I was flipping through the morning news shows one day when one of them was sponsoring a concert that was aired largely in the last few minutes of the show. Hundreds of people were gathered in the streets, singing, swaying, dancing, and clapping, as one of the more well known rock bands took to the stage. I picked up the remote and flipped the channels and landed on a Christian station that was airing a well known Christian band in concert. I flipped back and forth between the two a couple of times and noticed that I could tell no difference between the crowds. Amazed and slightly uncomfortable with what I saw, I switched to yet another channel, and there observed the airing of a worship service from a large church. I was stunned.

The people were doing the same things in each of the three settings. I actually put the mute on and changed rapidly between the three stations trying to discern some difference in the crowds. I could find none.

I then took the mute off and began listening to the worship leader at the church, the Christian lead singer at the concert, and the lead singer for the rock band. They were saying and doing the same things in order to stir up their respective crowds. Again, I was stunned. The same exhortations to ‘put your hands together’, the same rhetorical questions about ‘how are you doing today’, ‘are you ready?’, and so on.

I had long been uncomfortable with the shallow, presentation style crowd manipulations that were called ‘worship’ in the traditional church structure. I had no answer when my son, in the church’s youth worship team became disgusted one day when he was instructed to ‘look like’ he was into worship, smile, be full of energy and ‘make a good presentation‘. He observed that this fake Christianity was exactly what his generation saw through and made them draw back from traditional church.

I had grown weary of the standard way worship was conducted at the church I attended: The first 2 songs were upbeat to get the people clapping and moving, then the next 2 were slower to lead them into worship, then maybe 1 or 2 more that were actual worship. The last one would be cut off so the pastor could make the announcements and receive the offering.

I longed for true worship, worship that flowed unhindered and without a time frame. Worship that went vertical to the throne from the first downbeat. I got nothing when singing about leaping over walls and running through troops or that I am blessed to be a blessing. I wanted to tell the Father how much I loved him as soon as the music started.

I began studying scripture about worship and the way church was conducted today versus what the Word says about worship and church, and the differences were stark in their contrast.

I want to share what I found in this article. I am not coming against rock n roll, organized worship, or any one church or style. But I do want to trace how we got to where we are, then present what the Word says on the subject.

After I had made my observations and studies I found them confirmed one day by an evangelist acquaintance of mine at a pastor’s conference. At his session during the conference he told a group of pastors that they were in the entertainment business. Though some were surprised and even shocked by his assertions, most were not, for they knew exactly what he was talking about. He asserted that people today want to be entertained, that it is our culture, and that is the way to grow your church in this day and age. Be entertaining, funny, not too confrontational, present colorful, lively music, and get them out the door to hit the buffet lines before noon.

How did we get to this point?

I remember the early 1970s when I was born again during my teen years. I went to church on Sunday mornings my family. We picked up a hymnal, and sang the songs that had been the standards of the faith for generations, some going back to Martin Luther and the 1500’s. The hymn numbers were displayed on either side of the church up front, along with last week’s attendance and offering figures. At one point our church had a huge fund raising drive to purchase and install a pipe organ, the largest in the city next to the Roman Catholics. They reasoned that this was a sure way to grow the church, for people would to love to come and hear that organ. Already, I couldn’t relate to that line of reasoning.

I was about 16 back then, and the church was losing my generation. When I looked around at the people these songs meant the most to, I saw that they were my parent’s age (that was old to me), and even worse, my grandparent’s age! Right or wrong, I remember thinking that some of those people must have been around when some of these songs were written.

But my generation, the ‘baby boomers’, those born in the late 1940’s into the early ‘60s, were part of a different culture; we were raised on rock and roll. To us, the hymns of the church were old fashioned. I cringed when I looked at the hymns and saw next to the titles the dates they were penned; dates like 1846, 1580, 1895, and so on. Ancient! Up until the baby boomer generation there was little culture clash between society as a whole and the way church was conducted. But soon, like two friends taking separate forks in the road, the paths they were walking caused there to be an increasing of the distance between them.

Culture was pulling at us. We began listening to, and attending, rock ’n roll concerts and buying albums every chance we could. I must have been about 12 when a neighborhood girl told me she and a group of friends were going to Indianapolis to see some group in concert...she was so excited! To see them live on stage! I think my first concert was the group Chicago, who played at the Indiana State Fair. Later groups and concerts would follow, and they were always fun, in part because of the energy generated by the throngs of people gathered together for one purpose.

