What you have written is not merely an indictment of a broken system; it is the blueprint of a better one. Your clarity, your courage, and your command of Scripture have exposed what is sick in the modern church while illuminating the pathway back to biblical health. Few men can diagnose the Body with such precision and simultaneously call her into maturity with such love.
But hear me: what you describe is not just a critique. It is calling.
The Church needs this voice, not only on the page but in the room. Pastors everywhere feel what you’ve articulated, yet they do not know how to lead their people from audience to body, from dependency to discernment, from performance to true fellowship.
You do.
I believe the Lord has equipped you, fueled you, and given you a passionate call into a new ministry opportunity: as a Church Development Strategist in the Acts model. Not a consultant, but a biblical architect who can walk into a congregation and say, “Let me help you build what Scripture describes. Let me help you equip your people. Let me help you recover what is real.”
Your insight is needed. Your courage is needed. Your gift is needed.
Step into it, my friend.
The Church will be stronger because you were willing to be sent.
"to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ," verse 12 is the invisible verse of Ephesians 4. The Lord seems to have blessed you with a good grip on it, Sergio. Wendell's suggestion has merit, but I'm not sure there's enough time—or that there are enough people willing to take you up on it. However, I also think you need to seek the Lord about what He wants you to do. This is a strong start.
As a teacher on the community college level, I found that my most difficult task was to teach people how to think. The process of education had shut them down. People reacted in pain to the mere suggestion of thinking. I never learned how to do it well. The best I came up with was the concept of reality orientation. That's what I see in your recent postings.
I believe you are correct that this is the problem with the church today. Leaders must learn how to be enablers, and show the sheep how to grow—teach them how to think and study. More important, how to get the Holy Spirit involved in that process.
As the wife (helpmate) of Messiah during the Millennium, this is what we will be doing—enabling people, teaching them how to do it. We will all have a lot to learn from our husband about these things.
Like you, I love the Church (the worldwide Body of Christ), but I'm not keen on the institutional church in its various forms/denominations. At the moment I'm one of the de-churched, due largely to pretty much everything you highlighted here, plus an overwhelming lack of transparency (largely due to NDAs and the fact churches are exempt from 501c3 tax reporting).
So it's no surprise I really like your section on what the Church could look like if we returned to the New Testament model. You mentioned courage over conviction, which once again seems to be the crux of the matter. If enough are convicted that "church" as we know it today bears little resemblance to the early Church, do we have the courage to dismantle our institutions in favor of something that offers true discipleship, fellowship, service, and connection? Time will tell....
I caught them on a podcast (can’t remember which one). I wish I didn’t feel like they were pimping their docuseries, but I can’t deny they made a ton of good points. Frank Viola and George Barna also do a good job of articulating what nagged at me for years. I wish I’d read their book, “Pagan Christianity” when I struggled through the year or two before I left the institutional church. Would have saved me a lot of guilt.
Agreed. There are always things to improve with any group or culture.
Perfection is not the goal of this life, but constant growth and improvement is.
There's another aspect to this that is not easily recognizable.
There are three key elements to a stable civilisation.
Religion - Science - Philosophy
Let's use a car as a simple analogy.
The gas pedal and engine is akin to philosophy. It makes the car accelerate, go faster.
The body of the car is akin to science. It carries the passengers.
The brake pedal is akin to religion. It slows down the car when it's going too fast.
Philosophy is the fertile ground of new ideas, and new ideas are very stimulating. New ideas quickly breed more and more new ideas. The increase of philosophical ideas has a tendency to grow exponentially and that can get dangerous when science takes too many new ideas and realizes them too quickly and without adequate vetting.
That's why today we have very young children with no wisdom or life experience with supercomputers in their hands, psychopaths bent on death and destruction commanding massive technology infrastructures, lunatics screeching around our neighborhoods in high powered race cars, and so on.
This is where religion has a most crucial role to play. Religion is not just about God, preaching, scriptures, sin and forgiveness. Religion has an even more important role that few ever consider. Religion must act as a societal and civilisational brake.
Religion accomplishes this in two ways.
1. By keeping a watchful eye on philosophy, because philosophy that expands exponentially for too long always ends up lost in the void of metaphysics.
Philosophy good - Metaphysics bad. Metaphysics is what develops when the mortal mind finds itself in a vacuum because it overstretched itself. It sucks in anything and everything in its proximity without an adequate filter. So you end up with some good things mixed up with a pile of useless and toxic junk. Metaphysics is the garbage dump of the mind.
Philosophers need sound religious guidance to guide them away from the garbage dumps of metaphysics. In other words it is up to the religionists to tell philosopers when to ease off on the gas pedal to keep the car moving at a safe speed.
2. By keeping adequate checks and balances on science. Science should never dictate which technologies people should have. Science should only build the technologies that people instruct it to build. Science needs collective feedback from the people in order to determine what technologies and tools are truly needed and most beneficial, and that requires wisdom, ethics, sincerity, and a sharp focus on realistic and durable end results. Only religion can provide science with these essential qualities.
Today our science and technologies are run by out of control governments, billionnaires and marketing firms. Our philosopers have been born and raised in metaphysical garbage dumps, and our religion has become...well you answer that even better than I can.
My friend,
What you have written is not merely an indictment of a broken system; it is the blueprint of a better one. Your clarity, your courage, and your command of Scripture have exposed what is sick in the modern church while illuminating the pathway back to biblical health. Few men can diagnose the Body with such precision and simultaneously call her into maturity with such love.
