Episode 52
We Built Churches and Missed the Spirit
What if the real church was never meant to be a building, a program, or a Sunday morning production? This episode of Seek Go Create dives into a challenging reexamination of what the New Testament actually says about the church, the Spirit, and the true center of Christian life. Explore how structures, roles, and routines often overshadow the spirit-filled people they’re supposed to serve—and why rediscovering this truth might just transform the way we gather, lead, and love. If you’ve ever questioned whether church should be more than the systems we’ve built, this conversation is for you.
"If the people are the temple, then the building is not and really should not be at the center." - Tim Winders
Access all show and episode resources HERE
Episode Resources:
- NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 People Are the Temple
00:38 Welcome and Reading Plan
02:12 Spirit to Temple Shift
02:56 Structures Serving Spirit
06:23 Old System Returns
09:14 Weekend Machine Problem
13:27 Body Not Machine
15:48 Leadership Without Celebrity
19:33 First Century Revolution
21:05 Implications for Today
23:18 Wrap Up and Next Episode
Transcript
The New Testament never says the church is a building.
Speaker:It says the people are the temple.
Speaker:That sounds simple until you realize how much of modern Christianity is
Speaker:built around the opposite assumption.
Speaker:We build sacred spaces.
Speaker:We built Sunday systems.
Speaker:We built professional roles.
Speaker:We built programs to keep the machine moving.
Speaker:Some of those things can help, but when the structure becomes
Speaker:the center, we can miss the Spirit
Speaker:hello there.
Speaker:Welcome to Seek Go Create.
Speaker:I'm Tim Winders, and all that we're doing here is kinda continuing
Speaker:something that I did a while back.
Speaker:I've been kinda in this mode for really a few years now, and I really wanted
Speaker:to read the New Testament in order, in context, as much as I could, learn the
Speaker:history and all of the 1st century.
Speaker:And then the more I started doing that and reading through the New Testament, I said,
Speaker:"Hold on a second. These books are not in the order that they were written in, and I
Speaker:want them in order." And I had to kind of search out how to get them in that order.
Speaker:Finally did, and I actually decided to make a reading plan
Speaker:so that I could do it myself.
Speaker:Couldn't find it, so I created it myself.
Speaker:I am allowing you to get that plan too.
Speaker:Do what I did, not so you can be more like Tim.
Speaker:That's not what I'm trying to say here.
Speaker:I want you to understand the scripture, the text, to be challenged
Speaker:and pushed like it has pushed me.
Speaker:It is really, really phenomenal.
Speaker:And, and what I found, it surprised me, challenged me, and I believe
Speaker:it'll do the same for you.
Speaker:So what I would highly recommend is go get that, that reading plan at
Speaker:k2m.foundation/nt90, k2m.foundation/nt90.
Speaker:Just see what you find.
Speaker:The link's down in the show notes.
Speaker:Get it and read it.
Speaker:The last episode, we traced the Holy Spirit through the New Testament.
Speaker:It was phenomenal.
Speaker:It is not just a storyline.
Speaker:It is foundational.
Speaker:The Spirit was with Jesus, promised by Jesus, poured out at Pentecost, given
Speaker:to the Jews and the Gentiles, described by Paul as the life of God's people.
Speaker:Then Paul says something that should reshape how we think about church.
Speaker:You are God's temple Not the place you attend, you, the people.
Speaker:That is where this episode begins.
Speaker:And I wanna say this clearly at the start, this is not like a anti-church,
Speaker:anti-building episode, even though it could come across as that.
Speaker:I think many of us, many people have put the building or that place or the
Speaker:name or whatever way up on an altar, probably higher than it should be.
Speaker:Many people have done this, but this is not an anti-church episode.
Speaker:This is not an anti-gathering episode.
Speaker:This is not an anti-structure episode.
Speaker:The question is not whether structures can help.
Speaker:The question is whether structures are serving Spirit-filled people
Speaker:or whether Spirit-filled people are being trained to serve the structure.
Speaker:Those are very different things.
Speaker:All right, one of the keys we wanna look at is the distinction from what
Speaker:I did on the Old Wineskins episode.
