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Is the Non-Denominational Church Even A Church? Reaction to Gospel Simplicity Video Answering!
Is the Non-Denominational Church Even A Church? What do you think?
If you love Jesus and hunger for something older, deeper, and steadier than the non-denominational scene, this conversation is for you.
Cloud of Witnesses hosts Jeremy Jeremiah, Mario Andrew, and first time, special guest host Michael, weigh the spectacle of modern worship against the historic shape of the church and ask a hard question with charity: are non-denominational congregations churches, and are they the church Jesus founded. Personal stories, doctrine, and authority guide a candid look at formation, sacraments, and accountability.
We look gratefully at what many non-denom churches do well—zeal for the gospel, real hospitality to seekers—while asking a harder question: what actually makes a church the Church Jesus founded? From there we explore how that answer shapes worship, formation, and accountability over a lifetime.
What we unpack (high level):
Experience vs. endurance: how production-heavy services can spark decisions but fail to grow deep roots.
Doctrine & discipleship: why “results” metrics quietly displaced catechesis, repentance, and the classical pattern of spiritual growth.
Sacraments at the center: communion, baptism, confession—not as add-ons, but as Christ’s appointed means of grace.
Authority that can correct: the difference between a movement built on personalities and an institutional church with bishops, priests, and deacons in apostolic succession.
Oversight & ordination: what happens when there’s no higher court to address error—or to restore a fallen leader.
Belonging vs. floating: why “me and Jesus” Christianity leaves people spiritually unparented and communities fragile.
This isn’t a hit piece—it’s an appeal to fullness. If your faith feels powerful but thin, if leadership turnover keeps resetting the vision, or if you’re curious about ancient paths that have held through centuries, we point toward a visible, sacramental, and accountable church life that forms believers for the long haul.
Listen, share, and discuss with a friend who’s asking the same questions. If this helped you think more clearly about church and discipleship, subscribe, rate, and leave a review so others can find the show.
Questions about Orthodoxy? Please check out our friends at Ghost of Byzantium Discord server: https://discord.gg/JDJDQw6tdh
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Please leave a comment with your thoughts!
To do a production. They got a sound guy in the back, they got a light guy in the back, they have a video.
SPEAKER_01:Have you seen those videos, you guys, where it's it's you hear the click and you hear what they're being told?
SPEAKER_03:And like they literally go through their day of like go to camera one, go to camera exactly. They are just like locked choreographed. It's choreographed, thank you.
SPEAKER_01:It's choreographed, it's pre-planned, and they're trying to do what?
SPEAKER_02:It's an interesting question of are they churches, right? That's one question. A separate question is are they the church that Jesus established? Right.
SPEAKER_03:The last thing in the last church I was at, they were even to the point where like we need to stop telling people to repent. Because it might push people away.
SPEAKER_01:If Pastor Joe Schmoe, who like he points out rightly, doesn't even need to be ordained, can go start his own church, and Maryland is gonna say he's now ordained. That's wild.
SPEAKER_02:The problem that a lot of them have is just a lack of accountability. There's not a higher, you know, they don't want the structure, the institutional structure of the church, but then there's no higher authority that can be appealed to if a pastor starts teaching something that is clearly wrong or clearly heresy.
SPEAKER_01:And so I want to ask Austin, you know, or these, you know, if you're watching this right now and you're non-denominational, are you hearing the gospel? Please don't forget, give us a like, give us a subscribe if you're interested in seeing more content from Cloud of Witnesses. I will tell you right now that the uncut, full, unedited video is over right now, available on our Patreon, and that's available for all of our Patreons. We're hoping that you go check that out. But for now, enjoy this episode and we'll see you at the end. Welcome to Cloud of Witnesses. We're really, really excited. We've got a great uh group here today. We're gonna be reacting to a gospel simplicity uh video. He's asking the very important question, which I think is kind of a shocking question. Is a non-denominational church even a church?
SPEAKER_00:Nearly my entire life in non-denominational churches. They are where I first learned about Christ and came to love Christ and encountered the beauty, truth, and goodness of the gospel. Growing up, I did not just think they were one good option among many. I thought they were the best form of church. They were the most effective at making converts, from what I could see, and that was what mattered. To say that my younger self would have been surprised that my older self would find himself sitting in a non-denominational church and asking, is this even a church?
