Why We Don't Do Institutionalized Church
Why Home Church Part 3
This is part 3 of an article series on “Why Home Church.” Part 1 lays out the biblical precedent, part 2 identifies reasons why we do home church and part 3 will explain why we do not participate in institutionalized church. I’ve found that most people consider the default option to be the institutionalized church, thus if you choose otherwise, you must proceed with great caution.1 Therefore, going against the 21st century grain of institutionalized church causes more consternation for others than it does for me.
Nonetheless, I hope my opinions for not attending church receive less attention than my first two articles advocating for the positive reasons to attend home church. Again, I will reiterate that these are opinions, preferences, or even gripes. None of these excuses nor all of them combined are reasons to stay or leave a church. Let the Spirit guide you. A few more caveats and disclaimers: No church is perfect, I have been church hurt before; however, don’t use that as an excuse to dismiss valid arguments, what I describe isn’t reflective of every church, and of course your church is great… blah blah blah etc.
The claim I am making is this:
The Western-European institutionalized church’s purpose, worldview, and priorities are misaligned.
The institutionalized church is a current heading in the wrong direction. You can do things to slow the current down, you can even go against the current but ultimately it is still headed the wrong way. “Yet for all the church is doing in this area, the fact remains that in the end there is shockingly little difference between the world and the church.”2
We have chosen to leave that path and follow a completely different one.
I will discuss various aspect of the faith and church life to highlight the misaligned priorities of institutionalized church: discipleship, doctrine, disunity, church-centered mentality, church polity, church consumerism, shepherding difficulties, burn out, family ministry, membership, spiritual formation, church service flow, racial reconciliation, and community.
Discipleship
In the typical American church, discipleship often takes the form of structured classes, seminars, or Bible studies. While these forms of study are valuable, they can fall short of fostering the deep, transformative relationships that Jesus modeled with His disciples. I know many men who excel in attending all the church’s Bible studies and use many Christianese words yet their marriages are terrible.
We often judge a person’s walk by their attendance to church activities rather than the impact they are having on their kids or the community.
Attending a Sunday and Wednesday event at church is enough of a check-box for some to feel fulfilled in their commitment to church. However, “Discipleship is our journey with Jesus and those He loves. There is a sense of movement and community in this definition. The journey occurs in every moment and not just in one or two hours on Sunday morning or Wednesday night.”3
Jesus asked his disciples to follow him. Thus, ministry was experienced as they lived life together. The home church model opens up our most sacred and vulnerable spaces for discipleship through the ordinary of life. Therefore, home church is literally an invitation to experience ministry as we live life together.
Additionally, churches do not have a plan to equip families to disciple their kids. The following research from Barna are devastating numbers to a church’s claim that they are making disciples:
99% of pastors said parents should be the frontline of discipleship for their children
Only 20% have a plan for equipping parents
Only 10% have actual resources for parents
Despite 85% of parents saying they should be the frontline of discipleship for their kids, only 13% say their church leader has talked to them about discipling their kids.4
Doctrine
We’ve mistaken discipleship for learning knowledge. Therefore, learning knowledge about doctrines and systematic theology is often the focus of the sermons and small groups. The transformation of our heart towards one another, particularly towards the most vulnerable in the world, are hardly emphasized. Sermons cater to our hyper-individualism instead of deconstructing our American lifestyle.
The way of Jesus radically upends our way of thinking and living.
Protestantism breeds an environment that suggests we split over doctrine. Thus, our unity and worship depend on our knowledge. Therefore, everyone has their own ideas of who Jesus is and attend a church with people who conform to that imagination which has been handed down or created. Even worse, they start a new church in an already oversaturated churched area.
We avoid having a robust and diverse theology that sharpens us. We isolate and become exclusive based upon the interpretations of a few passages! “Besides the essentials of church, we have picked up many nonessentials over the centuries that have become standards. Only a few of these new “standards” are non-biblical; most are just extra-biblical. And anything extra can slow one down.”5 I think God is OK with the diversity of denominations but not the disunity. Most churches have the attitude that we are doing it right and everyone else is doing it wrong.