To some reading this, the above paragraphs may seem as ancient as my experience with hymn books, but there is a purpose to sharing it. You see, I was part of the generation that changed traditional church forever. I was part of the "Jesus movement", the "charismatic movement" or whatever title you wish to apply.

A large part of the charismatic revival of the 1960s and ’70s was the introduction of my generation’s music into the way church was conducted. It went beyond suddenly seeing electric guitars, drums, and amplifiers on stage. We took the rock ‘n roll concert culture into the church.

Don’t think I’m coming against rock ‘n roll, because I’m not. It’s just another form of music. But the fact is that as my generation grew up and took it’s place in society, we began replacing the previous generation in the pews, a replacement process that continues to this day. It is a matter of mathematics really. As the previous generation began aging and dying, it was replaced by our generation. Soon, the numbers of rock ‘n rollers in church became the majority.

Corresponding with this turnover of the generations therefore, has been the changing of Christian music. I was there when one, single, acoustic guitar was allowed on the platform at my parent’s church. Soon, a whole band was formed that was known simply as ‘the worship team’. I remember Amy Grant’s first album! Controversial Christian rockers like Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill changed Christian music forever.

The process of bringing a rock n roll concert atmosphere into church had begun.

In the late 1960’s and 70’s churches had quite a controversy on their hands. Many began having ‘contemporary’ worship services as the early service on Sunday morning, followed by ‘traditional’ services at 10:30 or 11am, and you can still find this practice here and there today.

Trying to stay relevant in a changing culture, once the door was opened there was no turning back. As a man named Al Perkins is quoted in George Barna’s book ‘The Second Coming of the Church’ (pg80) says: "Take something like church music. Why should I listen to choirs and organs? I never listen to them on my car radio, I never buy CDs of that stuff. The church thinks it can placate me by throwing in a few contemporary songs, but I’ve still got to sit through the irrelevant stuff, and that upsets me."

Recognizing that there were millions of ‘Al Perkins’, the church began to continue the modernization and professionalization of worship. We brought the rock ‘n roll concert atmosphere into church. That is why I could not find any difference that day on TV between the church worship, Christian concert, and rock n roll concert. In an effort to become relevant, we have become homogenous. In the US in the 1960s and 70s, Christianity was a counter-culture, now it’s a sub-culture complete with it’s own language, catch phrases, even fashion in some circles. In an effort to become relevant, the traditional church structure has become irrelevant. In an effort to relate, it’s become bland.

Another Generational Turnover is Taking Place

Today when I see church worship I see a mix of styles, from country to large choirs rockin’ and rollin’, to out and out rock bands. But I also see my children’s generation having already rejected the way church worship is done. Today, the baby boomer generation is in charge. Boomers are the pastors and worship leaders by and large. These leaders came to the Lord during the Christian rock era and that style is reflected in church. That’s why today’s traditional church worship looks like a rock concert. That was our culture, and we’ve brought it into church.

But to my kids, those songs and styles are irrelevant and out of touch. They prefer a harder rock sound. They reject the performance oriented brand of Christianity and relate primarily to bands that talk about real issues and how God got them through it. In the same way I looked at hymn books and thought ‘ancient’, so my sons look at standard church worship today and think ‘ancient’. They see people who put on their church face, but their lives are dysfunctional, with no living, vital Christianity in their lives. One church with a choir of 200 people had a woman who was a part of that choir commit suicide one day. Everyone was shocked. She was surrounded by people, but she truly knew no one. Evidently struggling with these thoughts for months or years, one day she put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

She was playing a role, mouthing the words, on the outside happy, in love with the Lord, full of True Worship...but inside she was lonely and depressed to the point of suicide. Entertained, but not enriched nor enlivened. In a traditional church culture, she could open up to no one, for to be honest was to be weak. She suffered from the same ‘I am an island’ mentality demonstrated in a phone call I received one day.

I was on staff with a church and received a call from the Music department. The department head called me up and said, "I called you because you seem to be real. And I think you will keep confidence. I’m surrounded by people, but very lonely."