SPEAKER_01:I want to first off say, because I think it's important to say, the point of this conversation is certainly not to pick on our non-denominational brothers and sisters, right? I've said many times, I've got videos about it. I am a former non-denominational Christian myself. Um, I, like Austin was saying, I was, I became saved. I became a Christian through a non-denominational church. And so I've got tons of love and respect for a lot of family that are still in the non-denominational church. However, uh, every one of us in this room is an Orthodox Christian. We obviously, you know, didn't go the non-denominational route for our faith, and there's a reason for that. And so I think this conversation I'm expecting from Austin is going to get into some of those issues with the non-denominational movement. I am curious, what's your experience with the non-denoms? And Mario, same question for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was similar. I was born and raised, non-denominational, kind of like an evangelical type of Protestant background, but it was totally non-denominational, so it's kind of hard to put it in a box exactly of like what what we belonged to, I guess you could say. Um, so yeah, I have a ton of experience. I grew up there. I was um considered myself non-denominational for probably 27 years, first 27 years of my life. Wow. So um definitely great people there. So I completely agree. It's not to, you know, attack these people or or bash them in any way. There's really good people there, but I think unfortunately, it just doesn't really give you the tools that orthodoxy gives you in in your Christian life and to walk in your in your faith. So it's I think it's good for for non-denominational people to kind of look into orthodoxy, of course, um, like all of us eventually did as well. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, 27 years. Somewhere around something like that, huh? Right, yeah. Yeah, no, I as that's what no, I I grew up in it. I spent at least, I mean, it was I became a reformed Presbyterian Calvinist probably when I was 19 or so. So I spent about 19 years in it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I was I was born and raised in the church. Right. Uh it's a very Christian household. Uh so that's really all I knew for a long time.
SPEAKER_01:Totally, which is what Austin says, interestingly. I felt the same way. If if I in my head, when I thought of Christianity, it's only thing I knew, which was the band was on stage. You know, back then it wasn't so much smoke machines and stuff, but it was the preise music. There was uh no crosses in there. They just had the uh Marinatha, the um the dove um, you know, was on the stage as opposed to anything else. And it was very, you know, ultra calls every Sunday, that kind of thing. Prophecy watch on Friday nights, you know, that whole environment. Mario, what about you, man? What would any experience with the non-denominational?
SPEAKER_03:So I would say that I was um non-denominational majority of my life that I remember. I grew up Catholic until about I think age seven or eight. And then when my mom became non-denominational, I also became non-denominational until I was about, I think, 25, and then I became Calvinist. Um, actually, Alfonso James, who is on Cloud of Witnesses, he was actually the one discipling me. Um, and then I was his biggest failure because I left. I left and became Orthodox. I was the weirdo. How dare you? I know, I know. So I again I have that's that's all I knew for a majority of my life. Wow, you know, and sometimes when I'm talking to other Protestants and like, how can you not see it? I'm like, I've lived it, brother. Like I've I've lived it. I know, I know every point you're gonna tell me because I was there. Right. You know, I was doing it every Sunday. I was in the small groups, I was reading my my word, which of course is great. Yeah. But I felt like something was missing, you know, and I and I found what was missing in orthodoxy. That's amazing, Mario.
SPEAKER_01:Um talking about discipling, you said something interesting when we were about to eat dinner, and you said that gospel simplicity was responsible for yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, Austin, shout out Austin. Uh, your video that you did with Father Josiah Trenum when I was kind of having my crisis of like, I don't know what to believe, um, but I don't think my Calvinist theology is correct. And I started going through like a deep dive of YouTube, just watching like Catholic apologetists. And then I saw this video of the Gospel Simplicity interviewing Father Josiah Trenum, and I was like, what's this? And as soon as I saw that, I was hooked. Like I just watched every video that Father Josiah Trenum had. I looked up the church, the Orthodox churches near me. I went that Sunday to the church I attend now. That's amazing. Yeah, shout out Gospel Simplicity, Austin, because I mean you're really kind of like the spark into me finding orthodoxy.
