So I fully understand how bright-eyed young men (and an increasing number of young women) go off to seminaries and Bible colleges, study the art of preaching—including both the preparation and delivery of sermons—and take up posts in churches throughout the world to begin their careers as what really amounts to professional Christian speech-writing. Admittedly, while many may prefer the pastoral elements of the job—visiting the sick, comforting the elderly, and counseling—everyone understands the importance of the Sunday sermon. When a “local church” considers calling someone to fill a vacancy as senior pastor, the search committee spends a lot of time listening to sermons, visiting a worship service to hear the prospective pastor preaching in his own pulpit, and then inviting him to “preach in view of a call” if they like what they hear. At least that’s how we do it in Southern Baptist life.

Here’s what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christ-followers who lived in Ephesus:

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. [Eph. 4:11–13, New Living Translation]

There’s no way to ignore this passage of Scripture. God has graced some believers with amazing insights, patience, communication skills, effective persuasion abilities, powers of logic, and penetrating intuition to be employed in their interaction with fellow Christians. Many of us have been taught that this “five-fold ministry” of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers is essential to the wider body of Christ; although many ultra-conservative evangelicals would say that apostles and prophets have passed off the scene and, honestly, they really don’t know what to do with evangelists except invite them around once a year for a four-day “revival meeting” to blast some of the barnacles off the old Gospel ship being piloted exclusively by the pastor-teachers.

Amazing, isn’t it? Jesus lavishly provides five unique gifts for His bride, described here by Paul as “the body of Christ” and what do we do with them? We ignore two gifts altogether, put the third one outside the mainstream church, and we compress the last two into one super-hired-holy-man that we proudly refer to as the “senior pastor” or “the preacher” (say that with a Southern drawl) if you live in the southeastern United States. Instead of viewing them as gifts to the entire body, we have invented special “offices” or “holy orders” or a “calling to full-time ministry” and created career paths complete with salaries and benefit packages and manses/parsonages with neatly manicured lawns.

Paul outlines both the responsibilities and the duration of these multi-faceted gifts to the body of Christ: (1) to equip and build up those who belong to Jesus, and (2) to do so until every believer reaches the standard of unity and maturity that reflects Christ in His fullness. Is there anything in the Ephesians 4 passage that limits these wonderful gifts to one particular group of people? Yet the institutional nature of what we often call “local churches” requires a stifling corporate structure that puts one church in competition with another church in the same community. We no longer view “the body of Christ” as I believe Jesus intended, or even as the Apostle Paul wrote about. We have embraced a historical model of “church” that we unconsciously force upon every passage of Scripture where the word “church” or “body of Christ” appears.

What would happen if every 501(c)3 non-profit corporation (in the USA) or every registered charity (in Britain) or whatever-it’s-called (anywhere else) with the name “church” in its legal description ceased to exist? The pastors and staff of those organizations could get regular jobs like everyone else, blend into the landscape of their local communities, and begin exercising their Spirit-bestowed gifts in the lives of every believer God brings across their path, assuming (of course) that they truly were Christ’s gifts to His body. No more jockeying for power, prestige, recognition, and status…just the free-flowing influence that builds up, encourages, equips, unifies, strengthens, and matures the entire body of Christ in a given community. Unfortunately, I’m afraid we’ll never see it happen, because “there’s too much money in the soul-saving business” according to one disillusioned facebook acquaintance of mine.

So what about the question, “Don’t we need pastors to equip the saints?” The answer is “Yes! We need every single gift that the Lord Jesus has given us as members of His body.” But never assume that someone with “Reverend” or “Pastor” or “Elder” in front of their name is one of those gifts, because you don’t become an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher by going to Bible college or seminary. The Head of the church, through the work of the Holy Spirit, implants those gifts as He wills in the hearts of His people, wherever they are needed and without fanfare being made over them. They just are! And none need the approval, or credentials, or ordination of man-made religious institutions…they simply function in the gifts God has given them in the strategic places where they already live and serve their King.

This opens up a whole new perspective for me. I once looked with pity upon my “lost” neighbors as I would drive past them on the way to Sunday meetings at my “local church.” If they knew the truth about the fires of hell, they would change their self-indulgent ways, find their place in the nearest evangelical pew, and get their heaping share of guilt and manipulation every week like the rest of us. Well, that’s how I used to think. Now I look with pity upon my evangelical neighbors who go through the Sunday morning ritual when they could be sleeping in, or enjoying time in their flower gardens, or taking their kids to the lake.

You see, we gave up Christmas and Easter about twenty years ago; at least, trying to celebrate these two holidays as “holy days” or Christian festivals. Our family enjoys the secular aspects of Christmas and Easter—like trimming the tree and the house, stockings on the mantle, chocolate bunnies, malted milk balls, and Easter egg hunts for the kids—but we quit celebrating the manger scene and the empty tomb once a year. Mixing the secular and the sacred just didn’t work for us; besides, we couldn’t find any commands or examples in the New Testament where the early church established and observed these annual festivals. Instead, we try to express our wonder and thanksgiving at these two realities, the humility of Christ’s incarnation and the glory of His resurrection, every day of our lives.

It felt good knowing it would be my last Easter service in the institutional church (IC), because I’m only a few weeks away from leaving it all behind. By the first of June, I will be truly “churchless.” I’m just hoping that I can be a voice, perhaps even a friend, to those who are bailing out of the institutional church. Not that I have all the answers to a life outside institutional religion, but just to say “It’s okay to walk with Jesus and others outside the box,” and “It’s going to be alright, even though others may not understand our decision.”

Several people told me after yesterday’s service that it was a meaningful time for them, especially the Lord’s Supper, where I explained the difference between a memorial remembrance of Jesus’ death and a mystical sacrament with meritorious grace being transferred to the participant. I read from 1 Corinthians where Paul warns of partaking of the elements of the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner, yet recognizing that there’s a huge difference between that and feeling unworthy to come to the table. The Lord’s Supper is for the very worst of us because it reminds us that our salvation does not rest upon what we have done, but what He has done for us. Like the old hymn, “nothing in my hands I bring; simply to the cross I cling.”

Dressing only in our best on Sunday mornings is not a big deal. But it is symptomatic of a problem that is a big deal. People bring to church too often only their nice selves, attractive selves, dressed up selves. Leaving our real selves, the selves our families see, at home and bringing only our dressy selves to church risks turning church into two hours of “impression management.”

When you look at church in terms of a presentation of self and impression management, you see a frightening resemblance with stage show business. All the elements are there: costumes, a master of ceremonies, makeup, a script, a stage, ushers, music, a chorus, an audience, props, lighting, and programs. The only differences are occasional audience participation and the lack of tickets and popcorn!

But church is not a show. Church is not a place for actors and actresses. Church is community. We shouldn’t have to dress up for each other, either literally or figuratively. We should leave impression management at our jobs. At church we should be at home. Church should be a place where our authentic selves, feeling accepted, can relax.

—From Going to the Root: Nine Proposals for Radical Church Renewal (available from Searching Together in the U.S.A. and Eden in the U.K.)