This creates an us versus them mentality.6 If Paul were to address a message today, to the churches of _____ city, as he did in the first century, would churches these days even share it with others in the area? Would some churches not participate because a certain church received the letter first? Although our disunity amongst denominations is a freedom, it is also a representation of Christ. I do not think our collective pettiness over many of our doctrinal differences are a witness to non-believers. Not only is there disunity theologically but also practically. There are multiple churches in the same area, who refuse to cooperate on the same needs-based ministry because of church politics and doctrine. I see this as unhealthy.
Paul suggested that we give up some of our freedoms so that we ‘may by every possible means save some’ and to share in each other’s blessings because of the gospel (1 Cor 9:22-23). We miss out on the opportunity to be sharpened by a unity, (although not easy) through diversity. This type of community is a necessary component of fellowship and Holy Spirit’s involvement.
Disunity
In the current church model, we segregate by race nationally and age internally. Ironically, some pastors will preach the need for diversity and authentic community, but we split up in church classrooms and small groups with people of the same demographic – young and professionals, empty nesters, youth, parents of small kids, etc. In what avenues do people integrate to learn from each other in church?
These segmented-programmatic ministries in church have had adverse affects on parents relegating their authority to ‘the professionals.’7 This form of ministry followed the ‘efficiency movement’ from business culture and was popularized in the church in the early 1900s. Thus, this way of ‘doing church’ is only 100 years old! We are seeing the fruitfulness of this model in America with an increasingly secularized nation, moral therapeutic deism in the church, and spiritual anemia in the home.
Old Wine Skins
Institutionalized church has a church-centered mentality in which the church is the epicenter of all ministry activity. Evangelism, counseling, children’s ministry, serving in the community, and church services become programs in which numbers in the building or at the event are the most important metric. This is a ‘come and see’ mentality. This is the way of the Old Testament, old wine skins (Mark 2:22). The Israelites were supposed to be a holy people in which the world would come and see the true God. They would be light to the world. Today, church’s programmatic structure emphasizes a ‘come and see’ mentality. Come to VBS, Sunday school, Wednesday night study, and make sure you get everyone here for Easter because of the big evangelism message the pastor is preparing. “The reality for many of our churches is that we are offering more programming, yet we are making fewer true disciples. Just because the seats are full, doesn’t mean disciples are being made.”8
Evangelism focused on a church building or church-run activity often encourages churches to spend more time making church less church.
Jesus’ modeled a ‘go and tell’ mentality, new wine skins (Mark 2:22). ‘Go and tell’ is the church’s Great Commission. We are the light going into the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Trinity, and teaching them to observe everything Jesus taught us. The congregation should be equipped for multiplication in their neighborhoods and beyond. The scriptures emphasize the church equipping the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4).
Church Polity
Institutionalized church polity often isolates leadership and is a breeding ground for many of the problems we see from church staffs today. The leadership has very little, if any, accountability. If they do, it is often from a small number of people hand selected by the leaders themselves.
Sometimes church leadership even creates a second membership criteria for themselves. Meaning, to be a member of the church you must adhere to a certain set of beliefs. However, to be in a leadership role, you must adhere to those plus a separate set of beliefs. I would caution against this separateness and potential for spiritual elitism. The implication is that the leadership are the only ones spiritual enough to make ecclesial decisions, leading to further isolation. When leaders become isolated, tragic things occur in the church.
Shepherding: The Congregation
In the New Testament, the church congregation had authority and responsibility. The church appointed its leaders (Acts 1, 6), commissioned missionaries (Acts 13), affirmed major theological decisions (Acts 15), and was the final decision-maker for church discipline (Mt 18). What responsibilities do pastors allow their congregations to have these days? Why is it like that?
