Zetousa.com: Seeking for the church

Seeking for the church One thing that characterized the church of the first century was fellowship — the koinonia shared by her members. The root for this word in the Greek is the same as that for sexual union or a mortised joint.  This indicates that the fellowship they knew was more than enjoying one another's company or sharing material possessions.  Their lives were knitted together in the life of their Lord.

Have you ever noticed how the life and experience of the church today doesn't look much like that of the first generation of believers?  Have you ever noticed that the experience of believers today doesn't correspond much with what we read of in the New Testament?

Even when we claim to be Bible-believing?

And maybe even more to the point: Have you ever noticed that most Bible-believing Christians don't see the difference?

This website is born out this discrepancy and a deep, burning passion to see and experience the church as the Lord intends it to be.

Our experience in the way

From the time the Lord first laid His hand upon us and gave us some sense of light ("In [the Word] was life, and the life was the light of men"), my wife (Linda) and I have seen that the Lord has called us to a different expression of the ekklesía.  We've tried to find a place within different churches, but were always left yearning for something more: more real, more biblical, more of the Spirit of our Lord, more tangibly of Him — not man.  We're still looking for that expression of the body of Christ.

What we've always found instead was a religious system that has its own agenda.  This may come in many flavors — and some can seem awfully spiritual on the surface — but every church we've seen effectually quenches the Spirit.  Everything is sacrificed to the need to perpetuate the programming.  That system always seems to swallow up good, sincere people; it looks — and acts — more like the world than the Lord, and never seems to produce mature believers who can function together without the presence of the pastor.  Its members never seem to have the substance of faith in their own hearts, always living vicariously through a religious professional. 

And the people were glad to have it so.

One of the saddest things we have seen has been the Lord moving in a church meeting, seemingly breaking hearts and enlightening the people about something of critical importance, only to have things back to business as usual the next week — simply because they didn't know how to do things differently.  That religious system quenched the working of God among them.

We know there is so much more to know of the Lord.

The ekklesía is supposed to be something glorious.  She is supposed to be "the fulness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23).  As members, we are to be built up together into a corporate, mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph. 4:13).  Jesus said of John the baptizer that "among those born of women, there has not arisen anyone greater than [he];" not Abraham, not David, not Enoch or Moses, "yet he who is the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than [John]" (Matt. 11:11).

Think of that.

Are we missing something here?

Seeing the church — and the faith — from a different perspective

When the ekklesía was young, she was not institutional, but organic.  She didn't rely of forms or traditions; she was connected to a living Head.  She moved according to His direct promptings.  She didn't rely on the clergy in order to meet.  There was no clergy.  No; everyone was the clergy.  She had no laity.  No; everyone was the laity — the people of God.

The mystery of ungodliness:

One thing that amazes me most is how quickly the early church turned way from God.  Even before the end of the first century, much of this had been lost.  As early as Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians (2:7), it was apparent that things were not going to last.  Instead of a living, vibrant ekklesía, we see a church that was calcifying into a set of rituals and traditions, relying on the intermediation of a man between them and their Lord.

But there was another side to the story.  Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been those who met together outside the religious system.  Often persecuted for their faith by Christians, they would not settle for what the church had become, but kept their spiritual integrity and strove to walk with their Lord in an organic fellowship, sharing in His resurrection life.

That is the experience of faith we seek.

The purpose of Zetousa.com

My hope that this Zetousa.com will be a place where those who are seeking a reality in the life of Christ not found in the institutional structures of the church, as we've always known it, can come and be enlightened, share things they have learned, and find support for their journey of faith.

At Zetousa.com, you will find — as this website grows — a variety of writings and Bible studies dealing with this experience of faith.  Your contributions to the dialogue in the form of comments and observations are most welcome.  And please pray for us.

Paying the bills

To help pay for this website (which isn't cheap), I also offer some posters and note cards from my original drawings.

The Lord bless you as you diligently seek Him in Spirit and in truth.