We need to recapture and restate the original and true biblical meaning of what ‘church’ is.
Firstly, what it is not: ‘church’ is not a building.
Neither is ‘church’ an organisation, headed by a pastor as part of a hierarchical structure.

Because, when Jesus talks about his ‘church’ that is not what he means. So, this is crucial to see and understand.

‘Church’ – according to Jesus, the Letters and the Acts – is the believing people of God, the saved community. It is what Paul calls ‘the Body of Christ’ (and Christ, being the Head, having ascended to heaven, now sits at the right hand of the Father). So, spiritually speaking, the Body is on earth, linked with the Head sitting in the heavenlies.

That means we, the people of God, the common believers (as well as the ‘apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers’, etc.) are, corporately and individually, His Body and His Church. Believers are the (Gk.) Ekklesia = the called-out, and gathered together, ones.

We need to recover this essential biblical truth today, to keep us from the ongoing errors which we will otherwise fall into.

In other words, it’s a ‘level playing field’. All are one in Christ, and no-one is more ‘holy’ than another. There is no ‘clergy-laity’ divide.

Going back, now, to the New Testament model, you will see that it was upon the preaching of the Gospel to people, and their individual (not corporate) decisions to turn and to believe, that they were added ‘to Christ’ – that is, into his Body, the Church. In other words, you became ’saved’ when you received the message of the Gospel by faith. You went into the Kingdom one by one.

Then, what did you do about it? Once you had believed – straightaway – you were told that you had now become a part of Christ’s universal Body. Also – straightaway – you went through the waters of baptism, to seal your commitment and to show everyone(with whom you were now joined in one Body) that you had done with the old life (the ‘old man’) and put on the new. Whereupon, you received the seal of the Holy Spirit from God.

For, you had made an individual choice, but been baptized into a Body. Now, you had a whole new set of spiritual ‘brothers and sisters’, for you had entered into a whole new family, of which Jesus Christ was the ‘elder brother’.

So, conversion was never meant to be an individualistic thing ‘you in your small corner and I in mine’ – it was a ‘body’ thing. The book of Acts says that the believers were always together, ate from house to house and shared their possessions with those in need. That is communal living (though not necessarily ‘living in commune’!).

Having said all this, and shown you the New Testament pattern, I do not think this is really where you have the problem, do you?

No, what we have today is not that kind of thing at all. There is no real pattern of this thing operating in any of the organised churches that we see today. Instead of the ‘grass roots up’ non-structured NT pattern, what we have today is a ‘top-down’ hierarchical pattern – a pyramid structure – totally foreign to what the Bible ever showed the Early Church to be.

So, I think your reluctance stems from this. That you don’t want to get any closer to this system, this dominating structure, this ‘power’ thing which is making ‘little empires’ for clever men who are milking the saints for the money.

This is exactly why so many people are leaving the organised churches and looking for something ‘organic’ or something ’simple’. Not that, when they possibly find ‘it’, it always ‘fits the bill’ perfectly (beware, there are imitations!), but they kind of know that what we have today, as regards church structure and practice, is way out of line – and oppressive – too.

So, yes, you DO need to get saved, you DO need to identify with a body of true believers (even just two or three) and stick like glue to them and you do need to get baptized in obedience to the biblical injunction and for victory over sin. But you don’t have to join any of these unbiblical churches if you don’t want.

If you choose this path, let me warn you, it’s going to be a rocky and a lonely road, and you will need the comfort of likeminded believers along the way.

However, the Lord Jesus said ‘I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’. That means – though we must work with him – it’s essentially HIS job, HIS plan, HIS responsibility, not ours. He will lead his sheep into the green pastures, for it is He who has said He will do it.