That call began a friendship between us that continues to this day. We would get together for lunch from time to time, talking, touching base, catching up. Those were times to let the facade down and talk about real issues. The pull of the church culture versus ‘real life’.

That church has a policy of having the singers who are up front leading the congregation in worship be diverse racially. There have been times they have put someone up front behind a microphone that was turned off because the people couldn’t sing, but they were the right race, to present the appearance of a racially diverse singing group.

Teens and others who will be intellectually honest are recognizing that the way of the traditional church is largely a performance for the masses on Sunday morning, just like the concerts we were raised in. Again referring to ‘The Second Coming of the Church (pg4), Barna lists the results of polls conducted in 1996 & 97 demonstrating the similarities of behavior between Christians and non-Christians. A few of the results:

Can you tell the difference Christian from the non-Christian? There isn’t much difference in the way each group lives their lives. The traditional church structure has lost it’s relevance in society, combined with no perceived value in being a Christian, which has resulted in a man made, synthetic faith. When you combine the influence of TV show theology (like Touched by an Angel) with poor Biblical teaching, you find Christians piecing together elements of spirituality from all over, to form their own theology, without the knowledge of true Biblical doctrine.

Ironically, the sense of "As long as I’m spiritual I’m OK" is a heresy the apostles dealt with. It’s called gnosticism, from the Greek word "gnosis", which means "to know". The Gnostics believed that anything spiritual was OK, but things of the flesh were inherently evil. This allowed them to live like the world in their daily lives, because as long as they were spiritual they would still go to heaven. They had head knowledge only-they ‘knew‘ God. But they were hypocrites saying they believed one way, but lived another. Today many Christians have this same attitude...they’ve ’accepted’ Jesus into their hearts and their theology is part TV, part Hollywood, part Bible. They know of the main TV televangelists and teachers, but they have no real, vital, living Christianity in their lives. Believing that as long as they are spiritual they are OK, they stumble through life.

This theology of Gnosticism has given rise to seeker friendly church services. Don’t challenge anyone with an altar call, for that is confrontation. Teach them, but don’t challenge them to become Christ-like. Everyone is spiritual and that’s OK.

This hypocrisy and irrelevance is what I saw as a teenager, and now my children see it to an even more alarming degree. If the paths between church and society were parting ways when I was a teen, they are on other sides of the horizon from each other in this day and age.

As a result, we see God meeting the needs of those wanting to be true disciples as he did when I was a teen, indeed, as he has done since the inception of the church. In my teen years I only went to Sunday morning with my mom for the sake of keeping peace in the house. It was less of a hassle to shut up and go than it was to fight for staying home. But once I heard about small groups of people meeting together in homes with open worship and true Bible study, I jumped at the chance.

My discipleship took place in a Thursday night teen meeting in which about 20 of us met in a church basement, with one of the elders of the church hanging around to open and close the building. We had a guitar or two, and one of us led a study of the Word. I grew like a weed in my walk. Additionally, we found some young adults who met on Saturday nights out on a farm for the same style of meeting. Worship with the freedom to continue to worship, and some good Bible study and teaching. There was yet another group that met Sunday nights in various homes (one of us teens would host each week) for worship, prayer and study. This was how I grew in the Lord, not during the Sunday morning services.

Today, this is why we see house churches springing up all over the world. The Lord first ordained the home, family and community as the means by which the knowledge of His Ways could be known. When Lucifer rebelled, he rebelled against the family and community of angels in heaven. When Adam committed treason against God and turned the world over to Satan, he sinned against the family that was he and Eve and the Lord. When Cain killed his brother, he sinned against the family and community.

When the Lord contemplated destroying Sodom he paused before Abraham and thought to himself: "Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I am about to do...for I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment..." (Gen 18:17-19)

The Lord’s first thought about whether he would share his plans with Abraham or not, was guided by the quality of Abraham’s family life.

In this day of absentee fathers and mothers, people are crying out for spiritual fathers and mothers, true elders in the faith who can walk them through the difficulties of life. That is why people are pulling back from professional Christianity found in the traditional church, and performance oriented worship services. Recent survey’s, again from the Barna organization, show only about 10-18% of people in church on Sunday mornings, while about 43% of the population claim to be born again.

