I had never heard of Jonathan Leeman until a few months ago. My church’s recommended reading list included his 2018 book, “How the Nation’s Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age”. It was a heavy book and I don’t think I made it all the way through. A few months later they recommended his 2016 book, “Don’t Fire Your Church Members: The Case for Congregationalism”. This one was so dense that eventually an elder suggested that I just read the fourth chapter. Even then it was a slog. Later, while not officially recommended, I heard several people talking about his 2020 book, “One Assembly: Rethinking the Multisite & Multiservice Church Models”.

Despite my previous experience with the author I purchased the book on a whim and couldn’t have been more surprised at my read-through. I expected a dense, theological slog through the minutia of church models and a dissection of the usage of “church” in the Bible (which he does have in spades). What I didn’t expect was how engaging and encouraging I found the read to be. A few people I talked with while reading it seemed a little stand-offish towards the book. I got the sense that they felt it to be needlessly divisive and “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”. On the contrary, I finished the book feeling refreshed towards my view of what the church should be—and can be! So here are some of my thoughts on the book while it is fresh in my mind.

Gather. There. Together.

Leeman makes his main argument against multisite and multiservices only a few pages into the book. His main scriptural basis is from Matt. 18:20, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” His three ingredients for church, “gather”, “there”, and “together” form the core of what he says the church should be. (Church here primarily referring to the local church.) If you are gathering you should be there in one place. And if you are there in one place you should be together so that you can have a shared experience together. And as a whole, I have to agree with Leeman on this point.

I was a member at various single service churches for 6 years until a year ago. One thing I immediately noticed coming back to multiple services was how much I missed being able to see everyone in one place. I was actually talking with a friend at the barber and I asked what church he was going to and turns out it was mine! He went to the first service and I went to the second so we had just missed each other. I’ve even started to make it my practice to get to church early so I can talk with people outside the first service that I don’t normally see before going to my Sunday school class. Then afterwards I get to see the people in second service as well. It’s not perfect but it’s the best way I’ve found to keep up with fellow members in my church. But to Leeman’s point, we may all be gathering and we may all be there in the building, but we aren’t really together if there are multiple services.

A People, Not a Place (sort of)

Chapter one starts off by highlighting the church as God’s representation on earth. In 2 Cor. 5:20, Paul reminds Corinth that they are Christ’s ambassadors on earth. Similarly, we as the global church represent Christ on earth to the nations and as the local church should represent Christ to our neighbors. “Christ’s kingdom rule becomes visible in the local church.” (pg. 48). The term Jesus used for church (ekklesia) is an interesting one and surprisingly political. In 5th century BC Athens, an ekklesia was a political gathering where members of the group (polis) could exercise their rights. The group was a people not a place, but in order to be a people and exercise their rights they had to meet together. In the same way, the church is a people not a place, but must meet together to be the church. Jesus chose a political term to refer to the church to show that they were to be representatives of the kingdom of God. It’s easy for me to lose focus of the overarching focus of the church: the glory of God and the furthering of his kingdom.

Tour of ekklesia

Chapter two is dense and Leeman kind of lost me here, I had to reread this chapter a few times. It’s an in depth word study of all the occurrences of ekklesia in the Bible. In my limited understanding, the difficulty in translation (or perhaps interpretation) is how New Testament writers go back and forth with using singular and plural forms of church (ekklesia). One example of how this can be difficult to interpret is in the introduction to 1 Corinthians where Paul greets “the church of God (singular) that is in Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2). Most scholarship agrees that Corinth had many smaller house churches rather than one large church. But how can the singular ekklesia refer to a plurality of churches?

It seems his main argument is against the assumptions multi-site proponents insert into the texts. Arguments such as Corinth had small houses so the church there couldn’t possible meet in one place (see pg. 76). Each assumption boils down to whether or not ekklesia refers to an assembly (that regularly assembles) or a group (that doesn’t regularly get together). Leeman argues that since “the church (singular) in Corinth” uses singular terminology, there must have been one church that gathered and not a plurality of smaller churches. Alternatively, Paul never refers to “the church in Rome”. Instead he refers to them as “all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7). Could this be because, unlike Corinth, there were a plurality of churches in Rome that regularly gathered in their respective assemblies but weren’t considered a single church?

I found Leeman’s argument in this chapter subtle but compelling. There is room for a rational explanation of multi-site churches in first-century churches because of restrictions in the size of gathering locations. But such explanations require assumptions where the Bible isn’t explicit. The practice of entertaining such rational assumptions of what the Bible might say is playing with fire and can lead very far from from what it most definitely does say. Going forward I am definitely going to be careful in my reading of the Bible and what refers to believers in general and believers in a specific church.

The Universal Church

Chapter three was hands down my favorite in the book. This is where Leeman puts the rubber to the road and explains his vision for what the church should be. In his words, “we need to get more catholic—meaning, we need a more developed sense of our partnership with churches everywhere… We’re ‘on mission’ on behalf of Christ’s kingdom, and our churches are outputs of it. We fight for it together.” (pg. 103-104). This idea of partnership is sprinkled throughout the New Testament as well. You have churches greeting churches (Rom. 16:16, 1 Cor. 16:19), sharing teachers (2 Cor. 8:18), being examples for each other (1 Thess. 1:7; 2:14), supporting each other financially (Rom. 15:25-26, 1 Cor. 16:1-3, 2 Cor. 9:12), and by praying for each other (Eph. 6:18).

A big part of this universal mindset is being selfless with regard to your own church. Are you willing to give money that could be used for your own church to another church that has a more pressing need? Are you willing to refer new attenders to a different gospel-preaching church when your service is at maximum capacity? “Being content to stop adding to the roll when the room is full doesn’t mean you are about the kingdom less; it means you’ll pursue growth differently now, like the athlete who wins the gold medal and then turns to coaching others to do the same. Catholicity means you are as interested in helping others win gold medals as you are in winning them yourself.” (pg. 108).

Leeman also touches on something I feel strongly about: geographic proximity to your church. Until I was in the 4th grade, I went to a church 30 minutes away from where we lived. Other than one other family that was our neighbor, the friends we had in the church lived in different neighborhoods, shopped at different grocery stores, and were taught at different schools. I felt disconnected from them outside of Sunday. After 4th grade we started going to a church 10 minutes away. Suddenly the opposite was true and I felt I was actually a part of people’s lives outside of Sunday gathering. Are we willing to stop going to the church that is convenient or flashy instead of the one that is close and in our neighborhood? I don’t say that flippantly as it can be a hard choice, especially if you have kids. Even so, I think it is an important decision to make if we are to reach the people around us and “love our neighbors.”

Wrapping Up

I expected Leeman’s book to be provocative and divisive with him calling for church’s to split into smaller units. Instead, Leeman is calling for the opposite. He’s asking churches to be tighter and work together more closely by letting go. Let go of the control and “success” of a large church and be content with the number of pews in your auditorium. Christians are members of the church of Christ first and members of their local churches second. Leeman’s vision of the church working together and being unified in Christ is incredibly encouraging for me. Yes, single service churches might be smaller and not as flashy or “successful” but there is a closeness that comes from being fewer in number. The Bible is full of paradoxes (when I am weak I am strong, the first shall be last, etc.). Perhaps one that Christians should consider is when we are scattered then we can better gather together as one.