christianity by what I call “Bible beaters”: people who seem to use the Bible as a weapon to try beat other people into submission. (Whatever happened to “loving them into the kingdom”?)

Some of these unchurched people were better friends to me than most “Christians” I’d known. That didn’t make me doubt my own faith — but it certainly made me start to question church. First of all, what did it say about “Christians” if I met with more acceptance outside church than in it? And second, if I wanted to bring one of my unchurched friends to church … what kind of church would that have to be?

The pastor of the church I was attending at the time often condemned specific sins in his sermons. I’m not arguing that particular things aren’t sins — but how could I possibly bring certain of my friends to church if that condemnation is what they’d be met with?

So I found another church that proclaimed itself to be a church for the unchurched; the pastor even used the “Island of Misfit Toys” as an example in one of his December sermons.

But after a while, I began to feel like a misfit among misfits. There seemed to be certain types of people who were embraced and encouraged … and the rest of us were left to fend for ourselves. When my mother was in the hospital for three days — and I rarely left her side except to go home and catch a few hours of sleep — two or three people from her church visited, and they sent her a poinsettia (since her surgery was close to Christmas). No one from my church ever bothered to visit … and I certainly could have used the encouragement and support, as being suddenly thrust into the role of caretaker was very stressful, sometimes bewildering, and even overwhelming for me.

It was about that time that, while sitting in the service one Sunday morning, a still, small voice whispered to me, “Look around. Look at church as if you’ve never been in one before. What do you see?”

I blinked; it was as if someone had suddenly lifted sunglasses away from my eyes, and I was seeing clearly for the first time. I saw a lot of people going through the motions, clapping dutifully along to the music; I saw others with drawn faces, hands jammed in their pockets, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast. I listened to a sermon that suddenly sounded formulaic and simplistic. “Just depend on God.” Yeah, but what about our responsibility to each other, to “bear one another’s burdens”? To “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn”?

I wrote a long letter to the lead pastor, who invited me to sit down with him, as he dealt better with ideas in person than in writing. But before I could get very far in our meeting, he cut off all opportunity for communication by telling me that I was looking for the church to meet my needs, instead of seeking how I could serve the church.

I left that church and tried another one for a while, but it didn’t feel like “home,” either. I eventually went back to the one I had just left … simply for the sake of having someplace to go on Sundays and Wednesdays. And God still used the sermons on occasion to speak confirmation to me of the path He wanted me to take and the decisions He was asking me to make.

But I continued to see the same things I had seen before: People going through the motions. Certain people getting attention and others being left out. Formulaic sermons focused on the individual relationship with God, rather than how we can and need to support each other. I finally reached the point where I couldn’t take it anymore; I started looking for another church home.

But I’m not sure if I’ll ever go through the “membership” process again with a church. For me, “church” is no longer about which roof I worship under. (To be honest, I feel closer to God outdoors than I do in any building.) It’s about “not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together” and finding a place of support and encouragement. The calling that God has placed on my life (that’s a whole other long story) is not an easy one, and though I love it and embrace it with all my heart, I need people around me to help me keep believing when the doubts and fears become fire-breathing dragons at my back.

God has sent such people into my life — but they’re not all members of the same church; they’re not even all in the same country! But they are, in many ways, a better representation of “the church” than just about any formalized church I’ve ever been in.

I think we have to be careful in saying that we are leaving the church because that is not really possible. As followers and believers in Christ, we are the church. The problem is that for so long we have associated church with the place we go. “I go to All Saints Church”, I am a member of “Church on the Corner.” We associate the church with a place we go.

I have sensed Jesus leading me away from an institutional expression of church for many years, but to be honest, I did not know how to express it, thought I was being heretical, and just accepted that my disillusionment could be explained away as “….well the church is made up of imperfect people.” That never really resonated with me but I accepted it anyway. The other thing I struggled with was not really knowing what Jesus had to say about the church He was building, or what the Scriptures had to say about church, so I never made a move.

Only recently have I begun to surrender to what I felt the Father was calling me and my family into, and so we stepped out of the “institutional expression” of church. I have to be honest, when I finally reached the point of not being critical of the institution, but rather surrendered to the fact that God was calling us into a new journey, I felt peace and released from our leadership and attendance in the institution we were attending.

I really do not know where this is all headed, but I think it is much bigger than I can even imagine. I am very excited and sense a tremendous amount of freedom. I have fallen madly in love with Jesus, and He was revealed himself as LIFE to me and such a deep level, and I am excited about all He has for our family.

We are only two weeks into this journey and the Father continues to bring us encouragement along the way – literally almost daily from conversations with others who are sensing God’s leading in this way.

Here are some of the resources that God is using in our life on this journey

1. Lifestream.org
2. Frank Viola’s three books The Untold Story of the New Testament Church, Pagan Christianity, and Reimagining Church)
3. http://www.simplechurchjournal.com/
4. Friends and family

I look forward to continuing the conversation with others….