As reported in Houston, Texas for instance, only 11% of the people attend church. In Colorado Springs the number is 16%. If there are another 27-32% who claim to be born again, where are they? Why have they dropped out of church? Part of the answer is just what we’ve been talking about here. As a population, most Christians look just like their non-born again neighbors, and traditional church is irrelevant.

True Worship

To understand the differences between church, and specifically the worship within the church, and what God is looking for, we must go to the Word. In John 4:23 Jesus said that those who want to worship the Father must do so in spirit and in truth. He even said the Father is SEARCHING for worshippers like this.

Please understand what I am about to say. There are many good hearted people, all over the world, who think they are worshipping God, but in fact, they don’t know what they worship. Good hearted people, but ignorant. If the Father God, the Head of the universe, is seeking a particular type of worshipper, and in fact, a particular type of worship (in spirit and truth), doesn’t it make sense to try to find these things out? Doesn’t it make sense to try to define these elements? Of course, and that is the purpose of this article.

Let’s first look at two examples to explain that just because people think they are worshipping God, they may not be. The first example is the woman at the well in John 4. In verse 22 Jesus told her, "You worship you know not what". This was a woman who worshipped who she thought was the God of Israel, the One who led them through the Red Sea, did miracles in the desert, and so on. But Jesus said she didn’t even know what she was worshipping. Another translation of this verse says it this way: "You worship what you do not know".

By appearance, the Samaritans worshipped just like the Jews. They raised their hands, knelt down, bowed down, and danced just like the Jews. Yet Jesus said they didn’t know what they were worshipping. Do you suppose there could be Christians out there who look like everyone else, but don’t truly know what or who they are worshipping? Maybe they think they are worshipping, but really aren’t?

The whole of the Samaritan people thought they were worshipping the God of Israel. Their history goes back to Israel’s civil war, which took place when Solomon died. 10 tribes broke away from Judah and Benjamin and made Samaria their capital. Though there were remnants of these tribes who stayed in Judah with Jerusalem as the capital, the majority of the other tribes made Samaria their capital. They made their own temple, priesthood, and rituals, all in the name of the God of Israel. But the Lord had chosen Jerusalem as His capital, and Solomon’s temple as his home, not Samaria.

Therefore, by the time of Jesus, the Samaritans were hated as a half breed nation who had a counterfeit religion. They thought they worshipped God, but Jesus said they didn’t know what they were worshipping.

A different example is that of Lydia in Acts 16:14 which describes her as "a worshipper of God...whose heart the Lord opened." Notice that Lydia was a worshipper of God, yet she was not born again. My thoughts go to the many people in the traditional church I grew up in. Many were born again, although many were not. I wonder about many I see in larger mega-church or other meetings. Are all these people worshippers of God? I think many could be, but like Lydia, they aren’t yet born again. Remember that even Satan will bow his knee to Jesus...worshipping God doesn’t mean a person is born again.

Jesus said in John 4:23 that "true worshippers" will worship in spirit and truth. The fact that he stated there are "true" worshippers indicates that there are therefore, "false" worshippers. The woman at the well and the whole of the Samaritan faith was one of false worship. True worship is that in spirit and truth, false worship is worship outside those parameters.

I believe that if a person is a worshipper of God, He will, as in the case of Lydia, ‘open their heart’ to the Word, and they will be born again.

WORSHIP: A Kiss to the Father

So let us look at this word, worship. The Father is seeking worshippers who will do so in spirit and in truth. The word ‘worship’ is the Greek word proskuneo. "Pros" mean "towards" or "to", and the word "kuneo" means "to kiss". Literally, the word ‘worship’ means "to kiss to, a kiss to (the Father)".

The Father is seeking people to kiss him in adoration and love. That is why True worship, literally "true kissing (of the Father)" must be done in spirit and in truth. He doesn’t want people to honor him with their lips but have their hearts far from him. He doesn’t want people to live like the world, but mouth their love for him.

The word "spirit" that Jesus used when he said, "the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth", is the Greek word "pneuma". In this context it signifies the spirit of man, breath, or to breathe. You may recognize our words pneumonia or pneumatic that both have to do with breathing or air.

Jesus is saying that the Father is seeking people who will kiss him with their very breath, their very life. These are people who live and breath to worship and adore the Father. The Father is seeking these people. Think of it. He just wants us to love him and he wants to love us back!

