What is Church?

According to scripture, church is not a place where believers attend but rather God’s people as a community and how they live. The early church was marked by a deep love for one another, everyone contributing their giftings, and spreading the kingdom of God. But have we unknowingly drifted from this foundational design?

For most now, church is a Sunday morning service where people show up to a building, sing a few songs, and listen to a sermon. A few select leaders exercise their giftings each week while the majority of people attend the meeting and leave. And while these are not bad things, are we missing it? Have we become a church filled with passive spectators rather then active participants? Have we created a church system that so heavily relies upon a few individuals that the remaining congregants have neither the confidence nor see the need to biblically contribute?

Again and again the bible compares God’s church to a physical body whose parts must work together to function — a body that relies upon each member to work efficiently and effectively in order to spread the Kingdom of God (Romans 12:4, Ephesians 2:19). If large Sunday services are our primary view of church, it makes it difficult if not impossible for the entire body to function as God intended.

Furthermore, the bible reiterates that Christ’s church is to be closer than family. We are to be marked by our deep, supernatural love for one another. If large corporate gatherings are our primary view of church, do these settings lend themselves to such community? Do large Sunday gatherings in auditoriums foster deep, family-like relationships amongst the people filling the seats?

For this reason, we desire to see our current church structure flipped on it’s head. Rather than prioritizing corporate gatherings, we wish to emphasize small “house churches” made up of 10-20 people. These churches should be your spiritual family where you are encouraged to grow, participate, and make more disciples. Large meetings are not bad — in fact we gather large at least once a month — however we feel they cannot come at the cost of what we believe is God’s heart for His Church.

We want to be a body of believers marked by their supernatural love for one another.

We want “church” to be synonymous with your small church family who you are doing life with and using your spiritual gifts to build up.

We want everyone to be going and spreading the kingdom of God in their spheres of influence.

We want the church to be the church.