We Don't Need Better Attendance. We Need Real Discipleship.

Acts 2 gets quoted a lot—but often misunderstood. We talk about why the early church wasn’t simply a formula, and what it actually looks like to live as the church today.

Church was never meant to be reduced to a Sunday service, a checklist, or a building. It was always meant to be people living as God’s temple—disciples gathering, honoring Jesus, breaking bread, carrying one another, and building His Kingdom together. Real church starts in homes, around tables, in everyday obedience, and in the simple faithfulness of believers choosing to live the way of Jesus together.

The 2 or More Podcast is a conversation for lost balls and sleeping giants—followers of Jesus who are hungry for authenticity and to grow in their gifts and calling. Mike Bishop and Joel Henson explore what it looks like to plant sustainable microchurches, build spiritual family, and live out the kingdom of God in your whole life.

Instagram: 2ormore_podcast

Who is Everyday Mission? We are a people seeking transformation in our everyday lives and in the church. We are a people drawn into the harvest field by love. We are using our unique gifts, talents, and resources to influence the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to help equip Everyday Missionaries.

Website: https://www.everydaymission.com/
Instagram & TikTok: @EverydayMissionFlorida

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I love what you said of uh this definition of churches in reality it is the temple where all these functions happen. It's gonna be your house where heaven and earth meet. Yeah. Of which Jesus is the head. Like, man, I want that to be my house. Jesus is the head here, and he has made me a king priest. Like, I am the steward, I'm the active caretaker of this space, and Jesus is the head. Like, may that be what is said of my house. And in practice, it's any gathering of Jesus disciples, two or more, that regularly meet to honor Jesus. That is our goal. It's like, glory to you, God. Like we are here to honor you and to be filled up and by your spirit so that we can go and continue to be the church together. And then to learn and grow as students of his message in the way. Like that's so imperative that we teach each other the gospel. I really have grown increasingly unfond of one person and one person only teaching the way of Jesus to a church. Uh, I'll probably catch some flack for that one, but honestly, I am so in favor of members of the church teaching each other. Like we all have a different revelation of who God is, and none of us have a full revelation of who God is, which means that you're gonna get different parts of Him from each other.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

We'll we'll we'll get into this another time, but there's a there's a sense now that you really need to build. Um, there's a lot of talk about spiritual formation. Uh John Mark Comer is a great guy. Pastor wrote a book called Practicing the Way recently.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

And excellent book.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Excellent book. True. Great book. My only minor crit criticism of his book is when he talks about rule of life, and that's that's really what he's getting at is you know, like the uh you go to a monastery, you become a monk, there's a rule of life, there's a way that you live together, yeah. Right. And I think we're all called to develop something that that's about that's about learning how to incorporate the message and way of Jesus as a group of followers of Jesus, right? What did he say that you or what was his message that you So the the criticism is just that it comes out of a place of of of your individual oh like too individualistic, yeah. Like you you are the one who are really defining that aspect of the rule, and yes, it's going to involve other believers, but my my challenge to that is like I mean that's great, it's a great place to start, okay. But I think what we're talking about in terms of of going again going back to the question of what is church, going back to the question of how do we respond when so much is just a mess. And how do we really gather together as a group of people to define how to live in this way as God's temple, as God's priests and kings, right? And we're learning these practices together and we're defining what that looks like.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

It's imperative you do it with others, you gotta do it together, together necessarily do it together.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Like, and that's not to say that you know, my wife has a different, totally radically different prayer practice than I do. Yes, she's a she's a monster, she gets up at three in the morning and regularly basis. You know, I can't I if I get up at three in the morning, I'm puking my guts out, or there's something there's something physically wrong with me, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

You're unwell, you're on the way to the hospital, yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Um, but no, this is it's meant to be wrestled with together. And so I I just think I I look at it as is like we're suburban monks, right? Or urban monks. We're we're people that live in a society in a culture of death who are learning how to live a rule of life. And that takes work and that takes effort together to prayerfully map out well, what are the practices that help us live a rule of life, you know? And and I think the the the last part of that definition of teaching others to do the same, that isn't just purely an evangelistic exercise. Like, how do I go share the gospel with others? Yes, it includes that, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Um it's shaping other disciples in this way.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

