Rethinking Church
Written by Russ Johnson
I can remember sitting in my office in Chicago, pastoring a big, busy, multiplying church. Email inbox overflowing. Whiteboard covered in strategies. And I’m reading the first chapter of Love Does by Bob Goff.
And I remember thinking—yes. Like—this is it. This is the picture of church I’ve been reaching for, fumbling for words to describe.
Bob tells a story about high school—how he struggled in class, was terrible at sports, awkward with girls. GPA so low you could count it on two fingers.
And then this guy shows up. Randy. Motorcycle. Beard. Girlfriend. Basically everything teenage Bob wanted.
And Randy’s part of this group called Young Life. Not church in a pew kind of stuff—more like showing up in the real world. And Bob says Randy would just hang out with him. No agenda. No sermon outline. Just… a friend.
Which was weird. And also exactly what Bob needed.
One Saturday morning, Bob shows up at Randy’s house with his life falling apart. He’s done with school. Done with trying. He’s gonna drop out, hit the road, and head to Yosemite to climb rocks.
And Randy? He listens. Disappears for a few minutes. Then comes back with a bag slung over his shoulder: “Alright,” he says. “How are we getting there?”
Bob points to his Volkswagen. “I got a ride.” So Randy hops in. And off they go.
They drive to Yosemite. Crash in a cheap motel. Bob applies for jobs. Strikes out at every single one. Gives up. And then they drive back home the next day.
When they pull into Randy’s driveway, Bob notices another car already parked there—his girlfriend’s. Randy invites him inside, but she isn’t there. Instead, the house is cluttered with boxes.
And Bob’s thinking, it’s not Christmas… it’s not his birthday… what’s going on?
That’s when it hits him: he had shown up yesterday. Saturday afternoon. And Randy? Randy had gotten married that morning.
Yeah. On the afternoon of his wedding—Bob shows up at his door in crisis. And Randy doesn’t say, “Sorry man, bad timing.” He doesn’t hand him a prayer card or a lecture.
Instead, he grabs a bag, gets in the car, and goes with him.
Bob later said, “For the first time in my life, the word Emmanuel—the name God used to describe himself—hit me. I’m with you.”
I remember sitting in my church office, reading that story, and thinking, That’s it. That’s the life I want. That’s what Jesus did.
And yet here I was, pastoring an idea of church that demanded everything but that. Running a system that kept me too busy to do the one thing Jesus actually did and called us to do.
Reading Bob’s story was where the shift began for me. Because Randy dropping everything to be with Bob…
That’s the Church Jesus started.
Not an institution. Not an organization with a building, and a budget, and a staff meeting on Tuesdays. A movement of people who are free to be present. Because they know:
“You are the body of Christ.” (1 Cor. 12:27)
“In Christ, we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.form one body…” (Rom. 12:5)
Which explains why the word the New Testament uses for when the Church gathered wasn't religious language.
Ekklesia.
Common Greek. Used for town councils and civic meetings long before the Church existed. It means people gathering.
That’s what the writers saw. Not a ceremony with a stage and someone at the front managing the experience. Just ordinary people. Meeting around tables. In houses. “With glad and sincere hearts.” (Acts 2:46)
And there’s a reason it looked that way.
Rome wasn’t handing out building permits to people who said, Jesus is Lord, not Caesar. They were handing out arrest warrants.
And Jewish leaders weren’t offering rented space at the synagogue on Sundays to people claiming Jesus is the Messiah. They were plotting their murder.
So the early Church did exactly what Jesus did. They gathered in homes.
So how did that go sideways?
Here’s the honest answer: it's the same trade Adam made in the garden.
Freedom for something manageable. Trust for something with handles. Grace for a system that tells you where you stand and what to do next.
When the Roman emperor Constantine became a believer, he didn't corrupt the Church from the outside in 330 AD. He gave the Church what the Church was already reaching for.
Like Israel, they wanted a building. A hierarchy. Something measurable. Something you could point to and say — see, it's working.
So living rooms became stages. Meals became an institution with membership requirements and measurable outcomes.
The people who built it were sincere. So was the Pharisee in the temple. So was the older brother standing outside the party.
Sincerity was never the problem. Or the solution.
The problem is always the same.
A species that finds freedom terrifying and keeps reaching for something it can manage instead.
We’ve all been there. Reaching for ways to control what life is, where we stand, how tings will pan out.
This is why the real thing Jesus offers us is harder than religion.
Religion gives you something to point to. The real thing invites you to be a neighbor to someone who needs a friend.
Paul described what this looks like when it's actually happening.
Not a service to go to. "The church that meets at their house." (Romans 16:5)
In Philippi the whole movement started with three people.
A businesswoman who sold purple fabric.
A jailer fresh off a suicide attempt.
A teenage girl recently freed from something dark.
Just three ordinary people who tasted something and couldn't stop talking about it and started showing up for each other.
Years later Paul writes to a whole movement of the Church in that region, and refers to everyone as “saints.” (Philippians 1:1)
Not because they had the right program. Because they had the right thing at the center, and decided to just live from it.
Jesus described it simply.
"Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." (Matthew 18:20)
Not where two or three gather in a building someone approved. Not where two or three gather with the right theological statement and the correct order of service.
Where two or three gather.
Which means the Church isn't something you find, or join, or build. It's something you already are when you stop performing long enough to actually be present with another person in his name.
So what about gathering?
The writer of Hebrews didn't say attend a service. Sing louder. Take notes. He said:
"Encourage one another." (Hebrews 10:25)
Which is not something you can do from a chair facing the back of someone's head. Because encouraging one another It happens on porches, in long drives, in messy conversations where people can tell the truth, and laugh at the madness,
and celebrate the grace that's already holding them.
That's the Church gathered in the New Testament.
And the good news?
The Church Jesus started hasn't disappeared. It's just been buried under something he never created and never called for.
And the way forward isn't building something new. It's seeing what's already true.
The real thing is probably already happening in your life. You just didn't know what to call it.
But here's what the real thing will ask of you that the institution never did.
Not attendance.
Not performance.
Not the right theology
stated with sufficient confidence.
Just this.
When your friend shows up at your door in crisis, are you willing to get in the car?
That's the Church.
That's always been the Church.