The emphasis on polished worship services, dynamic speakers, and state-of-the-art facilities has created a culture where congregants come to be entertained rather than equipped. Attendees have become consumers rather than contributors. Unfortunately, many see evangelism as the leadership’s responsibility to reach the lost. Therefore, we do not have to evangelize, we can just bring them to church. We do not have a concept of missions in our neighborhood, but no worries because the church will send you with your age group overseas for a week.
The church caters to its consumers. Therefore, you must have a robust kids ministry, concert level music, and a charismatic speaker. Church staffs are held accountable on the number of programs and their numerical growth. The church tries to recreate spiritual experiences that entertain. Their primary purpose of fostering discipleship-making communities that deepen people’s relationship with each other and God gets sidelined. This ends up perpetuating a cycle in which people look for a church where others think and often look just like you. In most areas in life this is called a bubble. In the church it’s called righteousness.
The enemy has lulled the congregation to sleep with the focus on production quality, professional leadership, and spectator-driven experiences. We have inadvertently fostered passivity in congregations who spend their time judging whether the service was ‘moving.’ Too many people show up and expect to ‘get something out of church’ without putting in any work. There is very little concept of ‘what can I offer.’ The larger the church, the more prevalent this idea is.
This professionalization of ministry also creates a superficial dividing line between godliness and the world such that we are unable to perceive doing all things as unto the Lord. In other words, the unintended consequences of all these programs, ministry events, and human effort is a sleeping body of believers who have relegated all their attention of spiritual matters to the church. The purpose, worldview, and priorities of the church are misaligned.
Burn Out
The 80/20 rule applies: 20% do 80% of the work, burning out. Pastors plead with the uninvolved 80%. The 20% lack bandwidth for missional living because they’re propping up programs. Worse, they’re rarely discipled, now harming themselves and those they influence. If you live in a large enough city, you’ll end up just changing churches to the next popular in the area. Some choose not to return to church indefinitely.
The Church and Family
God has given us a spiritual responsibility first and foremost to our family. While this does not preclude a building church, the structure, pressure, and expression of institutionalized church can cause you to prioritize the spiritual development and ministry of church events over your children (Acts 2:36-39).9 “Few churches have a theology of family, and as a result, their evangelism and discipleship ministries are hindered. God created two institutions to build His Kingdom and advance His Gospel, the local church and the family. In many communities, the Great Commission is going full-tilt in the church building, and is barely on the radar screen for individuals and families in their neighborhoods.”10
The church has usurped jurisdictional authority that does not belong to them and the family has abdicated it. In the current model, discipleship is not the parents job, its for the ‘professionals.’11 The professional is often the youth minister with no life experience, no kids, and one who just graduated from seminary last year. Therefore, we don’t lead family devotionals because children’s church takes care of that. We don’t have neighborhood outreach events because we are too busy supporting church events.
The segregation of families from the spiritual discipleship of the their children has devastating consequences for everyone. In the current model, children are encouraged to obey the Bible but the youth pastor or volunteer is unable to enforce or hold that child accountable. Their ministry is confined to 120 hours a year. When the family is involved, they have 2000+ hours a year to disciple their children! We should focus on equipping parents and grandparents, which actually multiplies the pastor’s time and effectiveness. Unfortunately, much energy and effort is spent focusing on 1 hour of youth service and 1 hour of midweek youth activities. This impact often ends when that hour is over.
How can parents and grandparents impress upon the hearts of their children a love for God if the children never see them worship? The first commandment given for human relationship is honor your mother and father, also the first commandment with a promise (Eph 6:2-3). However, we spend the majority of our time separated from our children. Unfortunately, this occurs in the one institution in which we should see family as a priority and modeled.
Church Commercialization
Many churches operate like a business. “In America, a pastor is typically viewed as the lead vision-caster — a biblically glorified CEO of a corporation with a mission. But Ephesians 4:11 – 16 calls us to fight against the pressures of this world and the expectations of the “corporate” American church...”12 Church plants primarily talk money, logistics, and location. When a church goes to hire a senior pastor they enter into a search much like an executive search firm. This seems to imply that discipleship is failing at the church if there is not someone ready to step up into the role.
