Peter Drucker said it well:
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently what should not be done at all.”
Attendance is the perfect example.
Somewhere between AD 100–300, attendance quietly became equated with faith.
And the clergy—the performers—became the main characters.
The Bible Never Commands Anyone To…
- “Attend church.” Hebrews 10:24-26 and 1Corinthians 14 speak of being together to help each other, often. These Scriptures have nothing at all to do, in context, with “attending” Sunday services and Wednesday Small Groups or anything like that at all, if we’re honest when we read them, in context. This “attendance” has actually become an impediment to Life because it allows the System to make complacent those who are unconverted. It permeates the fabric with poor examples of literally everything, and the norms of what Jesus called “a wicked and adulterous generation” become the norms for those who spend two hours, 1.19% of our time “in church” and 98.81% of our time doing anything and everything else, mostly with the world. No wonder James Dobson said, “Focus on the Family.” The rest is a disaster!
- “Join the church of your choice.” Many truly Saved by Covenant with Jesus are still major babies in the Faith in terms of “the Stature of Christ,” their characters, after sometimes decades. This is because the Machine, the System, is virtually useless for “iron sharpening iron” and “admonish/encourage/be called alongside one another DAILY so that none are hardened and deceived.” They are Washed because they called on the Name of the Lord in their spiritual illness and need to “let this Man be King over them.” They sealed that exchanged Life with, as they say, “the outward sign of an inward Covenant”—immersion, the Signature on the Covenant Document. And yet they are usually still children spiritually after decades, and don’t even know it, until five-year-old little girls and boys raised in the daily KingdomLife expression put to shame a seventy-year-old attender with their understanding of God (much as Jesus did at age 12, with the self-proclaimed “experts in the Bible”). Meanwhile, all the rote, ritual, and hypocrisy are driving away hordes of young people, atheists, and the bored who see through performance and wish for Real answers that JESUS would have given them, had He actually been present in His kingdom of Priests and Gifts scattered into His Family.
- “Listen to sermons.” Guess what? There was NO “sermon on the mount” or any other sermon in the Bible, from Jesus or anyone else. That is a fabricated idea, though kerusso, didasko, evangelizo, evangelizomenoi (informal, as with friends, rather than strangers), laleo, propheteuo, and dialogue were all certainly ways Truth was communicated. But a “sermon” practiced in front of a mirror with oratorical devices, like jokes and personal stories, voice fluctuations and fist pounding gestures? Not a chance. THAT is the joke.
- “Respect clergy and greet them in the marketplace with titles.” Of course, Jesus forbids titles in Matthew 23, all of them related to spiritual stature. They’re all done and gone: Father Time, Reverend Rich Ruler, Deacon Jones, Elder Barry, Pastor Clampett, Sister Ellie Mae, Brother Jethro, Bishop Otis, Prophet Andy Loss, Apostle Bougie… the whole bit.
- Title (fill in the blank, name). All forbidden. But like many direct commands from Jesus, it is blown off as “it doesn’t matter.”
- Peter and Paul were never referred to by any title. John was never Reverend John or Father John or Elder Thunder. None of the authors of Scripture ever referred to anyone by a title, though Paul “missed a boatload of chances” that would never, ever be skipped over in our title and power-seeking religious world.
- Paul mentions 26 co-workers in Romans 16. Not even one of these big-time ladies and men are given “the Greek honorific of a title before their name.” Zero titles. Some descriptions of their organic relationships to others, but not one single title structure in the Greek. We would have PLASTERED that all over them in today’s System. The System neeeeeds that.
- In Colossians 4, Paul missed 10 more chances to call his crew out with titles “for the sake of those he was writing to in Colossae.” How many titles did Paul and the Spirit bestow? ZERO. Again.
- Paul and Luke named 17 more superstars of the Faith. Titles on even one? Nope. Not even the lowly title reserved for laity, “brother” or “sister”? Nope. Why not? BECAUSE JESUS FORBIDS TITLES, and true followers of Jesus don’t need or want titles! Followers of Jesus had and have various gifts and roles and relationships, Eph.4, 1Cor.12, Rom.12, but gift and relationship and respect, earned by fruit-bearing, is all it would, or will, ever be.
- “I may not be an apostle to anyone else, but surely I am to YOU. You are my living letters, if in fact you examine yourselves and Jesus is now living in you.”
- “Join a membership roster.” Oh yeah? Which one is the only one, since there was only one practicing church in any locale in Peter and Paul and Barnabas and Timothy’s days. The gifts and parts were all interchangeable any given day, and no titles anywhere. No assignments by age or occupation or geography. That’s all humans trying to control money and power and doctrine by choosing their own fire hydrants of doctrinal flavor and street corner.
- “Celebrate holy days that weren’t invented for centuries.”
- “Sit in rows.” “Jesus looked at those seated in the circle around Him. He said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers.’” Mark 3:34, and the same scene in three out of four Gospels depicting the Life of Jesus from various vantage points.
But Jesus says:
- Love one another
- Confess to one another
- Bear burdens together
- Admonish one another daily
- Teach one another
- Encourage one another
- Stir one another
- Live as priests
- Live as family
- Live as light
Attendance produces spectators.
Priesthood in a daily Ecosystem produces strong, Spirit-led followers of Jesus growing into the “full measure of the stature of Christ” who can change the world.
The System prefers spectators.
Jesus came to teach us, and died to give Himself and His Spirit, to make priests of all His followers, as Prophesied and described from Exodus to Revelation.