Speaker:For those that remember that, One of the examples I gave is that Glory and I had
Speaker:moved some old furniture that we had into our brand-new house that we completed,
Speaker:and it just didn't seem to fit well.
Speaker:Just to finish that story, we're still working on getting some new
Speaker:wine into that new wineskin, still working on getting f-furniture there.
Speaker:But if you don't understand this reference, maybe circle back
Speaker:to that Old Wineskins episode.
Speaker:Old Wineskins, it asked what the Church had rebuilt after the
Speaker:system had been done away with.
Speaker:This episode is gonna ask what the Spirit made true.
Speaker:In the old system, the temple mattered because it represented
Speaker:God's dwelling with His people.
Speaker:There was sacred space.
Speaker:There was priesthood.
Speaker:There was sacrifice.
Speaker:There was restricted access.
Speaker:There was one room at the center.
Speaker:And then Jesus comes, the veil tears, Jesus sits down,
Speaker:and the Spirit is poured out.
Speaker:And in First Corinthians, Paul tells believers that the Spirit now dwells
Speaker:in them, very different than what we saw as the New Testament began.
Speaker:That means the center moved from a place to individuals, to a people The
Speaker:temple did not disappear into nothing.
Speaker:The temple became a spirit-filled people.
Speaker:That sentence changes the whole conversation, the whole
Speaker:message, the whole system.
Speaker:If the people are the temple, then the building is not and really
Speaker:should not be at the center.
Speaker:If the spirit dwells in the people, then the service is not the center.
Speaker:That one event, that one day of the week, that's not the center.
Speaker:It doesn't all revolve around that.
Speaker:It revolves around the people twenty four/seven, every day of the week.
Speaker:If Jesus is the mediator, then the pastor or the person up front with
Speaker:a microphone is not the center.
Speaker:If the body is alive by the Spirit, then the program is not the center.
Speaker:The center moved, and a lot of our church habits, unfortunately, either deny
Speaker:that or they act like it did not move.
Speaker:Now, this is where the old system, unfortunately, starts creeping back in.
Speaker:It's kind of when the structure replaces that presence, that
Speaker:place that the spirit resides.
Speaker:A building became, over time, in fact, it started doing it pretty
Speaker:early on in church history.
Speaker:It became God's house.
Speaker:A room became the sanctuary, the holy place.
Speaker:A stage became an altar.
Speaker:A pastor became the central mediator or a priest or bishop or whatever
Speaker:they're called in your denomination or in the structure that's there.
Speaker:A Sunday service became the main measure of faithfulness.
Speaker:If you attend, then you are part of the church.
Speaker:If you don't, then you're an outsider.
Speaker:You're not part of it.
Speaker:Attendance Came the scoreboard.
Speaker:Giving became an obligation because something has to fund the building and all
Speaker:of the structure that's been put in place.
Speaker:Volunteering became proof of your commitment.
Speaker:That became serving the Lord, when in many situations it's just serving the building.
Speaker:Again, not everything here is bad.
Speaker:It's not bad.
Speaker:Buildings can be helpful.
Speaker:It's good to have a building.
Speaker:We like to have a place to go.
Speaker:We like to have a place to gather and live and stay.
Speaker:Gatherings can help.
Speaker:Teaching can help.
Speaker:Order can help.
Speaker:Generosity can be helpful.
Speaker:Giving is a good thing.
Speaker:Service can help.
Speaker:But when those things become the center or the main thing, the visible structure
Speaker:replaces that unseen power and presence.
Speaker:That is the message of this episode.
Speaker:The problem is not that buildings exist.
Speaker:The problem is when the building replaces the Spirit-filled people
Speaker:as the center and the focus.
Speaker:The problem is not that pastors teach.
Speaker:The problem is when the teacher becomes the point of connection to God.
Speaker:You don't hear from God unless you hear that man with the microphone.
Speaker:It's always a man, sorry.
Speaker:We've gotten into that in other areas, but sometimes it's a
Speaker:woman, but mostly it's a man.
Speaker:And that is not your connecting point to God.
Speaker:It can be great.
Speaker:It can be awesome.
Speaker:It can be anointed, all that stuff, but that's just one moment in time.
