People have kindly said,
“When you get a church, I’m coming,”
or “I’d love for you to be my pastor,”
and as someone who’s struggled with seeking affirmation my entire life, the offer is tempting.

But I refuse—because this is not church.

What we often think of as “church” isn’t the Church at all.
I’ve shared about the industrial church before, so I won’t rehash all of that here,
but what I hope to drive home is this:

The Church is Christ’s body—a complete man.

“till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;”
– Ephesians 4:13

But the industrial church is some sort of grotesque, eldritch creature.
Because it is preacher-“worship”-pastor-centric,
it’s become a big, monstrous mouth,
while the rest of the body is weak and atrophied to the point that it cannot function.
So, it just sits there and performs
while its members are dying on the vine.

The problem is, we keep looking for someone to follow—someone to represent us and do all our work.
But there’s more to church than a mouthpiece.
Our gifts, like salt, should bring out the gifts of others, not overpower them.

“No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.
And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor…”
– 1 Corinthians 12:22–23

I refuse a model where the members outsource their responsibility to function—
to seek, to study, to serve, and to grow—to a preacher.

Beware a “church” where you mostly go and stay in place,
where worship is reduced to music,
where service is relegated to projects,
and where the parts of the body only see and support each other on designated days of the week.
If your body was dismembered in that way, it would die.

Beloved, in Christ’s Church,
all the members function.
They support and edify each other DAILY
to the end of growth
until we, together, express the perfect man—Jesus Christ.

I confess that I’ve contributed to the problem
by allowing my hurt and insecurities to cause me to withdraw and to hide.

For all my passion, for all my critique,
I haven’t been as present as I should be.
I’ve stood outside the brokenness, pointing fingers,
when I should have been inside, bearing burdens and breaking bread.

I repent.

By God’s grace, I will fight—
past inconvenience,
past my own selfishness,
past hurt,
past the past,
past the very Gates of Hell over which Jesus gives us power—
toward communion with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I want to be the Body with you.
I want to know you, be known by you,
and grow with you until Christ is formed in us.
Not in performance, not in programs,
but in presence—
in our everyday obedience and mutual care in love.

I write this not to dwell on what we are not,
but so that we walk in what Christ says we already are—
established on the rock of the truth of who He is,
against which even the power of Hell cannot prevail.

Let’s be that Church. Together.