If You’re a Pastor and You Truly Want a Real Church

Let's grab a cup of coffee and let’s have a hard discussion.

There are two kinds of churches in our generation.

The first kind runs on a stage, a pulpit, and a personality. It delivers religious content to passive listeners and calls that “discipleship.” It trains people to consume, not to grow. It confuses influence with fruit and metrics with maturity.

The second kind barely exists right now. You catch glimpses of it in Acts. You see it in Paul’s letters. You see it in the prophets when God rebukes shepherds who feed themselves instead of the flock (Ezekiel 34; Jeremiah 23). You see it in Yeshua, who kneels with a towel instead of demanding a platform (John 13:3–15; Mark 10:42–45).

From a biblical perspective, those two cannot coexist.

The Night The Pulpit Exposed The System

I still remember the night I taught as a guest speaker.

They rolled a pulpit to the center of the stage like a small wooden throne. The lights shifted, worship ended, the room took that familiar posture of “Now the holy man talks and we listen.”

One of the leaders gestured to the pulpit.

“Here you go.”

I smiled and said, “No thanks. I’m just one of you.”

I pulled a chair to the front and sat at eye level with everyone else.

Something broke in the room. In a good way.

People leaned forward. The tension dropped. I was not “up there” and they were not “down here.” I was a brother opening the Scriptures with other brothers and sisters.

At the end, there was a standing ovation. Not because the teaching was polished, but because the hierarchy had been interrupted for one simple evening.

The lesson that landed on me afterward was not flattering to the system.

Most believers know, instinctively, that something about the modern setup is off. They feel the distance. They feel the show. They feel the power imbalance. They may not have the vocabulary for it, but their spirit recognizes the difference between family and an audience.

The pulpits go right back to the center the next week.

The system reenacts itself.

What COVID Accidentally Revealed About Hunger

During COVID, I watched two churches in the Phoenix market very closely.

One was Reformed. One was not.

They disagreed on a lot of theology. But when the shutdowns came, they made the same basic decision: they kept gathering. They did not bow to the mandates. They did not force masks. They treated their people like adults.

Here is what happened in both places:

• One service became two.

• Two became four.

• Both outgrew their buildings.

• Both moved locations.

• Both exploded numerically.

Their doctrinal systems were not identical. In my view, both still miss major biblical pieces. That is a separate issue.

The point is simple.

They chose conviction over compliance.

They modeled courage instead of outsourcing everything to Caesar.

They acted like shepherds, not event planners.

People came.

Why? Because despite what the church growth industry says, people have a deep hunger for what is real. They are not as fragile as pastors are told in leadership books. They are weary of being “handled.” Deep down, they are sick of spiritual entertainment and desperate for substance, honesty, and courage.

When leaders actually lead, the sheep recognize it (John 10:4).

The Psychology Underneath “Church As Show”

We can spiritualize this, but let’s talk psychology for a moment.

Most churches are caught in a co-dependent system where:

• The pastor needs to feel indispensable.

• The people need someone “above” them so they do not have to carry responsibility.

• The institution needs predictable giving and low conflict.

So the structure evolves into something that protects those needs.

The pulpit becomes a symbol of control and certainty:

• The man up front is the one who “knows.”

• The congregation’s job is to agree, feel fed, and come back.

• Questions might be allowed as long as they do not threaten the core script.

It feels safe, but it breeds a quiet sickness.

For pastors, it produces:

• Identity fused with platform.

• Chronic anxiety over attendance, giving, and public opinion.

• A reflex to avoid topics that might disrupt the system.

For the people, it produces:

• Learned helplessness. “I cannot understand Scripture without an expert.”

• Spiritual consumerism. “Feed me or I will find a better restaurant.”

• Fear of being wrong, which leads to clinging to a tribe instead of clinging to truth.

Over time, this creates a body where “from Him the whole body” is supposed to grow together (Ephesians 4:15–16), but instead it all funnels through one man’s microphone.

That is not how the New Covenant describes the body of Messiah:

• Many members, one body (1 Corinthians 12:12–27).

• Every joint supplying, each part doing its work (Ephesians 4:16).

• Leaders equipping the saints for the work of ministry, not performing ministry while the saints watch (Ephesians 4:11–12).

Psychologically, the system trains people to stay immature. Theologically, it denies what the Scriptures say the body is supposed to be.

Stop Telling Them What To Think. Start Training Them How To Study.

If I walk into your congregation and the people cannot open the text, read in context, and challenge you if you twist something, you have not discipled them. You have domesticated them.

Imagine this shift.

Instead of using your main gathering to transfer your conclusions, you use it to train people how to think biblically.

• Less “Here is my take on Romans today.”

• More “Here is how you test any teaching against Romans. Including mine.”

What if the rhythm of a week looked more like this?

On the day you gather:

• Slow, unhuried fellowship (Hebrews 10:24–25).

• Households actually knowing each other, not just recognizing faces.

• Shared meals where people look each other in the eye and talk about real life (Acts 2:42, 46).