Speaker:That connection is going on 24/7 with the Spirit.
Speaker:The problem is not that people serve.
Speaker:The problem is when service becomes a labor for the machine
Speaker:instead of love from a living body.
Speaker:The New Testament does not center the structure.
Speaker:It centers Christ, the Spirit, and the people formed by that presence The
Speaker:modern church often requires a machine.
Speaker:It's an institution to keep it running.
Speaker:I mean, almost an empire like we've talked about with Rome.
Speaker:You have to have greeters, you have to have ushers, you have to have parking
Speaker:teams, children's ministry, worship teams, sound, lights, live stream, coffee.
Speaker:You gotta have coffee.
Speaker:I'm pretty convinced that most churches now, the Holy Spirit, you can't have
Speaker:that without the coffee service.
Speaker:I'm slightly joking with that, tinged with a little bit of
Speaker:cynicism, but y'all know what I mean.
Speaker:Security, setup, tear down, small groups, announcements, events, programs.
Speaker:And you gotta have a nursery because if you don't have the nursery, people
Speaker:may not come to church because a lot of people come to church 'cause they
Speaker:feel as if they've gotta get their kids there so that they can be where God is.
Speaker:Sorry, a little bit of sarcasm there.
Speaker:A church can need hundreds of people to keep one weekend system moving.
Speaker:I've seen a lot more than hundreds that have volunteered, and every
Speaker:role can carry a spiritual hook.
Speaker:You are serving the Lord, and this is how you serve, by volunteering.
Speaker:You're using your gift.
Speaker:You're being a faithful servant.
Speaker:Sometimes that's true.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:Sometimes people are serving with joy, love, and a clear sense of calling.
Speaker:I love being a greeter and standing there and saying hello
Speaker:to people on a Sunday morning.
Speaker:I love it You know, is it a ministry?
Speaker:Is it a calling?
Speaker:I, I don't know.
Speaker:It's just part of what we need.
Speaker:We need somebody there to tell people where to go.
Speaker:We need somebody there to tell them where the coffee is, right?
Speaker:"Hey, welcome.
Speaker:You need you some coffee, brother.
Speaker:Need to get jacked up.
Speaker:We gotta get this service going." So, you know, you could
Speaker:point them in that direction.
Speaker:Sometimes the Sabbath idea of rest kind of becomes a second shift.
Speaker:That should make us pause because the New Testament does not describe
Speaker:the body of Christ as a weekend, one or two hours on Sunday production.
Speaker:In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the body as language.
Speaker:Not body language, but the body as the language or the example.
Speaker:One body, many members, different gifts, shared life, mutual care.
Speaker:When one suffers, all suffers.
Speaker:When one rejoices, all rejoice.
Speaker:That's not a machine.
Speaker:That is a living, breathing body, and a living body needs care.
Speaker:Living body, it's not just coordination, and it functions 24/7,
Speaker:not just for two hours on a Sunday.
Speaker:A living body needs health, not just efficiency.
Speaker:A living body needs love, not just labor.
Speaker:When the structure helps the body love, gather, serve, learn and
Speaker:care, that structure can be useful.
Speaker:And there are churches and there's bodies out there and organizations
Speaker:and institutions that do that.
Speaker:Again, not saying all of that's bad.
Speaker:When the body is exhausted to keep the structure moving Some of you that have
Speaker:been volunteers, you know what I mean.
Speaker:Something has gone wrong.
Speaker:I vividly remember in Bible school, there was a massive amount of
Speaker:volunteerism that had to be in place because they weren't gonna pay people.
Speaker:You had to volunteer to keep everything going.
Speaker:And I remember as the year would end, and especially as graduation came about
Speaker:after two years, many people would say they're so exhausted, they can't wait
Speaker:to leave Bible school so they could focus on getting to know the Lord
Speaker:again because they had been working and volunteering to the point of exhaustion.
Speaker:That is not the kingdom of God.
Speaker:Now, let's talk about the difference, kind of the way that
Speaker:it should be based on what we see.
Speaker:The Spirit forms a body, not a machine or an institution.
Speaker:A machine can actually run without love.
Speaker:A body cannot.
