PD Blog | JUNE 2025
June 1, 2025
With the rise of online gatherings, there’s no doubt you’ve heard someone say, “The church is not a building.” But if the church isn’t a building, then what is it? We live in a time with access to more churches, sermons, and resources than ever before, so the question is, “Why church?” Why would someone physically go to a church building in 2025?
In this episode of Spirit In Motion, Church on the Move Lead Pastor Whit George and Kids Pastor Adam Bush, explore the statement “the church is not a building.” We like to call a statement like that a true lie. There’s a hint of truth to it, but ultimately the idea has resulted in a misunderstood, broken concept… a true lie.
“YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CHURCH SHOULD BE COVENANTAL.”
What’s the depth of your relationship with your home church? Often, we treat our churches like we treat Apple. We’re big fans of Apple because their products work, but if we no longer like their product, we’d move on to the next best thing. There’s a commitment to the brand, but there isn’t a covenant. Our relationship with our church really comes down to how well the church can serve us or align with what we believe; it doesn’t take much to move from a fan to a critic of the church.
Like marriage, the church is meant to be deeper than a consumer-style relationship that’s based on wants, needs, and expectations being met. Your relationship with the church should be covenantal—based on deep, lasting commitment. A covenantal relationship says, “for better or for worse, I’m here with you.”
Accessibility to church content.
The mass amounts of content options and church options have caused us to view the church as a buffet line—our level of commitment is up to us. We think, whoever is meeting my needs at the time, whichever church organization, spiritual advisor, YouTube prophet, whatever is meeting my needs, I listen to them and get what I feel like I need. The problem is you never really end up being shepherded, pastored, or led.
It’s more dangerous than you think.
We tend to listen to what we want to hear, but a healthy relationship means hearing things that you don’t want to hear from time to time.
In Scripture, we see Paul talking about having “itching ears”. He says a time will come when people will run to teachers who soothe our ears. Simply put, we’ll only listen to people who say the things that we want to hear. That can be really dangerous because part of being in a healthy relationship is hearing things that you don’t want to hear.
What’s the value of being physically connected to a church?
Gathering with other believers is an essential part of following Jesus. Let’s be clear: the building is not special; the gathering is special. Throughout scripture, we see God constantly looking for His people, His congregants, the people gathered in His name.
God connects to us, not just as individuals but in a community. If you think about it from the very beginning, God tells Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply.” God tells Abraham, “I’m going to make you into a nation.” In other words, God is continually forming a group of people. The Old Testament story is God in search of a people—God looking for a nation. Israel becomes that people. The New Testament tells the story of a new people being brought into the body of Christ, becoming one body, one gathering, one group of people.
To say that you can connect to God without the church is to cut yourself off from the assembly or the people of God, which is something that God has desired from the very beginning. When you cut yourself off from the people of God, you work against God’s plan, God’s desire, and God’s design.
As a community, we grow so much more when we’re in deep relationships with one another. Being a Christ-follower is not just about taking in spiritual information; it’s about being connected to His body of believers, sharing stories, prayers, hope, and being challenged directly.
We are not just brains; we are spirit, soul, and body.
Think about this: your body has knowledge your brain does not have. Most of us can’t list the keys’ arrangement on the keyboard, but our fingers know where they are. You probably couldn’t tell someone all the streets in the neighborhood you grew up on, but you would know your way around again if you went back there. Your body has knowledge that your brain doesn’t have.
We are acquiring knowledge just by what we do.
All the different things you participate in are shaping you more than you know. The act of getting out of bed, getting dressed, driving across town, walking into a room, sitting in silence for a moment, singing songs, standing up and sitting down, and all the different things that we participate in when we go to a physical church service are shaping us more than we know.
When we disconnect ourselves from community and physically being in church, we lose something more significant than we realize. We lose connection to the body.
The church is not a spectator sport. It’s not a big show to be entertained by the latest song, dance, and great sermon. It’s an invitation, not just to attend but to be a part of a community. Church is an invitation to a more profound commitment to Christ by spurring one another toward good works.our building, but in local parks several Sundays this summer.
upcoming sermon notes
June 8, 2025 | Holy Communion Sunday
Summer Sermon Series: BEARING FRUIT
Title: Fruitfulness – A Biblical Mandate
Passage: Genesis 17:6-7
6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
Summary: I am starting a two month sermon series on BEARING FRUIT. As June 8 is Pentecost Sunday, we will look at the role of the Holy Spirit on how we are to bear fruit in our family, our church and our own personal lives.
Fruitfulness is vastly different from what the world regards as success. Fruitfulness has as its goal not personal advancement or acclaim but the advancement of God’s reign on earth. It seeks to shape the life and work of the congregation through a shared passion for its mission. Fruitful leaders care about results because results are ways to go beyond merely filling a pastoral role to active participation in seeking results that we are convinced emerge from the gospel we preach.
June 15, 2025 | BEARING FRUIT
Title: Fruitfulness & Accountability
Passage: 1 Corinthians 3:5-9
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
Summary: Fruitfulness is a biblical way of talking about accountability. It is a way of saying that we are responsible to see that what is intended grows into what is accomplished, that the dream of a rich harvest actually becomes that rich harvest. While we never forget that God gives the growth, we also know that, like the fruit grower, we are accountable for planting and watering.
June 22, 2025 | BEARING FRUIT
Title: Two of The Most Powerful Words: So that…
Passage: Matthew 5:16 (ESV)
16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Summary: Jesus calls his followers to let their light shine before others. Humility might cause Christians to be reluctant to appear as if they are doing good things for public viewing. But the so that reveals the purpose of such actions – that others “may see your good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven.” Letting others see the light from our lives means little in and of itself. It finds its meaning as a way of linking others to God’s love.
June 29, 2025 | BEARING FRUIT
Title: Taking the Next Step
Passage: Acts 16:6-10
6 And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. 8 So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 And when Paul[c] had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
Summary: The next faithful step is the vision to which God is calling us at this point in our lives and in the near future. It can be small or large. It may appear ordinary to onlookers, but to the TroyHope, it captures power far beyond the details of the undertaking. Fruitful leadership is possible only through the power of God. It begins with prayerful discernment by a leader, and those with whom a leader works, around the question: “Given our mission and context, to what is God calling us now and in the near future?”