And just like Jesus taught us, go out, yeah, you know, teach them everything that I have taught you, right? Teach you, teach them how to live this way, the same way that I have taught you. And so together, as we're learning this rule of life, we're learning how to live together, we're defining practices that that make us the church together. Um, as we're doing these things, what we're actually doing is setting the stage for those who will come after us.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Right. Right. And I think that's part of why we're so passionate about this, is because the church, so far, as far as I've experienced it, hasn't done a great job of teaching rhythms that help make disciples. Uh, it's pretty good with attendance. It's not great in formation of like, hey, like if you ask any regular churchgoer, would you feel confident in shaping the spiritual formations of another person who's new in the faith actively and intimately? I think they would be a little bit clueless as to how to do that. And and it's no easy answer to to be to be clear, but I don't think we have systems for that. And you can't give what you don't what you don't got. And so uh that that's that's what we really want to harp on here is is the function and the practice of the church is for each other unto the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah. I I wanna I want to just end this conversation with with some questions. So I I mentioned before um that my mentor had trained me, like you, you grow, you learn by learning how to ask the right questions. Yeah. Okay. So these these are the questions that come to my mind. So if you wanted, you know, if you if you were in this place of man, I I really I'm digging this. I I wanna I want to go down this path.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

I really want to gather some people around.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Gather some people together and start like hashing through what it would look like to seek the Lord through our discontentment, right? Exactly. Get get go through this process of renewal, all this stuff. I think you could you could use these questions. And the first one is is is of course is that question, who are the Jesus followers around me I could gather with? And that's really that identification of who like we talked about last time. You know, you kind of look around and you say, Who's hungry for the same things that I'm hungry for? Who's maybe wrestling with the same questions that I'm hungry for or are wrestling with? Um, and then very practically, where and when should we gather? So that seems like a no-duh kind of question, but I mean, so many people, again, you just naturally default to, well, if we're gonna do something called church, then it's gonna be it's Sunday morning, 10 o'clock, you know, kind of thing. And actually, no. Um if you're if your intention is to get together with the people that God has called you to get together with.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Make it dinner and make it fun.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Make it whatever works. Yeah, so make it awesome. Let's say that those there's two other people and they happen to be co-workers, and the only time that you can get together is on your lunch break on a Wednesday afternoon.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

You make it work, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Yeah, I I say that just because yeah, certainly function uh over form for sure. But I I just it's so funny. I I went to a Christian university and people had such, again, narrow views of what it should look like. So then when they're like kind of okay, hold on, I'm a little bit discontented with this system. I'm really hungry for something a little bit deeper. Let me gather a couple friends and let's see what it looks like. It looks like three songs in a 40-minute teaching again. And it's like, hey, let's break out of that. Like, let's let's cook a great meal, let's play a board game, let's look like family for a minute, and let's take some time out of that family gathering, whatever that looks like for you at the beach, you know, whatever. And let's let's honor the Lord and let's seek him together. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be what we've been doing all along, is what is all I mean. You know, it's like make it fun, man. Like the Lord loves to have fun with us. The Holy Spirit is creative and loves to bring inspiring ideas of how to bring his family together. It's what a good Papa does, and it's what the Lord does with us.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

There's a a memory that just popped in my head that Amber and I got invited to a friend's house church a couple years ago. And um, we show up and and you know, room full of people and kids, and they had breakfast in the morning and eating together, and yeah, I was cool, okay, and we're just sitting around. And then, you know, kind of the the dad called everybody to attention, and everybody got in a room, you know, found found their seats, kind of found their places, and you can kind of tell, well, that guy always sits there, and this guy always sits there, and you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

So so we're worship starts, and it's like YouTube worship, whatever, which is fine, it's great. Yeah. And then um, the dad gets up again and he starts preaching. And there was some input, people could talk, it was a relatively small group of people. And then, you know, it was over, and and it was pray for each other, and and then everybody left. And I I I remember getting in the car with Amber, and I'm like, that was like a church service in miniature.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah, like there's no reason that this should have should have been in your home necessarily. Didn't need we didn't need that.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Well, it checked again, it checked all the boxes, it checked those boxes.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

And and I think what we're saying is like, instead of starting there, because that is the most natural place to start, right? What if we start in the place of again the first part of my in-practice definition? What does it mean to honor Jesus who is among us when we gather? So there's a lot of different ways to answer that question. Worship does not have to look like three songs in a guitar or a couple songs on YouTube, or even a song. I mean, there's been plenty of times our microchurch in the past, like we've done worship is get in the same room and be quiet for 15 minutes. Like shut your mouth.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