Speaker:A machine can keep moving while people are hidden, tired, lonely, or wounded.
Speaker:In fact, a machine can run people over if it has to.
Speaker:A body feels pain.
Speaker:A machine measures output.
Speaker:A body shares life.
Speaker:That matters because many churches have been trained to measure the wrong things:
Speaker:attendance, giving, volunteers, views, square footage, programs, growth curves.
Speaker:Some of those numbers can tell us something But they cannot tell us
Speaker:whether people are becoming more patient.
Speaker:They cannot tell us whether enemies are being loved.
Speaker:They cannot tell us whether lonely people are being included.
Speaker:They cannot tell us whether the poor are being cared for.
Speaker:They cannot tell us whether forgiveness is happening.
Speaker:They cannot tell us whether the fruit of the Spirit is taking hold and growing.
Speaker:The Spirit forms what the machine cannot measure.
Speaker:Back to Galatians 5, we've talked about this before.
Speaker:It calls it fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
Speaker:goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Speaker:Those are not one day a week or weekend production metrics.
Speaker:They are signs of life.
Speaker:They are signs, fruit of the Spirit, signs that the kingdom exists and
Speaker:that it is healthy and growing.
Speaker:So the question is not simply is the church organized?
Speaker:The better question is, is the structure serving Spirit-formed life?
Speaker:Is it causing fruit to grow and be seen?
Speaker:If the answer is yes, good.
Speaker:If the answer is no, then the structure may be impressive while the
Speaker:body, unfortunately, is unhealthy.
Speaker:Now, let's talk about leadership.
Speaker:The New Testament does not ever center on one celebrity leader.
Speaker:It shows shared responsibility, character, service, humility, and care.
Speaker:In 1 Peter 5, Peter calls himself a fellow elder.
Speaker:Paul works with his hands.
Speaker:In John 13, Jesus washes feet.
Speaker:In Ephesians 4, leaders equip the body.
Speaker:The Spirit gives gifts across the body.
Speaker:That cuts against or goes against what we call the pastor as CEO, ministry as
Speaker:a brand, and church as a platform model that we see in most, if not all, places
Speaker:that we call churches today Leadership in the Spirit is not control over people.
Speaker:It is service for the people.
Speaker:That does not mean leadership does not matter.
Speaker:It just looks different.
Speaker:Leadership does matter.
Speaker:Bad leadership can harm people.
Speaker:Faithful leadership can protect, teach, guide, and encourage people.
Speaker:But New Testament leadership does not replace the body, it equips the body.
Speaker:In fact, it's really part of the body.
Speaker:It does not gather power upward and become the focal point.
Speaker:It serves life outward.
Speaker:It does not make one person, one man, as we've said before, the center.
Speaker:It helps the whole group of people, all parts of the body, live faithfully.
Speaker:When leadership becomes the platform, the Spirit-filled body becomes an audience.
Speaker:They become consumers.
Speaker:They just show up, consume, and they leave.
Speaker:They don't become part of a body.
Speaker:When leadership becomes control, the Spirit-filled body becomes managed
Speaker:labor, servant later if they're asked to do things for free or volunteer.
Speaker:When leadership becomes a brand, the Spirit-filled body becomes just a
Speaker:customer base or a group to influence.
Speaker:That is not the picture that the New Testament scripture gives us.
Speaker:The Spirit gives gifts across the people, across all the people.
Speaker:The leader serves what the Spirit is forming
Speaker:A building can host people.
Speaker:It cannot make them the temple.
Speaker:A program can organize service.
Speaker:It cannot produce love.
Speaker:A sermon can teach truth.
Speaker:It cannot replace obedience.
Speaker:A leader can help shepherd.
Speaker:They cannot become the mediator or the shepherd between everybody
Speaker:and God or large numbers.
Speaker:A system can support life, but it cannot create life.
Speaker:Only the Spirit gives life.
Speaker:That is the simple but sometimes difficult to see distinction.
Speaker:The people are the temple.
Speaker:The Spirit is life.
Speaker:The structure can serve that life, but it cannot replace it.
Speaker:What did that mean during the first century?
Speaker:For the first followers of Jesus, the claim that God's Spirit dwelled
Speaker:in the people was revolutionary.
