Before the early church accepted a re-structuring and re-formatting beginning around 320AD, they were a people who experienced who God was one-to-another. The gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling in each believer rocked history and the ripples of this reality lost no momentum for well over 200 years.

Followers of Jesus would get together and “build each other up” — a possibility because each person was filled with the Holy Spirit and in their attachment to him and to each other, the heart and nature of God was revealed in relationship and community.

This was the transformational reality of the early church.

Preaching was a proclamation of the coming kingdom and the incredible invitation to step into relationship with the true God of the universe. It was solely for those who did not know Jesus.

But once in relationship, the transformation occurred entirely within the context of community as Holy Spirit worked in and through every single person to reveal who God is and who we are; to build each other up and mature into the likeness of Christ.

The cultural expression of Christian community was likeness to Jesus. It’s why the word “Christian” exists — “little Christs”—those who lived as Jesus lived. And this was possible because for the first time in History, God dwelled within us.

The reinstitution of spiritual mediators

The enemy knew all of this. Knew that Holy Spirit dwelling in humanity was a game-over move. So what would be the best counter-move? Get people to believe they’re living in step with Holy Spirit when they’re actually following someone or something else.

Move the needle 1º off center, and with enough time it would be entirely off.

The re-orienting of “church” that occurred under Constantine did this perfectly. Instead of having elders chosen by the people for their known character, devotion to Christ, care for their families, trustworthiness, and in more cases than not a history of faithfulness under persecution, leaders and elders began to be appointed by the state of Rome. Ego, greed, compromise and ingratiation began to fill these newly manufactured ranks of the church that matched the hierarchy of the state.

And instead of gathering as family and experiencing the incredible and unique expression of God in each person that would encourage and build up the body through attachment love, the church was organized into playhouses, theaters, and public forums where a single speaker communicated their thoughts and ideas.

Combined with the power given by Rome, these leaders in not so much time accepted a role that God never intended for any man: the replacement role of Holy Spirit. This role assumed responsibility for guidance, counsel, conviction, acceptance, forgiveness, wisdom, understanding… you get the idea.

There is no more obvious example than that of the catholic church through the dark ages that resulted from these changes. Yet it is just as present in modern protestant expressions. While the structure may not be overt, the ethos has remained, cloaked in new language that exalts some leaders as having a greater access to or understanding of God, of having gifts that make one individual more important than another; in “spiritual coverings,” in “hidden knowledge,” in ingratiation that determines how much you actually belong to a community, in structures where “junior leaders” are hand-picked by “senior leaders” based on how well they offer support to the senior leader’s vision.

And while it is easily said that this is not the intention of the modern day pulpit-preacher, it’s hard to not believe it was the enemy’s intention for the modern day pulpit, and the evidence is the context of the modern church expression where God’s kids gather around individuals who offer great exposition or visionary leadership rather than an expression built on relationship and God-in-each-of-us.

All of this, at the expense of the great gift given man from God himself: his Holy Spirit. The Western church structure is not a little bit off, not slightly off the mark, it has possibly become it’s own replacement theology, setting man in the place of God and missing the beauty of belonging to a family where everyone gets to freely express the gifts and wonder God himself put within his kids and discover that God actually leads his people better in this context than through the guidance of a few superstars.

In God’s family, and in his way of belonging and being, the yoke is light. Lighter than any “church leader” has likely ever experienced, and unquestionably lighter than the burdens of control and isolation that modern leaders wittingly and unwittingly place upon their congregations and followers.