SPEAKER_00:That's incredible. Is an understatement. But it remains the case that calling something a church doesn't make it a church. And I found myself asking that very question more than a few times. Perhaps you have too. So today we'll be asking are non-denominational churches even churches? It's a spicy question, but before we get into it, let's make sure we're on the same page. Non-denominationalism is one of the fastest growing forms of Christianity, and now makes it the largest segment of American Protestantism. But what is it exactly? Well, those on the outside sometimes hear non-denominational and think, oh, so you're like not attached to any one particular belief system, huh? In reality, non-denominational churches can be very focused on doctrine. In fact, sometimes so much so that they feel no existing denomination aligns closely enough with their beliefs to join it. Ignore that in a bit. Strictly speaking, non-denominational churches are super.
SPEAKER_01:Do you guys think that's true? Are non-denominational churches super focused on doctrine?
SPEAKER_02:In my experience, not as much. Yeah. It's kind of what he's pointing out. I'm sure there are some that are like that. But in my experience, it's you get a wide variety of belief systems, even within one church congregation. Agreed.
SPEAKER_01:Um I the the non-denominational churches I was part of definitely were not that focused on doctrine. We never talked about doctrine. It was really, it was very much so, and not to be overly simplistic, but it's just true. It was um Jesus loves you, come to faith, brother, read your Bible, um, you know, get baptized, bring your friends to church, you know. Like it there, we didn't ever talk about doctrine. We never talked about sanctification, justification. It's you know, we if the Bible verses were read that said those words, we heard the words. But I think part of it is Austin is he's a great job. That's why I think his channel is so popular. He's very good at being very egalitarian with all the different views. And right now he's you know, he's talking to a non-denominational audience, probably primarily, that would tune into this kind of video.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think he has a big Catholic, you know, uh Catholic audience as well.
SPEAKER_01:He does, but do you think a Catholic would be as interested in this video? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:I wonder. I I don't know. I mean, maybe you're right. Maybe to keep up keep up with the times, you know what's going on in the Protestant space.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And then he's got he's got that little bit of an Orthodox audience, right? Yeah, because we're always the little audience everywhere. Yeah, yeah. Um What about you, Mario? Was doctrine a focus?
SPEAKER_03:Never ever. And I no. And you know, now when I especially when I was Calvinist and I wanted to talk about doctrine, I remember my non-denominational friends would be like, I don't want to deconstruct my faith. I only care about my Jesus experience. Yeah, and that's all I need. I don't need to understand everything.
SPEAKER_01:See, that's Mario, that's you you said it. It's it was all about evangelism, and that's what brought me to Presbyterianism as well. That's that's why I became a Calvinist, because at that time in my life, I was craving doctrine. I was I was like, I wanted the history. So I started reading my what little bit that I knew back then. So I ended up becoming a Calvinist because it's so enticing to non-denominational people. Interestingly, and shout out to the other Cloud Witnesses video where Dylan Baker, who his channel is called The Protestant Gentleman, he is leaving the non-denominational church. And he says at the very end of that video, he's like, I he thinks he might go Presbyterian. And something I wanted to say to him was what's the old saying? Jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Yeah, it's like you're still in the same situation, man. Yeah, and so when I told him in that video, I go, don't make Presbyterianism a pit stop. Like, just skip it altogether. Just come straight to orthodoxy, man.
SPEAKER_03:I'm I'm saving you the trouble, right? My Mike, um, were you ever reformed or like high church Protestant at all?
SPEAKER_02:No, no, I bounced around within Protestantism a little bit, but never any like high church kind of Protestant at all. It was all I think you mentioned it before, like it's it was very focused on experience over doctrine, which let's not say that there's no aspect where experience, you know, plays a role, but that was that was the sole focus, and and there was really no emphasis on like what exactly do we actually believe that differentiates us from anybody else.