Jesus said the Father is seeking worshippers who will do so in spirit and in TRUTH. This is the Greek word "aletheia". Cremer (commentary) describes this as meaning: "the reality lying at the basis of an appearance; the manifested, veritable essence of a matter".

We’ve established so far that worship is a kiss to the Father, an act of adoration, love and devotion, done with the intensity of our very life and breath. Additionally, Jesus said that the Father wants these worshippers to be expressing their love as the reality of their lives. Not just the appearance of kissing the Father, but that worship being "the reality lying at the base of the appearance".

Putting this together we learn the essence of True worship. Worship in spirit and truth, the worship that the Father craves, involves people who recognize and express their very lives and existence are about loving Him, and this expression of love to Him is in fact, the reality at the base of their life on this planet.

This is what Paul expressed in Acts 17:28 when he expressed his love of God by saying; "in him we live, and move, and have our being". This is what Mary was doing in her worship of Jesus by wiping his feet with her hair and allowing her tears of love and devotion to wash his feet. This is what the elders in heaven were doing in Rev 4:11 when they threw down their crowns and fell down before the Father and said: "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created."

Worship in the New Testament

When Jesus was talking to the woman at the well he said "the hour is coming and now is". Is coming and now is...in other words, worship in the New Testament is different than in the Old Testament. We can worship in spirit...with our very breath, and in truth...out lives can line up with the love we have for God. In the Old Testament they had to adhere to a set of external laws with their old nature. It was an impossible task. When Jesus brought salvation through the new birth, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live in fellowship and harmony with the Father, as we walk in the light we have.

Within what context has the Lord placed True worship in spirit and in truth? Because the Lord now lives through us he will express Himself through the grace he’s given to each of us. Paul said in Rom 12:3 that he was speaking through the grace given to him. He couldn’t speak through the grace given to Peter or to anyone else, he could only speak through the grace given to him.

So it is today. I have grace and giftings that are unique to me, you have grace and giftings that are unique to you. Paul went on to say in Rom 12:6 that we have gifts which differ according to the grace given to each of us.

The reason this is important is that our worship of God will differ in accordance with the gifts and grace given us, but the essential elements of spirit and truth will remain. For instance, I am not one to jump up and down and spin around when worshipping, but others may be built like that...they may have that grace.

I am one who likes to fall on the floor and get lost in my own little world of worship and adoration of the Father. I’m not one to dance, hop, spin or even shout. That’s me, that’s the grace I’ve been given, but the common elements are that each of us are expressing love to the Father in spirit and truth.

Because we have each been given unique gifts and grace as Christ lives in us and through us, it requires individual worship as the primary means of worship. Can we meet as a congregation to worship? Absolutely. But the foundation in the New Testament is individual worship in spirit and in truth. Jesus said in John 4:24 to reiterate his point: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him MUST worship in spirit and in truth".

The individual is the foundational element in the New Testament. "Christ in YOU, the hope of glory". "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me". This is different than "the congregation of Israel" in the OT. Christ lives in each of us and has given grace and giftings according to how we were created and called.

As a result, New Testament church was based on the individual allowing that grace and those giftings to flow, rather than stifling them and allowing only 1 priest to minister to God, or speak for God. The pattern of church in the New Testament is that of allowing anyone to participate that wants to.

For instance, look at I Cor 14:26: "How is it brethren? (brethren is a term that includes men and women) When you come together every one of you has a psalm (poem accompanied by a stringed instrument), has a doctrine (something the Lord has taught you), has a tongue/interpretation (allowing the charismatic gifts to flow), and a revelation (something new the Lord has shown you). Let everything be done to build each other up."

Individual worship is even mentioned within a different context when he says in verse 25 that a sinner, upon receiving a prophetic word, will fall on his face and worship God.

Paul also said in verse 6 that they would not profit unless he spoke to them by revelation (something the Lord had shown him), or knowledge (his knowledge of the Spirit and Ways of God), or by prophesying (allowing the charismatic gifts to flow), or by doctrine (teaching).

Clearly, church was structured in such a way to allow the gifts and grace of each person to come forth. Let me ask you: Does the traditional church structure follow the Biblical pattern?

