It is important that a distinction be made between the assembly as defined by the New Testament and churches as they are known today...Compared with the pattern of the assembly of believers (ekklesia) as described in the New Testament, institutional churches fall far short.

Without the persistent rising up of individuals that seek the Lord and place themselves under His direct leadership, churches will inevitably...slip into human hierarchy, institutionalizing a system of doctrines and practices.

Church, in the New Testament sense of the word, is not a meeting we attend, but a group of which we are a part, and a group we serve within.

While the system of institutional churches of various stripes has been well established, the recovery of the independent assembly in homes, house by house, according to the New Testament, is still in it's infancy. Ironically, it is the assembly located in homes that the apostles labored to build up. Yet two thousand years later, it is still obscure. However, the Lord Jesus, according to His desire, has not given up and is recovering the assembly back to its rightful prominence. Since it is a fresh discovery by many believers in recent decades, trial and error is still taking place as believers learn and negotiate their way back to assembling as prescribed by the early apostles.

Far from seeking to
justify, as does the Church, the necessity of torments and
afflictions, he cried, in his outraged pity: 'If a God has made this
world, I should not wish to be that God. The world's wretchedness
would rend my heart.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.