SPEAKER_00:Evangelicals are focused on making a difference in the world, studying and preaching the Bible. Their theology focuses on the death of Jesus on the cross, usually seen through the lines of a penal substitutionary atonement, and they place a high value on the experience of conversion. Thus, you'll find within these churches the language of being born again, adult baptism, and an emphasis on sharing your testimony. As I mentioned, evangelicals have largely found non-denominationalism to be the best form of church to live out the evangelical life. But why is this? There seems to be a few reasons. When we combine activism and conversionism, we get a very pragmatic faith. Lump in a dose of capitalist culture and the separation of church and state, forcing churches to fund themselves. And what you get is an ecclesiology which prioritizes results. The church then becomes laser focused on saving the lost. Anything that gets in the way of that, such as the red tape of denominations, can be cut in serves as a higher priority of making disciples. Biblicism also comes into play here.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know what you guys think in terms of, you know, again, I I appreciate Austin. And, you know, I've said it before, we've had him on Cloud of Witnesses, actually. We interviewed him a while back, and so we've talked. He's a really nice guy. I just feel that he's he goes into such an effort to be as charitable as possible, which is great. Um, but as a former non-denominational Christian, like I'm thinking of all the things he's not saying. And I'll give a couple examples. Um, I'm curious if you guys experienced any of this. One I already mentioned, and that is the dispensationalism, which I think is pretty rampant in the in the non-denominational movement. And, you know, that being the rapture-focused Jesus is coming back any day now, you know, be ready, you know, prophecy watch stuff. Have one hand in your Bible and the other hand watching Fox News, like it's rampant, at least in the circles I was in in non-denominationalism. And I don't think Austin's gonna talk about that, but that's the real world. You guys have any thoughts on that? Any experience with that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think one thing he's talking about is their focus on conversion, which of course, evangelizing is important. We need to be doing that. Amen. But they're so results focused on converting people, on getting new members and growing the numbers of their church, that I think that plays into some of the strategies that they use in order to achieve that, with like what you're saying, like the rapture and things like that. That kind of incentivizes people, like, hey, come in and convert. There's not a huge focus on doctrine, so it almost doesn't really matter what the specifics of what you believe are, right? Just pray the sinner's prayer, come to the altar, call, and convert. And that for them is that's success for them. And then unfortunately, there's not in many of these churches, there's not a huge focus on actually cultivating the faith in these new converts.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, discipleship. There's just no discipleship at all, you know, and then there's a there's an emphasis on serving, you know, get into a small group, or even you should start leading a ministry. Like I've had I've heard Christians, like non-denominational Christians, like literally six minutes, six months into their faith, like, oh yeah, now I lead a small group. Yeah, no, six minutes.
SPEAKER_01:That's a Freudians, that's true, right?
SPEAKER_03:You know, and they're like, like me, I mean they haven't even read the gospels, right? You know, but they still show up to church every every Sunday and like, oh yeah, now I'm gonna be a leader. But it's like you're still like an infant.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And and that's such a great point, Mike, because I'm glad you mentioned that. You know, kind of talking about in contrast here to what Austin is saying, another one is what you mentioned, which is you get a lot of once saved, always saved. You know, it's very much because again, like you said, no focus on doctrine, Mike. So what so what is it? Well, you're saved, brother. You're saved. So you're no worries anymore about your faith, other than as you were saying, Mario, have have you told anyone about Jesus today? You know, I remember I used to feel so guilty. They'd be like, Did you go out to, you know, you went out to to lunch yesterday and did you leave them attract? You know, did you tell them God bless you? Did you write a Bible verse on the receipt of the and I would be like, No. You know what I mean? And was your church Southern Baptist? Was it though? Well, it was Baptist, my the private school is where a lot of that came from. I was curious.
SPEAKER_03:I was like, this is like this sounds foreign to like my type of see that's so interesting, right?
SPEAKER_01:Because there is a variation, dude. This private school, non-denominational Baptist by name, we didn't have dances because why? Because you can't have dances, and you we would have uh dinners, so we had a homecoming dinner instead of a dance, and obviously no alcohol, you know, no smoking, there was just none of that, no tobacco. Um, but I I guess what I'm trying to get at is to my mind, at least from what Austin has said so far, there's an underbelly, as I would describe it, to non-denominationalism, which is problematic. Um, and we've only named just a couple of them here, real quick.
SPEAKER_00:So with the fidelity to scripture being given immense importance, evangelicals are often prone to jump ship from organizations at the slightest hint of infidelity.
SPEAKER_03:You know, he had talked about how like it's easier not to be in the red tape and not belong to a group, but like we all want to belong to a group. That's the thing. Like we that's that's that's us as a group, we we identify like I'm I'm a Mexican American, right? I'm I'm a part of this group, I'm a veteran. I'm I'm these things. So we automatically we're that we gather by by nature, right?
