Rediscovering the New Testament church—and imagining what might happen if we lived it.
A nine-part series
Part 1: What If We Started the Church Over?
What would the church look like if we ignored everything we’ve inherited and started with nothing but the New Testament?
What if we could start a church tomorrow?
No building. No denomination. No worship team. No senior pastor. No church constitution. No inherited traditions.
What if our only source of instruction was the New Testament?
Where would we begin?
I suspect we’d begin by asking a question that seems almost too obvious: What is the church?
Modern Christianity has developed an enormous collection of institutions, programs, buildings, leadership structures, and traditions. Many of them serve useful purposes. But somewhere along the way, it’s easy to confuse the organization with the thing it was created to serve.
The New Testament presents a different picture.
The church is described as a body, a family, a household, and a community of believers. It’s not primarily a place people attend. It’s a people who belong to Christ and to one another.
Acts 2:42-47 gives us a glimpse of the earliest Christian community. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. They shared their lives, cared for one another, and gathered regularly.
Notice what made them a church.
It wasn’t a building. It wasn’t a professional staff. It wasn’t a polished Sunday morning production.
It was their shared commitment to Jesus and to one another.
If we started over, perhaps our first priority wouldn’t be designing a service or finding a location. Perhaps we’d start by developing a community of people who genuinely want to follow Jesus together.
That raises some interesting questions.
What would leadership look like? How would people gather? Who would teach? How would we care for one another? What would happen to the traditions we’ve come to consider essential?
Those are the questions this series explores.
Perhaps starting over doesn’t mean inventing something new. Perhaps it means rediscovering something we’ve overlooked.
Scripture to explore: Acts 2:42-47; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.
