Is the Church Held Captive in an Institution?

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Vision for the Outside: Freedom in Christ

Rethinking church starts with a hard question. If what you practice is biblical, you will be encouraged. If it is not, change it in prayer, not in a committee. Many believers live like people who have been institutionalized by religious captivity. Their bodies sit inside familiar walls while their hearts forget the outside Jesus sent them to.

Christ set us free for freedom. Stand firm and do not take the yoke of slavery again.

Five Things We Will Learn

1. Why rethinking church in the light of Scripture is safe when what we practice is of God, and necessary when it is not.
2. How religious captivity can leave a believer terrified of the freedom Jesus already purchased.
3. Why the church needs transition relationships, a fear of God, and family government instead of more fences.
4. Why the book of Acts shows a free people under the leadership of Jesus, a go church and not only a come church.
5. Why abiding with Jesus and hearing His voice is the only way to live free without trading one captivity for another.

If It Is Biblical, You Will Be Encouraged

Just the words “rethinking church” can put a shiver up the spine of anyone held captive to religion. The thought rises quickly: we are not supposed to think about this, we are just supposed to do it.

Listen on Apple Podcasts: Vision for the Outside

Think about it. If what you are doing is right, if it is of God, and if it is written in the lines of the Bible, you will simply be encouraged. And if it is not, you will know where you need to change. Do not call a committee meeting first. Call a prayer meeting. Say before the Lord, we need to rethink this.

We do not have endless time to ponder for another generation. The adversary moves quickly to convince people to buy into what is wrong. Why would we move slowly when people need to surrender their lives to God?

A Prison Movie and a Vision for the Outside

There is a movie called The Shawshank Redemption that speaks on many levels to a church held in captivity. Prisoners learn to live inside confinement. They do laundry. They eat. They have social life. They read books. Their biggest accomplishments become the small freedoms they finally receive after asking long enough.

In that story one man kept a vision for the outside. Even though his body was inside the walls, his heart was outside. He helped others build that same vision. He helped a young man finish school. He spoke about life beyond the prison.

But there is another figure in the story, Brooks, an older man who had been institutionalized most of his life. All he knew was the institution. When the time came for him to be free, he was terrified. He knew how to function in confinement. He did not know how to be free.

Brooks would rather stay where life was predictable than step into the unknown. He understood someone telling him when to use the bathroom, when to go to bed, and when to be somewhere at a set time. When he was released, even ordinary decisions outside the prison filled him with anxiety.

Brooks’ story ends tragically. His inability to adjust to life outside the institution is a sobering picture of how deeply captivity can shape a person.

That picture should cause us to examine our own hearts. Have we become so accustomed to someone telling us when to pray, read our Bible, witness, or preach the gospel that freedom feels frightening? Following Jesus means having a personal relationship with God, not simply letting someone else hear God and tell us what He is saying. We need people who will help us learn to walk in that freedom.

That must change in the church.

An Institutionalized Captive Church

I cannot help believing, and I pray that I am wrong, that much of what we call church life has become an institutionalized captive church.

I am not talking about rebellion. I am not talking about doing your own thing. We are doing God’s thing. Jesus is our Lord, our Leader, and our Shepherd. We submit to Him in everything. He is the One.

Then He has His form of family government. Right now, too much of what people experience feels like prison wardens instead of fathers. Someone has to manage an orphanage when people keep running into captivity, and we can thank God for the care they received when they needed it. But do not confuse that with the freedom Jesus purchased.

Hear it with a shepherd’s heart. Do not hide behind the whole concept of accountability as a cover for fear. You will answer alone before God by yourself. No witnesses. No excuses. What did you do with this Jesus you profess to know?

You cannot say, they only let me pass out books. They only let me use the bathroom at a certain time. They only let me preach certain things. The deeper issue is often terror. People would rather stay in captivity than be free. They would rather stay inside the building than ask what they are doing the other six and a half days of the week. Some only come into light things in a controlled environment, then live dark outside.

That is not the church of the book of Acts.

The Book of Acts Is a Free People

When you read the book of Acts, you meet a free people under the leadership of Jesus Christ. God moves among them. He deals with them. He loves them. People even fear coming among their number. Ananias and Sapphira thought they were dealing with men, but they were dealing with God, and God dealt with them. Structure in that church was not the structure of confinement. Structure was love. Love holds us together.

We wonder why strange things keep happening in the church. One reason is captivity. Anything held in a tight place too long begins to twist. We are supposed to be free, not rebellious free, but free to advance the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said go into all the world. We are the go church, not only the come church. You keep inviting people into your box while you refuse to get out of it. You keep inviting people into your prison, and they wonder why they should come. They knew you before you went into that building. After you went in, they barely see you. Now you cannot relate to them, and they cannot relate to you.

That is what Brooks felt. He had been out of the world so long he did not know how to relate to people in the world. But we are supposed to be in the world and not of the world. We are supposed to have empathy and go to people while they are yet sinners, because God loved us while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. Tell them He loves them. Tell them He has a plan for their life. Tell them He will forgive sin while they are still dripping with it. Religious people throw them down. Free people bring them to Jesus.