SPEAKER_01:You know, totally. Well, Mario, can I say on top of that, it's it's also begs the question, right? Non-denominationalism is a group. Yes. That's the thing. It's a denomination, basically, at this point, right? And so it's kind of like it's become the thing it thought it was trying to not be. And again, I think then that's that's a problem.
SPEAKER_03:Or are you good at the spin? The ch the last church I was a part of before it became um Orthodox was multi-denominational, which was just it was just a new spin on non-denomination. Yeah, that's wild.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, good on Austin, though. I'm not sure you guys caught that. He mentioned Ignatius and Antioch.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's that's the thing about Austin. He's he's he's so well educated. Absolutely. Like he's phenomenal. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:When the church focuses on the kingdom of God, it behooves it to pay attention to institutions. After all, kingdoms require governments. But if the kingdom aspects are downplayed or spiritualized, then once again, institutions become less important than making converts. This point on the kingdom leads us to a critical sub-question of our original question. That is, what is a church? Discerning the nature of the church is a big question. And for more detail, I'll refer you to my video on five models of the church, where I lay out five visions of what it means to be a church and the corresponding goals of these models. For now, though, I think the real qua crux of the question for our current discussion is how important are the institutional aspects of the church? Let's lay out three options. Can you pause on that?
SPEAKER_01:On the one hand, we could before he jumps into those. I want to ask you guys, what is the church?
SPEAKER_03:Well, like my like, I would say the body of Christ. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think that's the most straightforward answer. Right. That's what it is.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And I I would just add to that, it is a visible body that Christ established through his apostles, through the bishops and deacons and priests that they ordained by the laying on of hands. And you could see them from one century to the next, to the next, to this very day. And so the visible element of that church, of the church, hasn't changed. And that's what I want to say to Austin and to anyone listening to this video. It's not just this idea of, oh, the church that you can actually go and see it.
SPEAKER_00:It exists. I would say that the church is an institution. And that when Christ spoke about forming the kingdom of God, he had in mind a structured society, which is the church in which there are rulers. This model prevailed throughout much of church history, especially in the West, and this it would be unthinkable to go off and form your own independent church. Perhaps an analogy would be helpful. On this model, the church is like a government. Like the US Constitution, the church has a ruling document, namely the Bible. Like the Supreme Court, it has the magisterium. And like Congress and the President, it has bishops and a pope. Viewed from this angle, non-denominational churches are essentially leaving the government because it's corrupt and then forming their own mini-communities based off trying to live out the principles of allowing people to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Maybe these churches take inspiration from some of the founding fathers, but they're not interested in joining America because, well, America went wrong. On this model, non-denominational churches don't seem to be churches in the same sense that it's historically been understood. They're not states within this nation, they're spin-offs created by the document of this nation. This, of course, is not the only model of the church, though. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the church as the believing community that exists to preach the gospel and make disciples. This is what I refer to as the church as movement model. This, I believe, is the primary model within non-denominational churches. You'll often hear great emphasis placed on the word ecclesia, the Greek word from which we derive church meaning assembly or gathering. We might say that it's a gathering in which the word of God is preached and the sacraments are rightly administered. This is, after all, how Calvin conceives of the church. However, one of the difficulties here is the notion of the sacraments being rightly administered. This rightly letter is often linked not only to a theology of the sacraments, but also to ordination. Non-denominational churches, however, often have a rather low view of ordination. Here's a fun fact, Rick. In the state of Maryland, where I live, you don't even need to be ordained to start a governmentally recognized church. The act of starting a church makes you ordained in the state's eyes. I know this because I was part of a non-denominational church plan. I think many non-denominational churches kind of have a similar theology of ordination. Being ordained is basically, at most, another pastor saying he thinks you should be a pastor. Maybe he prays and lays hands on you while doing it, but it's far from the historical sense of ordination or apostolic succession, which are often tied to you guessed it, institutional affiliation.
SPEAKER_01:Never mind. I like how he's presenting things. I think it's, you know, his analogies, I think, are pretty fair. Um it's and it's true. You know, you have the way he described the non-denominational church is kind of these rebellion groups, if you will, right? They're not the United States anymore, but they're still using the Constitution, i.e., the Bible, as their guide. And if I I just have to do it, and you know, forgive me for this, but that's another underbelly problem, right? Is and it's interesting, it's so interesting to me how Austin doesn't his argue, he's not antagonistic at all, is he?
