Back to Church: Back to the Blueprint.

A message to Believers…

What passes for “church” today is often a carefully scripted performance, complete with stage lighting, theater seating, celebrity preachers, and a congregation more focused on Sunday selfies than sanctification. But the truth? We’ve strayed far from what the early Church actually was. This deep dive is not a rebellion against faith—it is a call to return to it. Not a return to tradition, but a return to truth. Not a new revelation, but an ancient one we’ve forgotten.

Let’s be clear: this is not a vendetta against church buildings or pastors. This is about exposing what happens when the body of Christ becomes a business model, when faith is franchised, and when spiritual growth is outsourced to stage performers.

The early Church gathered in homes. They shared everything in common. They broke bread daily, prayed without ceasing, and lived in community with one another.

Acts 2:42-47 (NASB) — “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… All the believers were together and had all things in common… Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house…”

This was not a once-a-week religious experience. It was a daily, Spirit-led, intentional life of faith and relationship. They didn’t show up to be entertained—they showed up to be equipped. Their gatherings weren’t passive. They were powerful. Believers were accountable for their knowledge, their growth, and their ability to minister to others.

Hebrews 5:12 (NASB) — “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the actual words of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”

They expected growth. They demanded maturity. And spiritual laziness was not tolerated.

Today, many churches have swapped intimacy for industry. The preacher has become a personality. Worship has become a performance. Teaching has been replaced with motivational monologues. And accountability? That’s been silenced in favor of comfort.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 (NASB) — “For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”

Itching ears want soundbites, not Scripture. They want comfort, not conviction. We’ve created environments where you can attend for years and never be known, challenged, or changed. That’s not church—that’s spiritual sedation.

Matthew 15:8-9 (NASB) — “This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. And in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”

God is not impressed by how polished the production is. He’s looking at the heart. And too many hearts are far from Him.

The Church has been splintered into denominations—each claiming some unique angle on truth while often losing sight of the Word itself. Reformed theology, Baptist doctrine, Pentecostal emotion, Catholic tradition—each has truths and errors, but none are the fullness of what Christ established.

1 Corinthians 1:12-13 (NASB) — “Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, ‘I am with Paul,’ and ‘I am with Apollos,’ and ‘I am with Cephas,’ and ‘I am with Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

Jesus didn’t come to start a denomination. He came to build a body. The early believers were one in Spirit, not many in factions.

Ephesians 4:4-6 (NASB) — “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”

We’ve traded unity in truth for loyalty to camps and camps for identity. That was never God’s design.

The tithe was never meant to build empires. It was meant to meet needs. But now we tithe to fund million-dollar buildings, high-tech soundboards, and sermon series with better branding than biblical foundation.

Malachi 3:10 (NASB) — “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and put Me to the test now in this,” says the Lord of armies, “if I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”

Storehouse meant provision for people—not profit margins. Imagine dividing a mega church of 10,000 into 1,000 groups of 10 and pouring that tithe directly into the needs of those groups. That’s the model we see in Acts.

Acts 4:34-35 (NASB) — “For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each to the extent that any had need.”

God doesn’t need our mortgage payments. He wants our obedience. And our tithe should reflect that.

The modern believer is spiritually lazy—and that laziness has consequences. When Christians don’t know their own faith, others suffer. Families crumble. Communities weaken. The witness of Christ is diluted.

Hosea 4:6 (NASB) — “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Since you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the Law of your God, I also will forget your children.”

People claim Christ but don’t know His voice. They’ve made their church attendance their Christianity, and their ignorance is a slap in the face to the very God they claim to follow.

2 Corinthians 13:5 (NASB) — “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?”

This isn’t about being harsh—it’s about being honest. We are called to grow. To study. To live. Not to coast on religious routine.

This isn’t just critique—it’s a call to repentance. A call to rediscover the Word. A call to abandon the church-as-show mentality and return to church-as-community. A call to stop outsourcing our faith and start owning it.

Revelation 3:17-20 (NASB) — “Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have no need of anything,’ and you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked… Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”

Jesus isn’t just outside the church building. He’s knocking—trying to get back in. And He’s calling us to remember what this was all supposed to be.

Jeremiah 6:16 (NASB) — “This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; Then you will find a resting place for your souls.’ But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.'”

Let’s run it back one more time, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). And some of us haven’t been hearing the truth in a long time.

The early Church wasn’t about stages or seating capacity. It was about Spirit-filled, Scripture-grounded community. They met in homes, broke bread together, held each other accountable, and lived by the Word—not by trends.

They didn’t outsource their faith. They owned it. They studied. They taught. They served. They sacrificed.

Today? We’ve traded that for crowds that gather but don’t grow. We’ve turned pastors into performers and discipleship into entertainment. We’ve built buildings while neglecting the body. We’ve given our money to systems instead of sowing into souls. And in the process, we’ve created a Church that God no longer recognizes.

We’ve divided ourselves into denominations, clung to traditions, and elevated theology over truth. We argue about doctrine while forgetting to obey the very God we say we’re defending.

We’ve paid tithes to ministries that don’t minister, built empires in His name, and called it obedience. But Acts shows us what the tithe was for: meeting needs, not maintaining budgets.

Spiritual laziness has rotted the core. People can quote worship lyrics but can’t explain the cross. They post Scriptures but don’t live them. They say they follow Jesus, but they don’t know His voice, His Word, or His ways.

Let me be clear….

There are those who profess Christ but do not possess Christ. And because of that, they do not represent Christ.

That’s what happens when we lose sight of what the Church truly is.

So let this be more than a deep dive. Let it be a wake-up call. Let it be a mirror. Let it shake you. Let it stir you. Let it challenge you. Let it change you.

Because the Church was never supposed to be a place you go. It was always meant to be the people you become.

It’s time to turn back. Back to community. Back to teaching. Back to accountability. Back to truth. Back to The Walk…and back to The Word…

From the right hand of God, In Jesus name,

Amen.