I’ve seen several posts lately about the need for Christians to be physically present at church. Hebrews 10:25 is often quoted, and sometimes used to claim a command from the Bible to meet together physically. Here’s the thing, why are we meeting together? Sit and consider this question carefully while I continue.
The first century local churches looked nothing like the churches of today. They far more resembled monastic or religious communities with both celibate and married members. They had no designated church buildings. They sold all their property and contributed everything into a common purse to be distributed to the whole community as anyone had need. They didn’t just come together for an hour on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. They lived together or in close proximity, worked together, and were in community together seven days a week.
Every member of the local community of “followers of the Way” had been initiated through baptism and the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit. Every member of the community had made the commitment to leave everything behind which obstructed their submission and surrender to the Spirit of Christ. Every member of the community knew what it meant to be a disciple, and that they were expected to live their lives as Jesus Christ taught, and expected to walk as He walked. Even into the mid second century, it was understood that some one of their number found not living as Jesus Christ taught was no longer considered one of them, even if he was saying and professing the things Jesus taught. It didn’t matter what he said he believed, what counted as him being a Christian was whether or not Jesus Christ could be seen in how he behaved, reacted, and lived.
This is the “church environment” within which the admonition to not forsake being gathered together was given by the author of Hebrews. It wasn’t about coming together once a week to sing worship songs and listen to a sermon. It was about being in continuous community with fellow disciples who had themselves given up everything to follow Jesus Christ. Given this model, the only “Christians” that have obeyed that admonition consistently are those in religious communities like the Jesuits or the Franciscans.
So, back to my question, why are modern churches meeting together in the way that they are? Are they always made up of disciples who have left everything behind to follow Jesus Christ? The community of disciples of Jesus Christ should be a gathering of brothers and sisters where one can share anything with the other without fear. Where each person understands that discipleship means the imitation of Jesus Christ in His submission and surrender to the Father, and engages to do that with every word, thought, and action, forgiving one another and confessing their mistakes in order to stay on the path.
Now look at the modern churches. Is this what you see? Maybe for a very few this is their experience, but from my observation, this is not the experience of the majority of people. For the majority of people, the modern local churches are places where they feel judged, stressed, frequently unwelcome because of internal “cliques,” and constantly asked for money with some churches. They’re expected to believe and support a list of doctrines that they don’t understand, and no one else seems to either, and are told they should question anything they’re being told, or made to feel guilty, ashamed, or dumb if they do. At times they’re bullied by church leadership, abused, and told to say nothing about these abuses. They’re expected to endure all of this, told to be joyful about it, and told that they’ll burn in hell if they leave. This is experienced to varying degrees. Some churches are better, some are far worse, but virtually all fail at the express reason for their existence, making genuine disciples of Jesus Christ and creating a community where Jesus Christ is experienced through every member.
Attending “church” as it is today, and going through religious rituals is not discipleship. Just being a part of a “Christian church” does not make you a disciple. Sitting in a pew, singing songs, listening to a sermon, going to Bible study—all of these are good things to do if they are used as aids in advancing one’s discipleship, but they are not discipleship themselves. No one can be a disciple for you. No one can live as Jesus taught for you.
Discipleship is an individual commitment. It’s something you have to do internally yourself whether you’re alone in a monk’s cell or living in the middle of a hundred people. You either internally enslave yourself to the Spirit of Christ, offering the parts of your body to His use, or you internally enslave yourself to your own malfunctioning flesh. There is no middle ground. Either one lives or the other, but not both. Either the Spirit of Christ is engaged and active, or it’s your own flesh, your own malfunctioning neurology which is engaged and active. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means individually and personally choosing to disengage from your own malfunctioning flesh and enslaving yourself to the Spirit of Christ so that it is He, Jesus Christ, who acts and speaks through you, using the members of your own body as His own: your mouth, your hands, your brain, your legs, your ears, everything is offered up for His use so that you are no longer alive, but Jesus Christ is alive within you, as Paul wrote. Just as He submitted Himself to the Father with whom He is one, so His disciple submits himself or herself to the Spirit of Christ with whom they are joined.
Discipleship can be aided by being around other disciples, but it cannot be dependent on it. It can be a great help to have others surrendered to Christ to be in community with, but the lack of such a community should make no difference to one’s personal practice of submission and surrender. Look at Jesus Himself who, all of His life, was in submission to the Father, and yet was without brothers and sisters like Himself until after the resurrection and after Pentecost.
Discipleship isn’t a theology to be defended, but a practice and a life to be lived. Discipleship assumes regular and increasing experience and interaction with God through Jesus Christ. It assumes an active relationship that is built on both give and take, and not doctrinal or theological structures which requires certain interpretations of the Scriptures. The mark of a disciple of Jesus Christ is the love of God flowing through that person to all others around them. As John wrote, “The person not loving hasn’t know God, because God is love.”
But above all, genuine discipleship cannot be shifted or moved because of a loss of physical Sunday services. It cannot be collapsed by the disproving of a theological position. A genuine disciple of Jesus Christ is a disciple whether it is just him or her and Christ, or whether it is him or her, Christ, and hundreds of other brothers and sisters who have the same mind and practice. The key to genuine discipleship is not a “good church” or the “right theology.” The key to genuine discipleship is asking Jesus Christ to act and speak through you, to love all others through you, to surrender yourself to Him for Him to do it, and to leave off taking back control from Him; agreeing with Him when you screw up and turning around to follow Him once again. It is a decision you make, and you keep making every day, every moment, that you are not going to be the one to act or react, but that Jesus Christ is going to be the one to act and react through you.
It is this personal, individual discipleship which matters first and foremost in our lives whether or not a person physically shows up on Sunday mornings.
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