• Shorter, focused teaching that pushes people back into the text rather than locking them into your system.

During the week:

• Classes on how to read Scripture in context.

• Workshops on basic tools: concordances, interlinear texts, biblical languages at a lay level, testing translations.

• Sessions on how to lead your own family in the Word (Deuteronomy 6:4–7), not just how to invite them to church.

• Practicals on how to examine everything and hold fast to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

That is what equipping looks like.

If your people always need your explanation and never grow in their own discernment, you have built dependence, not discipleship. The Spirit within them is meant to guide into truth, not just the man on the platform (1 John 2:27; John 16:13).

Elders Under The People, Not Over Them

The way many churches talk about “elders” is almost unrecognizable compared to the New Testament.

In a lot of places, elders function like a spiritual board of directors who protect the institution, manage the pastor, and approve budgets. They often live far above the life of the people they supposedly shepherd.

Peter describes something else entirely:

• Shepherd the flock of God that is among you.

• Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples (1 Peter 5:2–3).

“Among you,” not “over you in a conference room.”

What if eldering looked like this instead:

• Elders take responsibility for a neighborhood, a zip code, or a block.

• They know the names, faces, and stories of the people in that area.

• They show up during the week without a microphone.

• They visit the sick (James 5:14).

• They help reconcile conflicts.

• They connect need with resource: food, rides, childcare, cleaning, prayer.

The psychology changes overnight.

• Elders become servants, not celebrities.

• Authority flows from proximity and faithfulness, not from a title.

• The flock learns to see leadership as a gift that lifts them up, not a platform that presses them down.

Your best Bible teacher might be in the third row, unnoticed. Your most faithful intercessor may be the quiet woman who never speaks in public. Your most gifted evangelist may work on cars all week and think he has nothing to offer.

If everything is centered on a stage, you will never find them.

If everything is centered on a family walking together, you will not be able to miss them.

What Revival Would Actually Look Like

We throw the word “revival” around as if it is a special mood with fog machines and an extended bridge on the fourth worship song.

Biblically and psychologically, real revival would look far less glamorous and far more disruptive.

• Pastors repenting for building brands instead of bodies.

• Leaders willingly stepping out of the spotlight so others can step into their callings.

• Congregations repenting for treating church like entertainment and returning to covenant loyalty, obedience, and actual fellowship (Acts 2:42–47).

• People selling their pet systems and returning to the text with fear of God and love for truth.

If even one local body in a city truly committed to this, I believe the consequences would be immediate and undeniable.

• No manipulation.

• No church growth gimmicks.

• No spiritualized marketing strategies.

Just a community that:

• Loves the God of Israel with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

• Loves one another in costly, practical ways (John 13:34–35; 1 John 3:16–18).

• Studies the Scriptures deeply and obeys what they see (James 1:22–25).

• Allows no man, no system, and no pulpit to take the place that belongs to Messiah alone (Matthew 23:8–12).

Those doors would not hold the people.

Not because the show is good, but because the life is real.

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A Blunt Word To “Pastors”

If you are a pastor, here is my direct counsel.

Take your seminary degree. Be thankful for what was good in it. Then put it in a drawer and stop letting it define you.

Not because learning is bad, but because the formation that taught you to:

• protect your status,

• avoid conflict to keep donors happy,

• manage church as a product,

• and measure obedience by attendance and offerings

has nothing to do with Yeshua kneeling with a towel.

Read Ezekiel 34 slowly. Read Jeremiah 23. Read John 10. Let them interrogate you.

Then:

• Put your boots on.

• Get out of your office.

• Walk the neighborhoods where your people live.

• Sit at their tables.

• Listen to the stories they do not tell you in the lobby.

Start teaching them how to handle the Word themselves (2 Timothy 2:15). Cheer when they outgrow you. Praise God when they push back on you from Scripture. Equip them to test your teaching by the text, not just repeat it.

If that feels like a threat, be honest about that before God.

If that feels like relief, lean into it.

From a biblical perspective, your job is not to stand above the flock as the main event.

Your job is to equip the saints so thoroughly that if you disappeared tomorrow, the body would keep functioning, loving, studying, and obeying without missing a beat.

That is the kind of church the gates of hades cannot handle

(Matthew 16:18).

If You Actually Want This

I am not writing this because I despise the Church. I love the people of God. I have also watched, up close, how man-made systems grind their faith into dust while telling them they are being “fed.”

So here it is, on the table:

If you are a leader who actually wants to turn your congregation from an audience into a body, from a show into a family, from dependence into maturity, I am available to help.

Not to build a brand for you.

To help you dismantle what is false and strengthen what is real.

What you do with this is on you.

May the shalom of our Abba guard you

shalom v’shalvah.

Your brother in the Way,

Sergio.

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© Sergio DeSoto /sergiodesoto.com. All rights reserved.

This is original, protected work. Pastors and teachers: please do not lift or republish this content as your own. If you share or preach from it, simply credit the source and author. Integrity begins in the pulpit.

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