Halfway Houses and Family Government

The halfway house matters. Transition matters. You cannot always jump straight from captivity to freedom. You need transition relationships. You need a transition family. Someone who can say, that may have worked in captivity, but out here you have to have a fear of God. You can act a fool in jail, but if you act a fool out here it will cost you.

We have to transition ourselves from being under Pharaoh, under Egypt’s captivity, to being free under God’s form of government, which is family government. He gave apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists to train God’s people to live free for works of service, to go into the field.

It is not enough to have great plays and great movies. People want to see your life. How are you married? How do you spend your money? How do you deal with stress and anxiety? How do you vote? How do you live day to day? They want to walk in unexpectedly and see if you are the same person you were when you knew they were coming. They want to see your light.

Controlled environments will not carry what only a free life in Jesus was designed to bear.

I can relate to this. I used to run a prison. I used to be a deputy. And I was so institutionalized in regards to the church that if you did not go to the building, you felt awkward. But you did not feel awkward the six and a half days you were not scheduled to be there. Why feel awkward only when the warden says be here at a certain time?

I love the Body of Christ. And God has called you to be free. The world needs light. God allowed the church to be persecuted in Jerusalem so people would get out of the buildings and go. Leadership stayed, but comfortable people who would not go were scattered. That scattering was not hatred. It was freedom. It can feel like lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. But there is no wizard behind the curtain running everything. There is a God who will speak to you. You can abide with Him, and He will teach you every step of the way.

You Cannot Live Free If You Cannot Hear His Voice

When you hear us talk about abiding, iAbide.org is a great place to begin learning to hear His voice. You cannot live in freedom if you cannot hear His voice. Without His voice you will only trade one captivity for another.

Rick Joyner wrote in The Call about a prophetic picture of people in prison who did not even know they were in prison. When someone with light spoke to them, they lit up for a moment, then went back into darkness. Around them were high walls. On the walls were teachers. If they found out you had vision and were trying to go over the wall, they started shooting. The picture was clear: you are not supposed to get out.

I have heard leaders speak in that same spirit. When somebody leaves my building, I throw a stick at them to make them come back. That is institutional. That is a prison.

Jesus let people go. He even turned to the Twelve and asked if they wanted to leave too. You teach people together. You do not control people together. You teach them God’s ways. You teach them how to abide with God. You encourage them. But God does the convicting. The Holy Spirit does the directing, the comforting, the instructing, and the reminding.

If people only stay because you force them to stay, something is wrong. If they have been with you more than they have been with God, it may be a mercy that they leave long enough to pursue a relationship with God instead of a relationship with religion.

Re-Dig the Wells

Begin to get in the Word. Read the book of Acts. See yourself in it. Realize that is the church, and that is what we are supposed to be doing.

Remember Brooks when he was being freed. People would rather kill a conversation than admit they are afraid. They will not say, I am terrified to step into my neighborhood and talk about Jesus. They will find overtime. They will find money excuses. They will find anything except the truth: like Brooks, they are terrified of freedom.

So you need a halfway house. You need transition. God is putting people together across the land. In the VFN family we understand this language. When you start talking about captivity like it is normal, we do not think you are crazy. We smile and say, yes. Let’s walk this out together. At some point you have to be the church. God will only hold your hand for so long. You have to choose whom you will serve.

Because we have been in captivity, we often do not know how to act free. We do not understand that abiding is not an option. It is a mandate. It is the only way we can survive as followers of Jesus Christ.

Rethink the church. Rethink it in the context of His Word, not some weird thing outside the Bible. Pray. Hang out with people who understand freedom and are following Jesus Christ. Give yourself permission to look again.

Re-dig the wells. Pull out the foundation of what we are called to be. How could going back to the blueprints of how the house was built be wrong? This is the foundation. This is when the church was in its purest form, before man got ahold of it and wove traditions, philosophies, and fears into what we are doing.

When you read the book of Acts, it should excite you. Stop looking at it only as a history book. Look at it as who we are and what we are supposed to do.

Stand Firm in His Freedom

Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Christ set you free for freedom. Get a vision for life outside religious captivity. Be the church in the book of Acts. Live free under God’s family government. Help others transition out of captivity. Abide with Jesus, hear His voice, and go.

A Prayer for Vision Outside the Walls

Father, thank You that Christ set us free for freedom. Forgive us for loving familiar captivity more than the life You purchased. Give us a vision for the outside. Teach us to hear Your voice. Surround us with transition relationships and true family government. Make us a go church, full of love, full of courage, and full of the Holy Spirit. We choose to abide in Jesus and to stand firm in the freedom He has given. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Loving God, loving others, and leading others to do the same.

Related Reading

• Vision for the Outside (Greg Lancaster Podcast)
• ReThinking Church; Vision for the Outside
• Breaking Free from Captivity – The Church Institutionalized? – The Call to Freedom and Being the Church
• Has Much of the Church Become Institutionalized? The Price of Freedom! Jesus Came So That We Could Be Set Free!