SPEAKER_04:No, no.
SPEAKER_01:It's almost like he's just kind of presenting, like, hey, here it's almost like a world religions course. Here's what the non-denominationals think, you know? And so it's it's just kind of fascinating to me because I think I always come from a polemic mindset, and and God forgive me for that. Um but I think that that idea of these groups are interpreting the constitution to use as an analogy, and they're coming to different conclusions, right? And Mario, like you said, your it sounds like your non-denominational experience was very different than mine, right? And yet we were both in non-denominational circles. And I'm I would imagine, Mike, it sounds like yours is maybe a little bit more similar to mine in some ways. Sounds like it. Um and it's and why? How does that happen? It's because, well, Pastor Joe Schmoe, who, like he points out rightly, doesn't even need to be ordained, can go start his own church, and Maryland is gonna say he's now ordained. That's wild. Um there's no connection to the that visible church we talked about earlier.
SPEAKER_02:And on the ordination thing, this never even crossed my mind, never even occurred to me when I was in non-denominational churches. But looking back, I I don't even know how they explain the fact that they don't have, at least most of them, none that I've seen, have things like deacons. Right. You know, it's it's clearly scriptural, it's in the Bible. But I've not seen very many non-denominational churches that have anything like that. So I don't even know how they how they make sense of that.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Well, they'll they'll call them we have our elders, right? Sure. But but it's it's different, you know. Like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, but but it's such a great point, Mike. It's such a great point because they pride themselves, and in fact, my parents say it to this day. I go to a Bible-believing church. I go to a Bible-believing church, and then see you just want to ask the question, excellent. So where is your bishop? And where and where are your deacons? And where's your priest? You know? Yeah, that's wild.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Nevertheless, if we drop the ordination part from the rightly administered sacraments, many non-denominational churches would fit the requirements for being a church under this model. And I'd go one step further. They're often the best churches under this model. Here, I feel the need to defend some non-denominational, uh, some aspects of the non-denominational church. You already are while they get a lot of love at the popular level in terms of people attending them. They get a lot of hate from us stuffy theological types. But if we take the church to be a community heralding the gospel, non-denominational churches are doing a great job of this. Can we stop right there?
SPEAKER_01:I'm sorry. I have to say something. They're preaching the gospel at best. When they're at their best, they are. They're preaching the gospel. But they're not always. Because so much of what I see in that non-denominational world, especially with your big old mega churches, you know, saddleback, it's about, you know, what is it about? Look at our coffee shop. We got a coffee shop on our campus. They don't even call it a church, it's our campus, you know, and you go there and there's no mention even of Christ or sin or repentance. And so I want to ask Austin, you know, or these, you know, if you're watching this right now and you're non-denominational, are you hearing the gospel? Are you really hearing the gospel? I hope so. You know, I hope so. And I think in some circles they are. I'm not trying to say they're not, but I feel like in in too many that we could point to, the gospel gets pretty lost in the weeds sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that comes down to a problem that a lot of them have is just a lack of accountability. There's not a higher, you know, they don't want the structure, the institutional structure of the church, but then there's no higher authority that can be appealed to if a pastor starts teaching something that is clearly wrong or clearly heresy. So they have to just either get rid of that pastor or go to a new church. Yeah. And then you just have like this constant turnover, and there's no there's no stability there. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point.
SPEAKER_00:I think we should recognize this. They're some of the most effective churches at making converts, and I'd go out on a limb to say that the church in your city, baptizing the most people and introducing the highest number of people to faith for the first time, is probably a non-denominational church. With their ruthless focus on pragmatic discipleship, non-denominational churches have turned this into a science. Okay, and maybe a business at times. I don't know why I had thought.
SPEAKER_03:Because he was a made into business a hundred percent. You know, I like how he brushed over that. Because I mean, you hear it all the time. You know, I don't know if you have you guys ever been in behind the scenes at non-denominational churches at all. To to some extent.
SPEAKER_02:Not a not a big one. No, no, no. I haven't seen it personally.
SPEAKER_01:I what I have seen is the um, to give an example, is the staff. The staff of these churches sometimes would shock you with how many people there are and how much money they're making.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and for example, like a worship leader, you know, they're paid almost like a rock star in a way, and they're doing things they're playing to a click. They got metronomes, they got all the high end incredibly technical stuff to do a production.