In the traditional format, participation is designed to keep things from going wrong, and this is done by limiting who gets to speak. Have you ever seen as a matter of practice in a traditional format the whole congregation encouraged to bring forth psalms, doctrines, tongues/interpretation, or revelations as I Cor 14:26 says it should be?

And more to the point of this article, is the traditional format structured in such a way to facilitate not only individual gifts, but individual worship to flow? When I teach on how to walk with the Lord I ask people if they’ve been grieved in their spirits when in the midst of dynamic worship in a service it is cut off to give the announcements or to receive an offering. Everyone raises their hands. But the trouble is that their thinking is that ‘it must just be me’, because they’re trained to give the man up front more honor than the Holy Spirit within them.

I’m not against big meetings, but I don’t believe scripture teaches it as the PRIMARY means by which church is conducted.

The fact that for the first 300 years the church met exclusively in small groups, in homes, is testament to the fact that individual participation was encouraged. Paul talks about Ephesus and how he went from house to house (Acts 20:20), though we know he also taught in a school (19:9), the church in Philemon’s house (v2), a woman named Nymphas and the church in her house (Col 4:15), the church in Aquila and Priscilla’s house (Rom 16:3-5), the church in Justus’ house (Acts 18:7), Lydia (16:15,40), and going back to the foundation of the church when it was still in just Jerusalem: Acts 2:46; 5:42 and elsewhere.

Constantine legalized Christianity in about 329AD, and when he did so he took over the pagan temples and called Christians out of homes into the auditorium style meeting we have today. The traditional church format is rooted in the structure of the pagan temples of Constantine’s time. Ralph Neighbor, a leader in cell churches, was speaking along these lines at a conference in Tulsa. He said to the gathering: "You are sitting in a building built by the devil for God’s own people."

By contrast, the whole of the New Testament letters were written within the context of ‘church’ being conducted ‘from house to house’.

It comes as quite a shock to people who never understood that Paul, Peter, and John were writing to churches who met in homes all over the cities they were visiting and writing to. When Paul writes in Colossians 4:16 asking that his letter we call "Colossians" be read among the church of the Laodiceans, it meant taking the letter around to all the houses that Christians met in and reading it to them.

When Paul writes in Galatians 1:2 to ‘the churches of Galatia’ he was writing to a whole region of what we call the nation of Turkey. Galatia was about 200 miles across and there were dozens upon dozens of churches meeting in homes in the region. When Paul wrote to the Romans: "To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints..." (Rom 1:7), he was writing a letter that was distributed to the various house churches in that huge city.

When John writes to the seven churches of Asia in Rev 1:4 he isn’t writing to seven buildings, he is writing to the body of Christ in seven cities, which met in homes throughout the region of Asia. His letter, the book of The Revelation, was taken around to the houses as Paul’s letter were. (Asia was a part of modern Turkey just as Galatia was another of these states of what we call Turkey).

I’ve found references estimating the size of the church in Ephesus alone to be about 25,000 people. They all met in homes, not a huge football stadium! Therefore, to try to understand the writings of the New Testament outside the context of house churches, is to misinterpret the spirit and flow in which they were intended.

The PRIMARY means the church met was in small groups, in homes, encouraging the giftings and grace given to each saint to flow. They met together, shared, ate meals together, and prayed for each other.

Contrast the Bible with what we see in traditional church today. Traditional church meets primarily as a whole congregation, limits participation, and allows only 1 or 2 main gifts to flow, those involving music and the pastor.

Let me say a word about cell churches and a comparison with house churches, because they are NOT the same. A cell church is a means by which the traditional church breaks into small groups, while maintaining the traditional structure with it’s limitations. The cells are part of the whole, with large congregational meetings the PRIMARY means of gathering the saints. Additionally, cell churches are set up in a top down way, like the traditional church (leader, assistant leader, often pre-arranged lessons)

House churches meet PRIMARILY in homes, with congregation meetings coming occasionally. House churches are autonomous in day to day function, but in fellowship with apostle(s) and the rest of the body of Christ. (see the article "The Pyramid versus God Moving in His Gifts on the web site: www.cwowi.org)

The NT teaches that a multitude of gifts are allowed, and even encouraged to participate, worship is based on the individual in spirit and in truth, and meetings are structured in such a way to allow the Lord to do what he needs and wants to do.

