“What do you mean by church?”
The question was not asked out of curiosity, but challenge. I was in a room full of church leaders presenting church as movement.
I answered his challenge with a counter challenge.
“If this room full of church leaders can agree on the definition of a local church, I will tell you mine! When can a group be called a church?”
As I predicted, they could not agree. The reason is simple. We have loaded a ton of extra-biblical requirements onto our churches. We obsess with imposing “the correct” form, shape, management and leadership structure. We try to shape churches after our own traditions rather than asking, “How does Scripture describe church?”
Ecclesiology can be defined as “theology applied to the nature and structure of the Christian Church.” Most conversations about ecclesiology start with form.
- What does a church look like?
- When is a group a legitimate church?
- How is this structured?
- Who leads?
- Does it have a pulpit or building?
- Is there a band?
- When does it meet?
- What happens on Sundays?
- Must it have elders
…and many more.
These questions begin at the wrong place.
Jesus did not come to establish a religious institution with predictable programming. He initiated a Kingdom movement, a living Body, a dynamic Spirit-empowered people flowing with His life and mission.
When we fixate on form, we miss the point.
We ask the wrong questions.
We lock the church into static containers.
We preserve the wineskin and lose the wine.
The New Testament Ecclesia is not primarily a structure. It’s a people caught up in the flow of Divine life. An extended community rooted in the King, moving with the Spirit, grounded in love and multiplying new disciples.
The Church is more flow than form. More rhythm than structure.
The Church is…
- A people gathered and sent
- A relational, networked community where Jesus is Head and every part of the body plays a role
- A Spirit-led movement that emerges in new and different forms depending on context, culture, and need
- A community in motion, joining Jesus in His redemptive mission
Consider the following contrast…
| Form-Based Ecclesiology | Flow-Based Ecclesiology |
| Focuses on structure and events | Focuses on relationships and rhythms |
| Prioritizes programs and leadership roles | Prioritizes presence, obedience, and individual gifting |
| Measures attendance and budgets | Measures fruitfulness and multiplication |
| Static. Tries to preserve | Dynamic. Ready to adapt and multiply |
| Hierarchical control | Distributed leadership that empowers others |
I challenge you to read the book of Acts and try to find a standardized church model. Try to find a prescribed form for what church should look like. You won’t. Not without making assumptions or imposing ideas onto the text.
What you will see instead is flow. You will see the Spirit moving, disciples going out and adapting as they enter different contexts and church emerging in different spaces. Leadership arises organically but intentionally. The Gospel spreads relationally through natural social networks.
Paul never planted a “model.” He embedded a way of life into a growing network of people (we often do not know if this is a single or multiple communities across the city). And then he moved on.
Always dynamic.
Never static.
In a complex, fast-changing world, the church must rediscover her identity as a movement. This has never been truer than this moment in history. We find ourselves in a world where rapid adaptation has become the core survival skill. This means we cannot continue to manage the church as an institution. We must learn to release her as a movement.
When ecclesiology is seen as flow, we stop idolizing our man-made traditions and start listening to God in the present. We empower ordinary people to be church. We prioritize adaptability over stability and mission over maintenance.
The world doesn’t need more forms. It needs more movements of faithful Jesus-followers. Movements of people flowing with His Spirit, bringing healing and transformation to their cities.
Let’s obsess less over form.
And return to church as a flow of life.
One Response
Aptly spoken at a time when many of us in the world of DMM are asking when does my ‘group’ become a church, is my ‘team’ a church and ‘what is church’ as we seek to make disciples in this messy broken world. I like the concept of ‘flowing.’ Thanks for the encouragement.