We'll do something like creative, we'll do like painting or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, exactly. Or go for a hike. Go out and listen to God in nature and respond to Him. I mean, it's a million different ideas. But you know, I think from there, the question then is gets to what is this common rule of life that we can adopt to grow as disciples? So you start actually talking about what are the practices that we're gonna do do together? Not just how we're gonna worship, but how are we gonna read the Bible? How are we going to have teaching and preaching and conversation? Who's gonna do that? Um, and then of course the age-old question what are we gonna do with the kids? We'll have a whole episode.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Ah, yes, yeah. But how to navigate that her.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

These are all things that you ask together because they matter, not just to check boxes, again, but they matter for for formation. They matter for the long haul. Again, go go back go back to one of our original conversations where I was talking about the whole idea of of like AA, it works if you work it. And I'm telling you, I there's been so many times I have told people that are new to like our community, and I'll say, I'm just I I don't I don't mean to sound like overconfident or prideful or anything, because this is not me, this is just reality. We have we have set up this space in such a way that if you come and you engage and you participate and you put in the time with the kingdom and with each other, you will grow. It's like water running downhill. You can't stop it unless you want to stop it.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, the the only the only person that's gonna halt that train is you. Because I mean it's characteristic of who God is, is that our flesh can't encounter the presence of God and leave unchanged. It's not possible. We we can't be exactly the same after an encounter with the Lord. So, like of course you should be confident in that. Like, that is the nature of what like that. Sounds like the Apostle Paul, that sounds like the early church fathers, that sounds like how the Bible is written. Is like, if you live your life, it's not just like if you come, like come to our church. It's not come no, it's exactly yes, if you live this, I promise you your life will grow in meaning and in value, and you will come to know a heavenly father that loves you so much that that will change everything for you. That's the invitation of our home. Like, that's the invitation of why we do what we do, it's because like the music's not that great. I'm not that great of a teacher. It's not like we're like not the coolest book club you've ever been to. That's not the point. Yeah, you know, the point is that there is a way that God has laid out for life and community that will bring about change, guaranteed. This is the method, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

And I I think there's probably some people that would hear that and they would say, Yeah, but I've never seen that. Like you can say all that. Maybe that works in in your neck of the woods, but that's not gonna work around me. And I think the hill to climb there is that um, you know, this is why you cannot skip the process of that that whole process of renewal that we talked about. Because yeah, if you try to go cold turkey from Lost Ball, Sleeping Giant, just have a lot of questions trying to figure all this out. Yeah, you if you try to go cold turkey from that into having a community where what you just said is actual reality, not just language, right? But actual reality, you will fail. Yeah. And it's not, it's not a threat, it's not a you know, like this is this is gardening.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