Not everyone who goes to a large meeting is going there to be entertained. Don’t get me wrong. This article has just been a study of history, scripture, and the contrasts therein. The Lord told his creation to fill the earth, and Ephesians 1:23 says that Jesus seeks to fill the universe with Himself. He follows the same pattern he commanded of his creation: Fill every nook and cranny with life.

The Lord therefore, will seek to fill whatever structure man gives Him to the extent He is allowed. For instance, in a traditional format he will try to fill the Episcopal church structure in which the bishops rule over the local congregation. In a congregation based government, where the congregation votes the pastor in and out, like the Assembly of God’s, he will try to fill that structure. In a modern Charismatic church which is run like a corporation or monarchy, God will try to fill that structure.

But there is a structure which God Himself prefers. It is the structure called house church. It is a structure as old as the family, for that is what it’s based on. House church is the way God started in Genesis with Adam and Eve, and in Acts 2 all the way through the Revelation and into the middle 300s AD.

Not Spectacular or Glamorous, Just Scriptural

America today is a land filled with idols. Sports, Hollywood, TV, music...people are looking for a hero, someone to pattern their lives after. When our generation opted for the concert atmosphere in a large setting rather than the individual small groups as prescribed by scripture, it paved the way for entertainment and the worship of Christian ‘superstars’.

Today, people often attend large meetings not to be fed, but to be entertained. They want to see the man or woman they’ve seen on TV. Some of these televangelists even need bodyguards to protect them. The same was true of Jesus of course, and it was exactly that kind of religion he spoke so vehemently against. It was a religion of appearance (read Mt 6: 1-8 again).

I praise God for the many wonderful teachers on TV, don’t get me wrong. But when we merchandise the anointing we are treading on dangerous ground.

By contrast, True Christianity is not glamorous. It is coming into relationships with other disciples (the word disciple means ‘learner and adherent’) and working through life with each other.

The Hebrew word translated ‘teach’ and ‘to learn’ is the word lamad. The Greek equivalent is ‘disciple’. Lamad means there is a combining of head knowledge with the doing of the knowledge learned. A disciple is both a learner and adherent. An adherent has someone to show them how to live what they’ve learned in their head. Jesus not only taught his disciples, he lived with them for 3 1/2 years to show them how to walk out what He taught.

That is why Jewish society was set up to be multigenerational. The older men taught the younger and the mothers taught the daughters and younger women (Titus 2:2-4). That is why Elisha called out ‘My Father, My Father!" when Elijah was carried away.

They lived lamad...they learned something academically, then they did it. They had someone close to them that showed them how to do what they’d been taught. They had someone to walk them through life.

By contrast, the US is from Greek thought. That’s what Paul ran into on Mars Hill in Acts 17:32. They wanted to hear more about his ideas without any intention of applying those truths into their lives. That is what traditional church has largely become: People going to church with no intention of actually changing their lives.

But Jesus is Jewish, and the NT was written within the lamad concept of learning...that is why taking it out of the house and the relationships of family, friends and neighbors is to misconstrue what is communicated. We can’t take 21st century US Greek thought...’give me a new revelation’ and try to understand the life and teachings of Jesus or the New Testament. Jesus spoke and the apostles wrote everything from lamad..."hear it then do it by having someone show you how to walk it out".

A balanced house church is not spectacular. A balanced house church facilitates True Worship, True discipleship. It’s not glamorous or entertaining. It’s about worship, discipleship, changing lives. It’s work, it’s being involved with each other. It’s a process. Above all, it’s what God ordained.

There is a reason the Chinese church has grown to about 130 million or so beyond the political atmosphere. There is a reason house churches are spreading all over India like wildfire, there is a reason house churches are growing all over the US, although those in traditional church hardly know, or won’t acknowledge their existence.

God seeks to fill any structure man gives him, but there is one structure that flows with His original intentions. There are some who don’t want to be entertained, they want to be disciples. The Lord is very humble, He goes about his business whether anyone see it or not. And to that end, house churches are springing up all over the world, humbly making disciples, teaching others how to apply God’s Life into their lives.

Do you want to be entertained? Or do you want to be a disciple?