Speaker:The temple still stood during that time in Jerusalem, at least
Speaker:up until the 70 AD destruction.
Speaker:But the new covenant people were already being formed as God's dwelling place.
Speaker:Access was no longer centered on sacred space, priestly gatekeepers,
Speaker:or even ritual repetition.
Speaker:The Spirit made the people the temple.
Speaker:Now, where we misread it or mess up by misreading the text is we often read
Speaker:church backward through our buildings, services, stages, budgets, and paid roles.
Speaker:Then we assume, and then we, we actually create it, and then we go
Speaker:backwards, and we assume the New Testament was giving us the model or
Speaker:the seed form of what we built later.
Speaker:In other words, we form it, and then we go look at the
Speaker:scripture and try to justify it.
Speaker:That's doing it in the wrong order.
Speaker:The text does not start with a building.
Speaker:It starts with a Spirit-filled people sharing life, bearing burdens,
Speaker:loving one another, and witnessing
Speaker:to Jesus and to others about Jesus.
Speaker:So what does it all mean for us?
Speaker:Comes back to what we keep saying, how we treat people.
Speaker:People are not volunteers for the machine.
Speaker:They are the temple of the Spirit What does it mean for
Speaker:how we do religion in church?
Speaker:Structures, institutions, buildings should serve life, not replace it.
Speaker:What does it mean for our politics and government?
Speaker:The church does not need public power to be the people of God, and the
Speaker:kingdom does not rise or fall with the election cycle What does it mean for
Speaker:our everyday life in business and work?
Speaker:Systems matter, but people matter more than systems.
Speaker:That's something I have to keep telling myself as I'm a systems guy, industrial
Speaker:and systems engineer from Georgia Tech.
Speaker:Part of what I do within organizations I work with is we
Speaker:structure and look at systems.
Speaker:We've got to keep reminding ourselves, though, that the people are more
Speaker:important than those systems.
Speaker:The Spirit reshapes how we value people, how we build churches, how we resist
Speaker:political shortcuts, and how we work daily letting systems become the center.
Speaker:We built churches.
Speaker:Some helped people gather, learn, worship, and serve.
Speaker:That is not the problem.
Speaker:The problem was when the church becomes the center, or we put it way up on
Speaker:that pedestal, and the people become support staff for the structure.
Speaker:The New Testament never, ever lets the building become the main thing.
Speaker:The people, you and I, are the temple, and the Spirit is life, and
Speaker:the Spirit brings that life into the world, into the kingdom through us.
Speaker:The structure can serve that life, but it cannot replace it.
Speaker:Old wineskins, that episode, named what we rebuilt.
Speaker:This episode names what that rebuild can hide.
Speaker:God dwells in His people.
Speaker:Next time, next episode, we're gonna take it one step further, and we're
Speaker:gonna look at if the church structures cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit,
Speaker:neither can the political structures.
Speaker:We've talked about that a little bit, but we're gonna bring the Spirit
Speaker:into the political conversation.
Speaker:We'll ask why we keep trying to legislate what only the Spirit can grow.
Speaker:Reminder, the reading plan is at k2m.foundation/nt90.
Speaker:Go get it.
Speaker:I'm trying to share some information that's been very, very nourishing
Speaker:to me as I've gone through this process, but at the end of the day,
Speaker:at the end of these episodes, if you aren't going and studying this on
Speaker:your own, I don't wanna say I failed.
Speaker:I don't wanna kinda be that harsh, but I haven't served what I'm
Speaker:attempting to do here, and that is to just get you thinking, maybe
Speaker:excite you, maybe aggravate you.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:and force you to go read and study on your own.
Speaker:I've got a plan that I've developed that you can do that,
Speaker:can get you started easily.
Speaker:k2m.foundation/nt90.
Speaker:Go get it.
Speaker:It's down in the notes.
Speaker:It's anywhere where you're listening or watching this, you can get that
Speaker:and, and just do some reading.
Speaker:This is Tim Winders.
Speaker:Keep seeking, keep pressing, keep moving along, keep enjoying the journey.
Speaker:We'll see you on the next episode
