Book Review: "One Assembly" by Jonathan Leeman
A review of "One Assembly: Rethinking the Multisite & Multiservice Church Models"
Because of a recent post that included some warnings about dangers inherent in the megachurch model, some readers thought I’d be especially open to the arguments in this book. So I’ll follow up these posts on church size and format with a related book review.
I used to listen occasionally to Jonathan Leeman’s Pastors’ Talk podcast. He seemed to be a likable guy, although perhaps given at times to overly provocative rhetoric. I’d agree with many of the author’s concerns about the exegetical assumptions made by some proponents of multisite churches, and the problems with some forms of the multisite model. I, too, am passionate about seeking the most biblical ways of faithfully being the church. One of our church’s core commitments is we’ll first seek biblical principles of doing church, and then work to determine how best to apply the biblical principles in our context. I confess, my personal preference is to have one main church service where the whole church gathers together at one time in one place. So I’m intrigued by this kind of book, and somewhat inclined to read it sympathetically.
But—even if I were convinced by Leeman’s arguments—I find the manner in which he’s written to be troubling. He doesn’t just describe problems with multiple church services or sites, or explain the reasons why he believes single-location-and-time churches to be healthier and more faithful to scriptural principles. No, Leeman insists those who don’t accept his narrow definition of a church “repudiate the Bible’s definition of a church [emphasis in original].” (I read the ebook version, so I won’t be able to reference specific page numbers.)
He doesn’t merely note the unintended danger of pursuing a model of church that may differ from the scriptural design; no, he boldly declares that multisite pastors (and, for what it’s worth, Presbyterian pastors) are “picking a fight with Jesus!” I think we should all agree to table this kind of heated rhetoric except for cases where people are knowingly and intentionally defying Christ. We can be more nuanced, and much more humble, about the dangers of unintentionally slipping into unbiblical models of church life. Is Leeman’s argument so convincing that to differ from his conclusions would be to fight Jesus? We’ll see below.
Unfortunately, the author doesn’t get around to actually making his case until the second chapter of a three-chapter book. Before getting to where Leeman even attempts to establish his basic premise, we first read through a fairly lengthy introduction and first chapter, constituting almost half the book. That’s a problem.
If the fundamental question is truly a lexical issue (the meaning of the word ekklesia), one would think he’d get to that discussion as quickly as possible, and then follow with his applications and implications. Instead we’re given extensive criticisms of multisite and multiservice models, and arguments for a single-service-and-location model—all firmly based on a premise the author has yet to establish. What this amounts to is a whole lot of question begging. Leeman is assuming his conclusion before he even starts making the case for his conclusion. This is classic circular reasoning. It’s like trying to begin the construction of a house before one has laid the foundation. It can certainly be rhetorically effective to argue this way—but for all the wrong reasons. This is unfairly stacking the deck, prejudicing the reader toward your conclusion before you’ve actually made your case.
Compounding this problem is the way he describes other models of doing church. Apparently those who differ with the author would view the church primarily (or even exclusively) as either: the building; the Sunday morning performance; or the leadership of the church. According to Leeman, these churches sever their concept of church from the gathering of the church.
He does briefly acknowledge that some of these churches are more biblical than others. But these aren’t the ones he describes. No, he gives descriptions guaranteed to push the ministerial buttons of those who have misgivings about multisite megachurches: churches that beam video of one rockstar pastor to other locations; churches that adopt ministry models with little or no theological reflection; churches that emphasize passive access via online streaming and apps at the expense of actually gathering; etc., etc.
Why doesn’t he describe multisite churches that have a team of pastor/teachers? Why doesn’t he describe a church much like his own church—except one that has two services on Sunday morning rather than one—and then show how this sole difference can adversely affect the church? I can’t presume to say. That would seem to be a much more effective way to make his key point. But he doesn’t do that. The way he’s written this introduction may be persuasive to some. But I have to say it’s also extremely unfair, uncharitable and prejudicial.
