Be Brave. Do Something.

What Jesus means for his people—and what to do next

“So what would you do?”

If you have ever questioned the way we do church—the titles, the offices, the religious class we keep rebuilding in spite of Jesus’ clearest words—you have probably heard the question. Sometimes it is genuine. Someone wants to envision something different and is willing to imagine. They are not trying to trap you; they are asking, “Help me see it.”

But the question can come from other places too. Sometimes it is a trap: if you give a vision, you become the leader or the architect you are arguing against. They can then follow “your” thing or reject it—and either way, the burden of invention is on you, and you have stepped into the very role you said we should not have. Sometimes they want something to poke holes in. A proposal is a target; critique is easier than change. Sometimes the question is meant to dismiss you: “You don’t have a complete alternative, so we don’t have to take the critique seriously.” Sometimes it is a way to force you into a role—so they can obey you or oppose you instead of facing Jesus and one another as siblings. Either you have a full blueprint or your objection does not count; the binary lets them off the hook.

So here is the reframe: This is not a proposal. It is what Jesus already said.

One Teacher. One Father. One Leader. You are all brothers and sisters. The “alternative” is not a new structure we invent. It is the family he named. Formation as family—organic, natural—with only one Parent. We are siblings. That is Matthew 23. That is what he meant for his people.

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One Parent, one Teacher

Jesus did not leave the matter vague. In the same breath he pronounced woe on the religious class, he told his disciples what they were to be instead:

“But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant.”
(Matt 23:8–11)

One Teacher. One Father. One Instructor—the Christ. You are all brothers. The greatest among you shall be your servant.

He is not offering a footnote on humility. He is ruling out a structure. No second tier of “spiritual parents.” No religious superiors. No class of people who get to sit in Moses’ seat over the rest. Authority and formation rest in him—in the one Teacher, the one Father, the one Leader—and in the Spirit he sends. We do not rebuild in his name what he tore down. We do not ask “by what authority?” of each other as if we were an exam committee. We do not demand signs or credentials on our terms. We do not turn his house into a bazaar where only certain currency counts. We do not use his Sabbath to exhaust the weary or keep people bound. We come to the feast. We refuse the titles. We are siblings.

That is the hinge. Everything else—how we gather, how we form one another, how we guard the vulnerable and pass the gospel along—fits under that. One Parent. We are his children. We are brothers and sisters to each other.

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Formation as family

So what does that look like? Not as a blueprint—blueprints are what we keep building instead of a family—but as a picture. The New Testament does not leave us guessing. It describes God’s gathered people in ways that refuse the language of institution and management: a body, a household, a temple of living stones, a bride, a royal priesthood. Christ is the head. The Spirit dwells in his people. The people themselves are the dwelling place. Not a building. Not a corporation. A household. A family.

Jesus said he would build his ekklesia (Matt 16:18). Paul said God obtained it with his own blood (Acts 20:28). Something he builds. Something he possesses. Not something we create or own.

And it functions like a body. Many members, one body. Each one necessary. Each one connected. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Cor 14:26). Each one has something. Each one brings something. Each one participates. Not one person performing and everyone watching. Everyone participating. Everyone building up. Order—but not control. Decency—but not passivity. Structure—but not hierarchy.

The pattern in Acts is plain: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). “Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts” (Acts 2:46). Teaching. Fellowship. Breaking bread. Prayers. In their homes. Day by day. Not once a week in a special building. This is what naturally emerged when God’s people gathered. This is what the Spirit produced.

Formation happens by presence. By table. By the Spirit at work in the body. Not by office or curriculum or professional caste. You learn to follow Jesus because you are with people who are following Jesus—people who know your name, who have time for your questions, who bear your burdens and let you bear theirs. “Love one another,” Jesus said. “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples” (John 13:34–35). The world knows by our love for one another. Not by our buildings. Not by our programs. By our love.

The New Testament is full of “one another” commands. Serve one another. Bear one another’s burdens. Encourage and build one another up. Confess your sins to one another. Pray for one another. Teach and admonish one another in all wisdom. Speak the truth in love. One another. Mutual. Reciprocal. That is how the body functions. That is the shape of formation as family.

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No permanent class

So who leads? Who teaches? Who guards the vulnerable and passes the gospel along?

The same family. No separate class. The Spirit gives something to each for the common good. In any family you know who has been around longer, who has weathered more, who tends to notice the one in the corner and remember their name. That recognition does not need a title. It does not need a seat. It emerges from presence—from showing up, from bearing burdens, from staying when it is hard. People like that pass the gospel along simply because they have received it and lived it and others are drawn to them. The Spirit equips them. No pipeline. No ordination. Multiplication through relationship, not elevation through office.

Care, wisdom, guidance, and service happen. But they do not harden into titles, offices, and centralized control. Those who serve are siblings who serve. What flows to the body is service—not first to a religious boss, but to the family. You know who has demonstrated wisdom and character because you have been in the room with them. The family does not install a class over itself. It recognizes who is safe, who is steady, who has earned trust. And even that is a fragile, human thing—not a role you ascend to, but a quality of presence that others have come to rely on.

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Simple truth, one mediator

What we guard and pass along is not a complex system. It is the gospel. What was heard “in the presence of many witnesses” (2 Tim 2:2)—the clear truth about Jesus, descended from David, raised from the dead. Guard the good deposit. Do not quarrel about words that ruin the hearers. Love is the goal. Mercy is the only qualification for those who care for others. One mediator between God and humanity: the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5). We do not need a second tier of mediators—no spiritual fathers, no religious instructors standing between the people and God. We have one. We come to the Father through him.