SPEAKER_03:They got a sound guy in the back, they got a light guy in the back, they have a smoke machine guy, smoke machine guy in the back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they're have you seen those videos, you guys, where it's it's you hear the click and you hear what they're being told.
SPEAKER_03:Have you seen like the day in the life of like um a church producer and like they literally go through their day of like go to camera one, go to camera guess? They think they are just like locking in. It's all it's all programmed, it's all programmed, yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:And it's pre planned. And and it's like it's choreographed. It's choreographed. Thank you. It's choreographed, it's pre planned, and they're trying to do what? They're trying to create and hit an emotional response. And that to me, we talked a little bit earlier, it feels a little icky. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, okay, if we're gonna go on this chorus one more time, we think we got them. You know what I mean? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it's like, show me that in an early church. Show me that anywhere in church history. A sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace. As an example, we could think of a birth certificate. A birth certificate showing you were born in the United States is not the same as the invisible grace, if you will, of being a US citizen, but it is the sign which having obtained it, one can show that they have the grace. Now, birth certificates usually have certain features. They have the baby's name, the parent's name, so the place of birth, the fingerprint, and a state or uh like a country or county seal, right? To name just a few elements. Think of these like the marks of the church. If a birth certificate were to not have some of these elements, it doesn't mean that the child isn't a citizen or wasn't born. In the same way, a church having imperfect marks doesn't necessarily mean it's not a church from God's vantage point. But from men's vantage point, if no one saw the birth and all they have is a piece of paper lacking a seal and fingerprints, they might doubt that the certificate is authentic and therefore that the child is a citizen. So do with the church.
SPEAKER_01:But I can't help but to feel that Austin is assuming a lot of things in this analogy. He's assuming that that grace he called of being an American citizen, which I think we would say is being saved, right? Being a Christian, is here. And he all that other stuff, the name on there, the father's name, the fingerprint, what we might call the visible church, being baptized, being charismated. He's making that sound, let's be frank, I think he would agree. If you didn't even have a birth certificate, you're still an American citizen if you're born here. Right. In other words, what I'm trying to get at is his analogy to me makes all the visible church stuff feel completely extra, not needed, not necessary, just kind of like, yeah, it's nice if it's there, but you don't need it. You're still an American citizen. And I feel like that's exactly the spin that non-denominational Christians evangelicals tend to say, which I think is it does a great detriment to the faith.
SPEAKER_02:Church or even being a part of a local physical church becomes optional. And I think a lot of them they wouldn't say that. They would say that you really ought to be a part of a church, but I think kind of built into their belief system is that it really is optional. It's extra. As long as you have a personal relationship with Christ, you're good. Anything in addition to that is just nice to have. Yeah. Um, and like I said, I don't think they would say that, but it's kind of built into their their belief system.
SPEAKER_03:Well, yeah, but then and also what's the implications of that then? You don't have to do anything. Yeah. I'm I'm already an American citizen. I don't have to vote.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:You know, like it's exactly right. Right. You know, that do you have to do you even have to pay your taxes? Right, according to any of that, right? Absolutely. Everything you guys said, I agree with completely. It's and I would even go so far as to say sometimes they even just say it. Yeah, I I don't have to go to church. I I go to church when I go on a walk in the forest with, you know, listening to praise music. You know, I've heard that said, you know, that type of thing. Or for me, church is me and my Bible, you know, sitting on the beach, you know, that kind of thing. And it's like, or you hear the famous where two are gathered you know, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in your midst. So you got literally two or three people in their house, and they'll even pass around some bread. I'm not joking. I've even seen it with Reese Ritz Crackers as communion. Hey guys, we're gonna do communion today in someone's home. Because why? Like you said. Yeah. Well, it's extra, anyways.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I've actually the last again, the last church I was at, they were even to the point where like we need to stop telling people to repent because it might push people away. Wow. You know, like which is crazy because that's what Christ calls everyone that he interacted with is to repent, you know. And so it was for me, I was like, Yeah, I I need to find the opposite of whatever is going on at this church, you know, because again, you're already saved, you don't have to do anything. You are who you are, and yes, he'll accept you for who you are, but you're not supposed to stay there. Yeah, you know, and so yeah, it's it's crazy.
