This Is Not That: Church

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 when it began for me. I didn’t have the words for it yet, but I was already leaving the system behind.

Because if Randy dropping everything to be with Bob—isn’t a picture of the Church Jesus embodied, then what are we even talking about?

The Meaning We Forgot

If you’re wondering the same thing, there’s a good chance you’ve stepped away from what’s been called “church,” thought about it more than once, or never saw the appeal in the first place.

Maybe it felt off from the start. Maybe you gave it your all and burned out anyway. Or maybe you’re just curious—because even with all the noise, something about Jesus still draws you in.

Wherever you are, you're not wrong. You're not crazy. And you're definitely not the only one wondering if faith was supposed to look… well, different.

Because here’s the thing: it was.

Somewhere along the way, the life of faith Jesus gave got hijacked—replaced with an idea of Christianity that sounded noble, but quietly built an idea of church that swapped freedom for pressure and peace for performance.

But instead of setting people free, these invented systems confused grace with grind, turned growth into a guilt trip, and swapped friendship for programs.

It’s what happens when people don’t trust grace to be what it is.

Because real grace?

It’s a menace to church growth plans.
It doesn’t boost metrics or sell discipleship packages.
It doesn’t reward effort, create tiers, or stroke egos.
It just sets people free—no strings, no steps, no system to credit.

And that’s bad news for anyone trying to monetize holiness or manage outcomes.

So we did what we were told was right, and traded the life of dependence on Jesus for something with handles—rules, rituals, measurable results.

On the surface, it looks like faith. But it isn’t. It’s just fear in a machine that’s running while grace takes a smoke break.

So what do we do now?

Well, maybe we start by seeing the Church the way Jesus did.

Not as a branded organization with a building—but as a global movement of people. Often with snacks.

Seriously. In the New Testament, the Church isn’t a place you go. It’s a word for everyday people—flawed humans learning to trust Jesus.

“He is the head of the body, the Church…” (Eph. 1:22)

“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)

Those early letters weren’t written to churches as we imagine them now. They were written to the Church—singular—alive in everyday people, gathered around ordinary tables, scattered across regions (Rom. 16:5; Col. 4:15; Phil. 1:2).

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 what did the early Church do? Exactly what Jesus did. They gathered around meals. Around a scandalous story. Around the announcement that the Kingdom of God was already here.

How did we miss that?

Because centuries after Jesus, the word Scripture used to describe when believers gathered was translated as “church.”

Originally, the word was ekklesia—a common Greek term meaning “assembly” or “gathering.” It wasn’t religious language. It was used for town councils and civic meetings long before Jesus (Acts 19:39).

So when believers gathered, the New Testament writers simply called it what it was: ekklesia—people meeting.

But as Christianity moved from a table-centered movement to an institution shaped by Rome, the meaning of the word shifted after the fact. Translators didn’t change the original word—but they rendered it through the world they now lived in, where “church” meant a place, a structure, an organization.

The result?

When we hear “church” today, we picture something the first Christians never saw—and we end up trying to practice first-century faith inside a fourth-century container.

But don’t we need structure?

For sure. Just not in the way we’ve been conditioned to think.

You see, the early Christians wrestled with that same fear. A faith without buildings. Without stages. Without formal systems to hold it all together. Surely that couldn’t last… right?

That’s exactly the concern Hebrews addresses:

“Do not abandon meeting together…”

Not because skipping a Sunday service was a thing. But because grace—shared over backyard dinners and driveway talks—is where people actually learn to live in the freedom Jesus gave.

It’s why the next phrase in that verse from Hebrews doesn’t say: attend weekly, sing louder, listen quietly, or take notes. It says:

“encourage one another.”

That’s not something you can do from a chair facing a stage, staring at the back of someone’s head. “One another” requires faces. Voices. Interruptions. Laughter. Silence.

It happens on porches. On park benches. In long drives and messy text threads—where people can tell the truth, laugh at the madness, and celebrate the grace that’s already holding them.

That’s the Church gathered in the New Testament.

When we let it be that simple, we stop building church communities—and start being the Church that builds community.

And when that happens? People are free to get creative.

They open homes. Share what they have. Start tutoring groups, write rent checks, launch meal trains and health clinics.

Not because they were told to.
But because they’re free to.

So if you’ve been told to attend services, serve better, change the world—
maybe it’s time to trade that faithless project-of-self for faith in Jesus.

The One who already made His home in us (John 14:20).
The One who already finished the work (John 19).
The One who calls you to trust (John 6).

That’s the swap that changes everything.
And it’s already yours to make.

So Now What?

If this vision of the Church feels strange, that’s not because the Bible is unclear. It’s because we’ve learned to read it through a framework it never gave us.

That’s where this series comes in.

Here, you’ll find that letting Scripture mean what it actually says doesn’t lead to less commitment—it leads to a different kind. One that isn’t managed by institutions, but practiced in kitchens, living rooms, and ordinary conversations.

The truth is, the Church Jesus started hasn’t disappeared. It’s just been buried under a system He never created or called for.

And the way forward isn’t building something new. It’s seeing what’s already true—and stepping into it together. Right where we are.

Which raises the real question: If this is the Church Jesus imagined, how did we drift so far from it in the first place?

That’s where we go next.

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