Appendix B: Historical Drift: A Timeline of System-Formation

Overview of how the System evolved over centuries—what we’ve inherited is not what Jesus built.

AD 30–100: The Ecosystem Era

Daily life, shared homes, no clergy
No buildings
No sermons-as-performance
No Sunday services
No sacraments as rituals
No hierarchy
No paid pastors
No memberships

AD 100–300: The Slow Drift

Sunday begins to be used symbolically
Written liturgies appear
Clergy class begins forming
First “christian religious church buildings” built (Aqaba in Jordan, AD 293)
Influence of Roman and Greek logic and meeting structure
Borrowed ideas from Mithraism and other weirdness
Birth of “the bishop system”

AD 313: Constantine and the Systemization

Sunday becomes law
Christianity becomes political
Buildings become central
Hierarchy calcifies
Pagan practices such as Christmas and Easter imported and Christianized as holy days.
Christmas, Saturnalia and Sol Invictus, AD 336. Easter, Fertility goddess Eostre, AD 325. Halloween, Celtic Samhain, Feast of the Dead, brought to “christendom” by “Pope Gregory” AD 735
The clergy/laity divide becomes permanent

A visual timeline of the church as represented by a woman getting more and more burdened with the weight of religious traditions and false expectations. The image culminates with her restoration and a return to God's original intent for her in the Ecosystem.

AD 400–1500: The Medieval Fusion

Church = empire
Priests = gatekeepers
Ritual replaces relationship
Latin replaces accessibility
Structures replace spiritual life
Attendance replaces transformation

AD 1500–1700: Reformation… but not Restoration

Luther, Zwingli, Calvin reformed theology—but kept the System structure:

Clergy
The Bible first became available, other than chained to a priest’s pulpit
Sunday “service” aka “mass” centrality
Titled leadership
Sermons
Buildings
Membership

AD 1700–present: The Modern Mega-System

Stage lighting
Sermon series
“Sinner’s prayer” and altar calls begin
Youth groups
Worship concerts
Celebrity pastors
Children’s Church
Cradle Roll
Parachurch organizations
Bible studies by age or geography or demographic
Wednesday Small Groups due to complaints of lack of relationship
Discipleship and Mentor movements begin in the Charismatic wing
Baptism as an optional outward “sign” rather than “Signature” on the Contract of Faith with Jesus
Institutional budgets
Church-as-Brand
Programs ➞ replace priesthood
Attendance ➞ replaces daily life together

Everything that looks “normal” today is 150–1800 years removed from Jesus. Jesus did not grant us the liberty to make all this stuff up for our own convenience. See Revelation 22:18-19, Mark 7:13.

Everything Jesus Designed has been preserved in Scripture but seldom put into practice as the actual Biblical definition of “Church,” Ekklesia.

The courageous ones are those who dare to be called names and still love those who hate them for “not playing the game right.”

The Ecosystem is never handed down in tradition. It’s born anew in each heart and soul, daily.