church – Jesse Steele

Since I Quit Sunday Morning

Jesse SteeleOctober 8, 2017

Since I quit Sunday morning…

Other people understand me better. Maybe that’s because I stopped using strange words and wrong grammar just because it made sense to the 200 same people I saw every Sunday.

Since I quit Sunday morning…

Jesus got a lot bigger and a lot more real. I started to believe that all the buildings in town aren’t enough to hold all the people who are interested in a Jesus who can’t fit into Sunday morning.

Since I quit Sunday morning…

I started rolling with the punches more. Surprises didn’t upset me quite so much. Maybe that’s because Jesus didn’t have to arrange everything he wanted to do and say into the Sunday morning schedule.

Since I quit Sunday morning…

I realized that God’s sovereignty meant that I’m not allowed to blame others for my difficulties. Maybe that’s because I wasn’t around a weekly culture of one denomination or congregation always blaming the other. · · · →

In Faith

95 Theses of the Clerical System

Jesse SteeleApril 24, 2013March 1, 2019

An eBook version of this article is available, free of charge and for your convenience.

Introduction

If you are a professional pastor or clergy reading this, this is not about you. This is about the system which has worked contrary to all your good goals and dreams for the Body of Christ, which many other Christians hold in common with you. These theses are about the system which holds you and the rest of the Church hostage.

Once the Body of Christ realizes these few, ninety-five truths, along with many other truths much more profound and insightful along the same lines, many carnal elements in the Body of Christ will burn up. Whatever remains after that is the true, pure Church—the fellowship which is not to be, and, by definition, cannot be, abandoned.

I am qualified to make these statements because I have been through the same fire myself.

Preamble: Definition of the Clerical system

The clerical system, since the institution of “bishops” almost 2,000 years ago, is the system which has defined the “local church” as the primary Body of Christ, the fellowship which is considered “not to be forsaken”. · · · →

In Blog

The Single Myth Attacking the Church Today

Jesse SteeleDecember 6, 2012Leave a comment

With many doctrinal questions, even dwarfing the power of Scripture, there is only one myth attacking the Church: “The clerical system is NOT Satanic.” That myth has been around since Rome commandeered the locally-managed, locally-identified, unified Body of Christ and implemented their clerical system from pagan religions before it.

James is a great teacher with many great ideas, just like Bill Hybels. Pastors are given to the Church by God, just as Apostles and Evangelists, and these functions have no expiration date.

Great pastors like James and Hybels would be far more effective than they already are if they operated as “pastors who are not clergy”. If you look, you will see that defining “pastors” as “clergy” is the source of division in the Church. And this needs no Scriptural claim, other than that Church Unity remains the unanswered prayer of Jesus in John 17 and was the directive given by Paul in Ephesians 2. · · · →

In Blog

Why the West Misunderstood Willow Creek

Jesse SteeleJuly 25, 2012Leave a comment

In 1975, Bill Hybels and Dr. Bilezikian discussed a concept that would be one of the most impacting—and one of the most misunderstood—in the Western Church.

While they implemented may ideas, some of the more notorious included diligent research and feedback, emphasis on local community, and effective communication. These principals, and others, grew their numbers at a startling rate, and eventually drew respect of many in the American Church, including some of their largest opponents from their early years.

Why was their such a misunderstanding, though? And why do many Christian groups misrepresent what Hybels did at Willow Creek? Perhaps this is easier to understand if we review three closet assumptions held by many Christians in America…

1. Research and market feed back are shallow, aesthetically-focuses, and greed-driven, only used by top-heavy, bureaucratic, for-profit businesses.

2. Good Bible teaching must use big words that normal people shouldn’t understand. Since seminaries teach with big words, those big words must be taught to the plumber in the pew before he can understand the Bible… even though those big words aren’t in the Bible. · · · →