The commercialization of church has cooperated with the seeker-friendly church movement. This model is inspired by a mode of evangelism where buildings and events are the focus as opposed to individuals and families in their homes.13 Evangelism is focused on charisma and the senses, as opposed to character, relational-capital, and hospitality. Such building-event driven evangelistic efforts are monetized, systematized, and replicated as seen in the Second Great Awakening. The long-term fruitfulness of such impact is questionable.
Post-COVID, churches struggle to support local outreach because their own programs are dwindling.
Shepherds
In the institutionalized church, the leader’s primary functions in church are to run programs, preach the sermon, and facilitate the flow of ministries. These priorities will definitely facilitate entertainment and social gatherings but do they facilitate disciple-making?
Oftentimes, churches do not create conditions for their pastor to succeed. Likewise, the pastor cannot equate his relationship with God to their ministry with the church.14 The pastor must also disciple his family, and the church should set conditions for that to reoccur faithfully in every ministry season. There is a reason a pastor cannot shepherd the church until he demonstrates the ability to shepherd his home. This sets appropriate priorities for the partnership between church and family in family ministry (1 Tim 3:5; Tit 1:6). “The pastor who desires to lead a family-equipping church must sound a clear note in his own home that he understands it is not the church but parents—and fathers in particular—who are given the primary responsibility for calling the emerging generation to hope in God (Ps. 78:1–8).”15
Church Membership
Church membership is meaningless in most churches. Whether membership is or is not a big deal for you, pastors need to account for their congregation, the congregation must account for their pastor, and church discipline is a reality. How are these daily necessities exercised in an institutionalized church and does it come close to the descriptions in the scriptures?
If there is a church membership class, how is it setting up believers for the expectations of living the Christian life? In the early church, catechesis was up to three years long to prepare folks to join the body!16 The 1-2 hour membership class in most church organizations are a disservice.
Calling and Giftings
Service and spiritual gifts are cheapened to exclusively mean how can the system be upheld. In institutionalized church, exercising one's spiritual gift has more to do with 'what approach are we going to take to get people plugged in.' Helping people discern God's call on their life and how to exercise such is lost in the misalignment of institutional goals. Some people will have a specific calling; however, it is in the context of a intimate and communal body that gifts are recognized or rebuked. That becomes de-emphasized for a volunteerism that has more to do with placing cogs versus a communal discernment towards meeting material and spiritual needs.
On the contrary, in our hyper-individualized culture, many Christians find an identity and calling from some form of therapeutic deistic revelation. There is a lot of new-age and gnostic Christianity influencing today’s Christian worldview. This becomes the filter in which people base their decisions and treat others. Biblical revelation is downplayed for dreams, experiences, and feelings. There is a mentality such that, if the members of the body are offended, they just need to get over it because ‘that’s just who I am.’ The lack of communal input into spiritual giftings is alarming. Particularly when spiritual gifts are there to uplift the body!
It is my opinion that when it comes to affirming one’s calling, we spend a lot of time trying to find ourselves because we are not surrounded by a body of believers who can affirm our calling in Jesus. You cannot get to know someone on a Sunday after church is over and our small groups are shallow. The fellowship that Jesus calls us to, that the Holy Spirit designed (Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-35) is a more intimate, vulnerable, and present relationship with other persons. In these type of relationships, it is being revealed whom God has called you to be on the grounds that we know He established for us to learn such things.
Small-Churches
The cost-ineffectiveness of paying for a building that is only used once per week is disheartening.
Flow of Church Service
Since church is often a production, the emphasis is on the flow of the service rather than the connection of the people with the Lord and each other. Therefore, time is the major driver of the service and not the Holy Spirit nor the needs of the people. Church services must start on time and end on time. This is respectful to the American lifestyle because people have things to do. However, this is not conducive to worship.