But hear me: what you describe is not just a critique. It is calling.
The Church needs this voice, not only on the page but in the room. Pastors everywhere feel what you’ve articulated, yet they do not know how to lead their people from audience to body, from dependency to discernment, from performance to true fellowship.
You do.
I believe the Lord has equipped you, fueled you, and given you a passionate call into a new ministry opportunity: as a Church Development Strategist in the Acts model. Not a consultant, but a biblical architect who can walk into a congregation and say, “Let me help you build what Scripture describes. Let me help you equip your people. Let me help you recover what is real.”
Your insight is needed. Your courage is needed. Your gift is needed.
Step into it, my friend.
The Church will be stronger because you were willing to be sent.
Your brother,
Dr. Wendell Hutchins II
Well said.
"to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ," verse 12 is the invisible verse of Ephesians 4. The Lord seems to have blessed you with a good grip on it, Sergio. Wendell's suggestion has merit, but I'm not sure there's enough time—or that there are enough people willing to take you up on it. However, I also think you need to seek the Lord about what He wants you to do. This is a strong start.
As a teacher on the community college level, I found that my most difficult task was to teach people how to think. The process of education had shut them down. People reacted in pain to the mere suggestion of thinking. I never learned how to do it well. The best I came up with was the concept of reality orientation. That's what I see in your recent postings.
I believe you are correct that this is the problem with the church today. Leaders must learn how to be enablers, and show the sheep how to grow—teach them how to think and study. More important, how to get the Holy Spirit involved in that process.
As the wife (helpmate) of Messiah during the Millennium, this is what we will be doing—enabling people, teaching them how to do it. We will all have a lot to learn from our husband about these things.
Like you, I love the Church (the worldwide Body of Christ), but I'm not keen on the institutional church in its various forms/denominations. At the moment I'm one of the de-churched, due largely to pretty much everything you highlighted here, plus an overwhelming lack of transparency (largely due to NDAs and the fact churches are exempt from 501c3 tax reporting).
So it's no surprise I really like your section on what the Church could look like if we returned to the New Testament model. You mentioned courage over conviction, which once again seems to be the crux of the matter. If enough are convicted that "church" as we know it today bears little resemblance to the early Church, do we have the courage to dismantle our institutions in favor of something that offers true discipleship, fellowship, service, and connection? Time will tell....
Oh, the stuff you mentioned! "The religion business" did a good job exposing that, and that's barely the crux of this whole mess. I'm 100% with you.
I caught them on a podcast (can’t remember which one). I wish I didn’t feel like they were pimping their docuseries, but I can’t deny they made a ton of good points. Frank Viola and George Barna also do a good job of articulating what nagged at me for years. I wish I’d read their book, “Pagan Christianity” when I struggled through the year or two before I left the institutional church. Would have saved me a lot of guilt.
Good words all of them. From my limited perspective what you are describing can be found among the Amish and Mennonites.
They definitely have the community aspect nailed down for sure!
Agreed. There are always things to improve with any group or culture.
Perfection is not the goal of this life, but constant growth and improvement is.
There's another aspect to this that is not easily recognizable.
There are three key elements to a stable civilisation.
Religion - Science - Philosophy
Let's use a car as a simple analogy.
The gas pedal and engine is akin to philosophy. It makes the car accelerate, go faster.
The body of the car is akin to science. It carries the passengers.
The brake pedal is akin to religion. It slows down the car when it's going too fast.
Philosophy is the fertile ground of new ideas, and new ideas are very stimulating. New ideas quickly breed more and more new ideas. The increase of philosophical ideas has a tendency to grow exponentially and that can get dangerous when science takes too many new ideas and realizes them too quickly and without adequate vetting.
That's why today we have very young children with no wisdom or life experience with supercomputers in their hands, psychopaths bent on death and destruction commanding massive technology infrastructures, lunatics screeching around our neighborhoods in high powered race cars, and so on.
This is where religion has a most crucial role to play. Religion is not just about God, preaching, scriptures, sin and forgiveness. Religion has an even more important role that few ever consider. Religion must act as a societal and civilisational brake.
Religion accomplishes this in two ways.
1. By keeping a watchful eye on philosophy, because philosophy that expands exponentially for too long always ends up lost in the void of metaphysics.
Philosophy good - Metaphysics bad. Metaphysics is what develops when the mortal mind finds itself in a vacuum because it overstretched itself. It sucks in anything and everything in its proximity without an adequate filter. So you end up with some good things mixed up with a pile of useless and toxic junk. Metaphysics is the garbage dump of the mind.
Philosophers need sound religious guidance to guide them away from the garbage dumps of metaphysics. In other words it is up to the religionists to tell philosopers when to ease off on the gas pedal to keep the car moving at a safe speed.
2. By keeping adequate checks and balances on science. Science should never dictate which technologies people should have. Science should only build the technologies that people instruct it to build. Science needs collective feedback from the people in order to determine what technologies and tools are truly needed and most beneficial, and that requires wisdom, ethics, sincerity, and a sharp focus on realistic and durable end results. Only religion can provide science with these essential qualities.
Today our science and technologies are run by out of control governments, billionnaires and marketing firms. Our philosopers have been born and raised in metaphysical garbage dumps, and our religion has become...well you answer that even better than I can.