SPEAKER_01:Can we say, like, just to make it clear for those who are listening, especially if someone is listening and they're non-denominational or Protestant or whatever? The the point we're trying to make is not that it's not that you're not saved in a sense, right? It's not that you're not a Christian if you're not Orthodox, but rather do you have the fullness of the faith? Do you have you had mentioned it earlier, do you have the tools to practice your faith, right? Are you able to run the race, right?
SPEAKER_00:As Paul talks about, or have you already crossed the finish line? We must do the harder, less ego-inducing work of asking, well, what is the church? Without doing this, it's futile and quite frankly, irresponsible to make pronounces about whether or not non-denominational churches are churches, properly speaking. And I'll add, as you do this hard work, remember that asking whether people in non-denominational churches are Christians is a different question entirely. So my hope is that we can all explore this question with intellectual honesty, rigor, and even more so, the Christian charity that is not a nice add-on to our theological endeavors, but a prerequisite to them being Christian theology in the first place.
SPEAKER_03:I don't feel like, and maybe it's just my experience as an Orthodox Christian for three years. I don't feel like, unless you're Ben Luigi, which I love you, Ben, um I don't think Orthodox Christians are telling other Christians what you're doing is wrong. Yeah. You know, I've never ever told anybody that's non-denominational unless they ask me that they're wrong. You know, I've never had a conversation and I'm like, oh, you go to a non-dom church. Man, that sucks. You know, I've never said anything, I've never said anything like that. Um, if anything, it's when I tell them, Oh, yeah, I'm an Orthodox Christian. They're like, oh, so you're A, B, C, D, E, F, G. You know, they they just start saying that I'm all of these things, which I'm not, which usually they just think I'm Catholic. You know, so you know, I kind of have that like going for me, right? But it's we don't have a Pope bro. Exactly. Exactly. And so it's it's it's interesting because I just I don't think that we're the ones doing that. You know, if anything, I'm having to defend myself and and my faith. Yeah, you know, but I'm never saying, like, oh no, you don't have sacraments, you don't have this, you don't have that, unless we're in a debate. Yeah, you know. Yeah. So that I don't know, for at least maybe here in the West Coast in America, that's my experience. Do you guys have similar? Like, are you picking fights? For lack of better words.
SPEAKER_02:No, definitely not picking fights, but yeah, I mean, when we do get into conversations with people that we know who might happen to be non-denominational Protestants, you know, it's not like like we mentioned at the beginning of the video, it's not like we're trying to attack anybody, but I really think, like I said earlier, I think the, and you mentioned as well, it's the fullness of the faith that is the key part, is that orthodoxy is the fullness of the faith. Right. There are plenty of things that in my Protestant upbringing, I am extremely grateful for. I'm very thankful for a lot of things that came out of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But it's not everything that Christ gave the apostles and that the apostles passed down. Yeah. Um, it's missing a lot of really important aspects of what Christ did.
SPEAKER_01:I saw some meme today, I'm not even sure where, but it was orthodoxy is Catholicism without all the added stuff, and it's Protestantism without all the stuff they cut out. And I think there's some truth to that, you know, because like you said, they're missing something. Because, you know, in the Reformation, the Protestants they they were so reactionary to Rome that they threw so much stuff out. Anything that looked Roman Catholic, that must be bad. So we're getting rid of it. And I think to just to reiterate what you were saying, Mike, is so much of that they lost, you know, uh unfortunately.
SPEAKER_02:Uh it's an interesting question of are they churches? Right. That's one question. A separate question is, are they the church that Jesus established? Right. Are they a church or are they the church? Those are two different questions. Huge. And I think, you know, obviously from the Orthodox view, you know, they they aren't the church, you know, and that's um Christ established a church for us, you know, to to help us and aid us and to be a part of a body, a part of a community to keep us accountable in our walk.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Look at that. You made it to the end. Thank you so much. Don't forget, like, subscribe, share with friends and family. If you've been edified or you found this thought provoking, we hope that you can help us share the message of Christ's love for his people, for the earth, for the world. We are cloud of witnesses, and you can find us again over at Patreon, search cloud of witnesses, and we have the entire unedited. I think we talked for like an hour and 10, hour and 15 minutes about this. Get it all right now over at Patreon. We will see you on the next one. God bless.