This whole mindset is a product of a task-oriented society, with little attention spans, catering to folks who are ‘busy.’ Church is a check-in-the-box so we get to the things we really want to do… watch football, prep for the work week, run some errands, or maybe even rest. If you are not already at church serving, or rushing to get your kids in kids ministry, then hurry up and get your cup of coffee, exchange greetings with people you haven’t seen all week and won’t see next week. Soon they will start flickering the lights, closing the doors, and the cuing the live video for folks online (Why are we doing church online at all?). Is this restful for you?
Emphasis on Monologue
Many pastors enter the pastorate to teach the Bible because they love God’s Word and know the power it offers to change lives. Thus, some leaders will spend 20 hours a week preparing for a 45 minute sermon. If we evaluate your biblical command to shepherd the flock how much of the shepherding should be reliant upon preaching? Leaders should be modeling, educating and counseling folks towards biblical community. Biblical counseling, which is a form of discipleship, should be a top priority. This problem is institutionalized in the seminaries as well. Ask the seminary graduates how much time they spent learning and practicing biblical counseling at school. I’m assuming counseling was not a part of the core curriculum but available as extracurricular.
With the way sermon structures are set up, I have questions: Is the 30-45 minute monologue a good message or a sermon expositing the meaning from the author’s original intent? Is the message the pastor’s advice on good principles to live by or are they applying universal biblical principles from the text towards relevant topics in our lives today? Is attendance less because the main pastor isn’t preaching? How does the congregation interact with the Word of God? Does the congregation have any connection with their neighbor at all or is everyone’s attention on one person’s charisma and congeniality?
Deemphasis on Community
The size and structure of the church activities make vulnerability more difficult. It is impossible to complete the biblical idea of community without intimacy in the form of continuity, connection, and compassion. After the service, how long did it take the average person to get from the church doors to their car? Whatever the number is, is it conducive to fellowship, sharing and connection? Is Sunday actually rest for you? Or is it one more morning to rush breakfast, drive separate cars because one spouse is serving and then fake smiles after a long, hard week? Lastly, are we driving from our suburbs, where the schools districts are better, into a church in the heart of the city?
Racial Reconciliation
The church is hypocritical on race and has been apathetic to any Christ-like progression towards reconciliation or justice. A few churches see racial reconciliation as a priority while others do not even see it as an issue. Thus the body of believers are not united on a core issue of Jesus’ new kingdom (Eph 2, Gal 3) – a damning witness to the unchurched. the continued separation allows the sins of bitterness, negligence, malice, and racism to perpetuate. There needs to be an accountability to one another before God; however, we have chosen to dehumanize God’s people by ignoring or developing an indifference towards the other.
Conversely, some want to generalize the black church or black forms of worship as inauthentic, overly entertaining, low in theology, and easily succumb to prosperity gospel. On the other hand, if someone says let’s focus on ministry to the black community then their response is, “Why is everything about race? I don’t see color. I’m all about Jesus. Just the gospel!”
It gets worse. Some people will endorse missionaries or ministries that target specific demographics. For example, there is no problem planting a separate Hispanic service, even if its within a predominantly white church! If you want to start a Chinese church, no problem. However, if any person said they were called to minister to black Americans, there will be problems. We can study German church history, French theology, Puritan prayers, but if I suggest we incorporate black church history and theology, there is a problem! Double hypocrites!
Conclusion
A lack of awareness of church history leaves many ignorant of the robust opportunities for doing church, particularly since home church is in the minority for how most Western-Europeans do church. The historicity of the growth of Christianity may surprise you.
With that being said, most people who will want to push back need to realize that our point of contention is not of content but one of hermeneutics. We are both using the Bible for our convictions, however, we are likely using different starting points for biblical interpretation and thus will arrive at dissimilar end points. I say this so hopefully you can destress yourself about me not attending instituationalized church.
