Are we over-thinking the church?

What if God never made the church in the way we think of it in it's present state? Is the "stage atmosphere" that we see in today's church the same format that existed in the early church? I'm not advocating chaos, and no order, but I often wonder how God sees the things that we would consider a "church service"? Are the essential elements of church (ie. worship, prayer, communion, the word) just building blocks and we are free to construct the order, style and length according to the needs of a particular body of believers? Is it helpful to rearrange those elements frequently so that the elements themselves do not become the idolatrous pattern that people perceive to be the way that we earn God's favor or blessing? To keep a grace centered church, that understands that it is not about works of righteousness that we have done, is it essential to dismantle the paradigm of worship to keep them from clinging to processes? These are the questions that I wrestle with as a pastor much of the time. Does God want less formality and more normality? Is formality a thin veil that hides our imperfections and keeps us from coming to God like we are? Has church, in the business style model that we see, become the next newest "fig leaf?" Do we hide behind formality because we are afraid that God will not receive the offering of ourselves apart from some ritual that makes us feel like we have checked off a checklist?

Jesus said in John 4:23-24 "... true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth"

The word "truth" used here in this text is Strong's # 227 in the Greek. It literally means without concealing. The question from this woman at the well is essentially," What is the correct way and place to worship? Is it here in our worship house or there in theirs? Is it their way or ours?" Jesus responds by saying the Father is seeking those that will worship Him with the inner man (in spirit), and without hiding behind anything (in truth)? Is it possible that we have made the search for truth more about academics and less about coming to Him as we really are? Are we hiding behind our systems, policies, and methodologies? Does God desire something more real and natural, something that looks a little more like real life?

What if church service is supposed to look like life and not like a ceremony? Could we as a culture indoctrinated and raised with a ceremonious church service get past that concept? What if, what we know as church had never come into existence and all we had was people that were Christ followers? What would it look like if they got together and there was no blueprint for what to do? What would a natural, spontaneous time of fellowship look like?

In the past I have made the incorrect assumption that the church in the book of Acts had no preconceived ideas of what to do in organizing a worship get together. The truth is that they had two working models of what it means to gather together in worship. The one they pulled from what they saw before Christ came. The second example they had after they had walked for 3 1/2 years with Jesus. In the first model, man became the center. In the latter God Himself was the center. Are pastors (myself included) more concerned about making a name and reputation for themselves? Or are we willing to be made of no reputation, an environment where there are no "superstar" Christians in order that Christ might be the superstar.

What do you think?