Prayer is central. Supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings—for everyone, for kings and all in high positions—that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified (1 Tim 2:1–2). Prayers should be made. The text does not specify who prays; it assumes the body prays. First of all, pray. Not first of all, establish your leadership structure. First of all, pray.

The essentials are clear: the gospel, the deity of Christ, the resurrection, the authority of Scripture. At the table these are recognized and affirmed relationally—in presence, in conversation, in knowing and being known—not enforced as institutional gatekeeping. When someone fundamentally denies the resurrection or rejects Christ, that becomes clear in relationship. Over time. Not through a doctrinal statement alone. Through the body discerning together. God’s people, indwelt by the Spirit, in relationship with one another, are equipped to discern. Not perfectly. Not infallibly. But relationally. Together.

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Not a blueprint

This is not a full ecclesiology. It is not a five-point plan. It is what Jesus means: one Parent, one Teacher, we are siblings. Formation as family—organic, natural—by presence and table and Spirit. No permanent religious class. Simple truth, one mediator, prayer first, love and mercy at the center.

If you were hoping for a model you could adopt or reject, you may be disappointed. Jesus did not give a model. He gave a family. He gave himself as the one Teacher, the one Father, the one Leader—and he gave the Spirit so that his people could live as brothers and sisters, serving one another, building one another up, knowing and being known.

So yes, the question comes back: So what would you do?

Maybe the better question is whether it rings true.

Deep down, doesn’t this seem right?

Deep down, doesn’t this feel right?

Does not the Spirit plead within you against the structure you sit within—against how much of it is business and trappings and management?

Does not the simple feeling of family ring true?

If it does, then name the next question honestly:

• Where do you feel stuck?

• What keeps you in your place?

• Do you wonder if you’re alone in these thoughts?

• Are you waiting for someone else to start so you can tell yourself you’d “try this new thing” if only someone else would show you where it was?

• Or maybe you’re just terrified.

And if you are terrified, let’s say why—without shaming it.

Sometimes what keeps you in your place is not doctrine. It is love and history and fear:

• All of my friends are there.

• What about the youth group for my kids?

• How do I let my kids know we’re Christian if we aren’t “at church?”

• What if I’m wrong?

• What if I lose people?

• What if I lose support?

• What if this makes us weird?

• What if I don’t know how to do it?

Those are not small fears. They are the fears of someone who has been trained to believe that God lives over there—at that building, under that brand, under that schedule—and that leaving the structure means leaving God.

Take heart: that is not where he lives.

Take heart

Jesus did not tell his friends “you’ll be fine.” He told them to be brave because he would be with them.

“Take heart; I have overcome the world.”
(John 16:33)

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
(Matt 28:20)

And he did not leave you to manufacture courage out of personality. He put the very presence of God inside you.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
(1 Cor 3:16)

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever… he dwells with you and will be in you.”
(John 14:16–17)

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”
(Acts 1:8)

The Spirit does not dwell at your church address. He does not live in a room you can only access at a scheduled hour. He dwells in God’s people. The very heart and presence of God is within you, guiding, leading, equipping.

And once you see that, you can begin to fight against the deeply entrenched training in you—the reflex that says, God is over there, and I go to him on Sunday.

Think about the temple. Think about how easily “sacred space” turns into religious currency—how quickly a building becomes “God’s house,” and then the people who manage it become the gatekeepers of access. Jesus walked into that sacred economy and flipped tables. Then he walked out of the temple and announced its end.

God never needed or asked for a house. He tolerated sacred space for a time because his people wanted it. In Jesus he tore that whole arrangement down and moved his dwelling into a people—and within a generation the stones came down, timed perfectly with his call to “go and make disciples” and form a people, not rebuild a place.

So be brave.

Be brave. Do something.

Not a program. Not a launch. Not a movement. Not a new institution. Simple things.

Start where family starts: in your home, with your time, with your table.

• Have a couple over for dinner. Just a simple dinner. No ulterior motives. You aren’t trying to “start something.” You are seeking relationship—genuine caring, serving relationship, shared life. Eat. Talk. Ask, What is Jesus doing in your life? Pray simply. Then say the most important sentence in the whole thing: “I enjoyed this. Can we do it again?”

• Take a walk with someone and pray out loud once. Not a performance. Not a script. “Father, thank you for my sister/brother. Help us follow you. Give us courage.”

• Open the Gospels with one question. Read a short section together and ask: “What is Jesus doing here?” Not “what’s the correct interpretation?” Start with him.

• Practice one act of shared service. Help someone move. Bring a meal. Watch someone’s kids. Sit with someone who is lonely. Don’t call it “ministry.” Call it what it is: love.

• Build one repeatable rhythm. A weekly meal, a biweekly breakfast, a monthly open table. Nothing fancy. Just a pattern that creates presence.

• Bring your kids into real Christian life. Let them see hospitality, prayer, Scripture at the table, repentance, forgiveness, meals shared, burdens carried. Let them learn that “we’re Christian” is not a place we go; it is a family we are.

If you do not know where to begin, begin with one person. If you do not know what to say, say something ordinary. If you feel alone, you probably aren’t. You are not the only one who has felt the dissonance. You are not the only one who has wondered if there is more.

So the invitation is not “implement this structure.” It is simpler and harder: sit with the Gospels open, as siblings, and ask together—What would it mean to follow him here?

No pre-agreed answers. No one in the room with a title that settles it. Just his words. Just the Spirit. Just the family he named.

Be brave.

Do something.