This is not this is slow and it's seasonal. And God does his best work through the seasons of of hardship and refining. Like those are hard conversations you're talking about. Like, hey, who reads? Who talks? Who watches the kids? Like, how do we do this? Who cooks? Like, you're forming family bonds here. Like, that's not that sounds like premarital counseling. That's like, hey, how do we handle our money? Who watches the kids? Who who handles responsibility around here? Those are hard. And and and that happens by forging it. So it's not that this is easy and just like, hey, just gather with your friends this week and watch how your life changes. It's when you walk these rhythms. Right. It's like going to the gym or anything else, right? Like the Lord does this over time and and you will grow, I guarantee it. But it may just look different and it may be slower than you want. Right. So it's about committing to the process.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you have any hope of actually building something or establishing something that others can be invited into in a healthy manner, you better go through that process as well and grow to the place where you're, you know, if if God does put you in a position of leadership, right? That that leadership is out of a place of true serve servanthood, as Jesus talked about.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Overflow. Like we've got this and we want to share it with other people. That's how the how Holy Spirit and God the Father and God the Son created initially, like out of an abundance of togetherness, like let us create in our image. Like, yeah, this is so good. We want to bring other people into this. Right. That's how our church should function. Yeah. And it's out of overflow of richness and life together. And it's it's I just can't over overemphasize how slow it is and how methodical it is and how repetitive, because it's your people are gonna frustrate you. It's hard, it's not easy, you're gonna get tired and you don't want people in your house this week, whatever. Like, and maybe it's not even in your house, maybe you just don't want to go. But like through this commitment, like that's where the guarantee comes. If like if you don't give up, you you you you can't you can't lose here. There's only good to be had.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah. I I'll just just kind of I was just having this thought as you were you're saying that that um you know one of the one of the pushbacks that I've received over the years in in regards to you know what whether you call it house churches or microchurches or missional communities, whatever language you want to use, um is that you know it's kind of it's it's kind of not for everybody. Maybe it's only really for people that are a little further down the road in their walk.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Or it's trendy, I think.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Or it's trendy, or it's a it's you know, in some cases, again, it's like, oh, it's a response to or criticism naturally of big church versus small church.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Warned of that, like, hey, don't call it a home church. That's a that's a direct indictment of big church. And I was like, it is. I was like, oh my gosh, okay. My pressure's on. Wow, I'm saying something I didn't know I was saying.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah. I used to kind of buy into that a little bit more of the whole thing of it's not for everybody. Yeah. And I feel like over the last couple, actually in the last year or two, as we've seen everyday mission really grow and mature and start to see various expressions pop up of of church and and mission among our leaders. So, and we'll get into explaining why that's important, how that works another time. But um, there's a lot of diversity, let's just put it that way. And it's a beautiful diversity. Um, it's not a one size fits all. Like, I don't people that come alongside every day mission, I didn't when you did, I didn't say, well, you have to do your microchurch like this, it has to look like this, and you have to use this material and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

That's our ours looks very different even from yours.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Yeah, you know, and yeah, it's great. The the beautiful thing with that, and and why my thinking has kind of changed a little bit, is that I've seen now where God has been using just the simplicity of spiritual family and the things that we're talking about. Again, not to not to set aside or criticize or do anything with other forms of church, but I've just seen how it actually there is an opportunity for everyone to enter this way of being as the church um to enter spiritual family, whether they're a new baby Christian or they've been a believer for 50 years and they're a sleeping giant and God's using this to wake them up. Um because what we're talking about here goes back to that reality part of the definition. And what I've been seeing in practice is that when we really fully see God's kingdom manifest in a space where people begin to really own the fact that they are God's temple, that they are priests and kings, that they carry the message and the way of Jesus in their hearts and their lives, and they're seeing it like wave after wave of impact in their family, in their job, in their you know, their house, in their own lives, in their own bodies, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

It it it just it becomes it's like a gateway drug. All of a sudden now they can't get enough. They just can't get enough. And so again, I I don't want to come off sounding too like um overconfident that this this way of being and this way of doing church is gonna solve all your problems and you know, and fit fit for everybody. I've got friends that were part of Todd Hunter's um, you know, other other guys that were mentored by him at the same time I was. One guy went back to the Catholic Church, the other guy is now Orthodox, and the third calls himself kind of a Christian mystic. We're all still very good friends. We get together, we have a very interesting time when we're together. But guess what? All of us love Jesus, right? All of us are still in Christian community, all of us are still leading and serving the body in Christ in some way, right? And and it's just a beautiful representation of how God actually works in his king. This is not a one-size-fits-all kingdom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

It's true. And it's uh you can probably be a little bit more bold in it because it's it's in this claim because you didn't make this up. Like we we didn't create any plan for our churches. Like we we discovered it, we built the plane while we were flying it, you know? Like it was it was very much like, okay, like let's invite some people over and turn on some worship music and see where this goes. And so it's it's it's not that this is better and like, hey, stop going to your church. I just really want to keep reemphasizing that, like, stay in your church, at least until the Lord leads you anywhere. And and likely he'll lead you to stay because the Lord is all for unity. But realistically, it's just the fact that um this is in the hierarchy and like the pyramid, you know, this is like a lower tier. This is just have a meal with other believers, silence and solitude, prayer and fasting, rest, you know, this is like just lower down. And then if you really want like high production worship and like, you know, cool sermon series and props and like great, like go. But that's just higher up the the the hierarchy pyramid, right? Like that's a that's a more complex level. We really have to have some of the more baseline things. And so that's why is like this is just such a powerful thing, is it's just an attempt to do our best to get back to the heart of what Jesus was intending when he was setting up his first church, which is life that builds each other up and brings glory to God and builds his kingdom here. Good stuff. That's our goal. Good stuff.