In a home church, the absence of institutional distractions allows us to focus wholeheartedly on the essentials of our faith and the group’s immediate needs. If we all show up to church off, we can pause, reflect, reconnect with each other and to the Lord. We believe the home church model better reflects this biblical paradigm. Home church, on the other hand, strips away the bells and whistles. There are no stage lights, no fog machines, and no professional worship teams. Instead, we gather in simplicity, focusing on God’s Word, prayer, and fellowship. This simplicity helps us cultivate a faith that is rooted in substance rather than spectacle. Home church creates an environment where authenticity is not only welcomed but expected. This openness fosters deeper relationships and allows the Holy Spirit to work in powerful ways, bringing healing, restoration, and growth. At “building church” - as our kids call it, you can come in late, hide in the back row, or visit a church for decades without any intimacy at all. Or you could simply be overlooked. At home church, everyone is a participant, and each person’s presence and voice matter. There is no 30-45 minute monologue. There is no concert level musical production. You do not come to home church to ‘get something out of church.’ You come to worship, to give and receive.
The default is a biblical church, so if you do otherwise you must be very careful.
Kostenberger, Andreas J.; Jones, David. God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation (Function). Chapter 1: The Current Cultural Crisis
Shirley, Chris. Family Ministry and The Church: A Leader's Guide for Ministry Through Families (p. 73). Randall House.
https://www.barna.com/research/children-faith-formation/
Fielding, Charles. Preach and Heal, A Biblical Model for Missions . International Mission Board, IMB. Chapter 5: Ingredients, Methods, And Products
“Whenever you believe that the evil outside you is greater than the evil inside you, a heartfelt pursuit of Christ will be replaced by a zealous fighting of the “evil” around you.” How People Change. New Growth Press. 10
“Worst of all, segmented-programmatic ministry works against the biblical expectation--an expectation that identifies parents as primary disciple makers in their children's lives.”16 Trained in the Fear of God : Family Ministry in Theological, Historical, and Practical Perspective. Kregel Publications, 2011. 208
Rienow, Rob. Visionary Church: How Your Church Can Strengthen Families. Randall House. 2
“Peter proclaimed the three-fold move of the Gospel communicated cover-to-cover in the Scriptures: You, your kids, and the world! First, God calls you to repent and trust Christ alone for salvation. Then God calls you to do all in your power to lead your children to do the same. Then, as you are seeking to disciple your children, God calls you and your children to share the gospel with all who are far off.” Rienow, Rob. Visionary Church: How Your Church Can Strengthen Families. Randall House. 230
Rienow, Rob. Visionary Church: How Your Church Can Strengthen Families. Randall House. 52
“Sadly, in many Christian homes, this platform of biblical training has been abdicated-- and, even worse, the church is segmented-programmatic practices of ministry have perpetuated this parental abdication by implying that the discipleship of children is a task for paid professionals.” Jones, Timothy P., and Randy Stinson. Trained in the Fear of God : Family Ministry in Theological, Historical, and Practical Perspective. Kregel Publications, 2011. 195
Kellemen, Bob. Biblical Counseling and the Church: God's Care Through God's People (Biblical Counseling Coalition. 23
“Just as church is not a place, neither is it an event. If you think of it as an event, the symptoms of that mistake will manifest themselves in the hiring of professional performers and the purchase of expensive production equipment. After all, we want our “church” to be something that will excite people, which would necessitate a full band, a great sound system, lights, choir, and a professional speaker. But look it up. Church is not an event.” Fielding, Charles. Preach and Heal, A Biblical Model for Missions. International Mission Board, IMB.
Hinkle, Joseph W., and Melva, Cook. How to Minister to Families in Your Church. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1978. 97
Stinson, Randy and Jones, Timothy Paul. Trained in the Fear of God: Family Ministry in Theological, Historical, and Practical Perspective. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2011. 173
“By the 3rd century at the latest, it was normal for two to three years to elapse before an initial inquirer into the gospel might eventually be admitted to the church by baptism. During this period, the catechumens received instruction in faith and morals and their manner of life was observed.” www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/Catechesis-instructing-candidates-for-baptism