So—when we finally get there—what exactly is Leeman’s claim? The author’s basic premise is that the word ekklesia (commonly translated “church” in the New Testament) is by definition an “assembly.” And since this meaning of “assembly” is so core to the meaning of ekklesia or church, it means what constitutes a local church must be narrowly defined as one—and only one—assembly or gathering of believers in one place at one time. So a “church” that, for example, has services that meet Sunday mornings at 9:00 and 11:00 would actually constitute two distinct assemblies, or two churches. And it would, according to Leeman, therefore be inaccurate—even unbiblical—to think of these multiple services or multiple sites as collectively constituting a single local ekklesia or church.
So let’s examine the author’s evidence for this strong insistence a church can only have one gathering at one place at one time. We quickly run into a problem for the author because, as he himself admits, trusted Greek lexicons such as BDAG explicitly contradict his premise! He even shows how this definition of ekklesia (that contradicts his view) is found in a lexicon from 1794! Clearly these lexicons aren’t including some new interpretation just for the purpose of supporting recent multisite churches. Since Leeman can find little or no support from standard lexicons, this should certainly give us pause before simply accepting Leeman’s narrow definition of ekklesia. But—since biblical linguistics is a continually developing field—to be fair we need to see if the author has solid reasons to understand ekklesia in a way that differs from the lexicons.
Strangely, we find Leeman, again, undermining his own argument. He openly acknowledges that the biblical understanding of ekklesia transcends the narrow concept of one specific gathering. What do we mean by this? How does the meaning of ekklesia or “church” in the Bible go beyond the idea of only one specific gathering of people, and why is that important? Let’s think about some examples.
When a church body meets together for a church gathering, and then they all leave the place where they meet together—do they stop being the church? No, of course not. They’re still the church whether they’re gathered or not. If a person regularly attends a church service, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re truly part of the church, does it? And if someone is unable to gather with the church assembly, that doesn’t mean they’re no longer part of the church or ekklesia. In fact, Jack may attend the church’s services much more regularly than Jill, but Jill could be part of the church while Jack is not.
This shows there’s something more primary to the meaning of “church” or ekklesia than just the physical gathering itself. There’s an essential aspect to what we mean by church that’s more fundamental than simply attending a specific gathering or assembly. There’s a core criterion for who is part of a church that’s more principal than attending an assembly. If this is true, it would be inaccurate for us to make a single, one-time-one-place assembly the sine qua non of what it means to be a church the way Leeman is doing.
Now, it’s very true the ekklesia is an assembly that actually assembles or gathers. I can’t think of anyone who disagrees with this. But the fact the church regularly gathers simply doesn’t require that it gather in only one gathering at one place and one time. It doesn’t matter how many times or in how many different ways the author states this; you can state something over and over again, but repeating it doesn’t somehow establish your premise. The word ekklesia undeniably has a much broader and more primary meaning than a single physical assembly or gathering. This is confirmed by the lexicons with which the author struggled and—by his own admission—by the biblical understanding of the word. This means there’s no lexical basis for insisting a church can only meet in one place at one time.
We see this problem (for Leeman) clearly when we look at how the New Testament authors used the word ekklesia. There are just too many places where New Testament usage contradicts his narrow definition. In Acts 12:5 we’re told the church in Jerusalem was praying for Peter while he was imprisoned. As we read through the following verses, it’s clear the church was praying for Peter at multiple locations. Peter goes to one location after he’s freed by the angel, he sends a report to James and some others at a different location, and then goes himself to yet another location. This is “the church” (singular) of Jerusalem not only existing, but functioning in ministry simultaneously in different locations—not only in one gathering.
1 Corinthians 11:18 speaks of when they would gather together or assemble “as a church.” Now if, as Leeman argues, the definition of ekklesia is fundamentally grounded in the idea of one specific, physical gathering of the people, then this sentence becomes so redundant as to be essentially meaningless. It would be saying: “when you assemble as an assembly,” or “when you people gather as a group of people who gather.” But the way Scripture is actually worded—“when you gather together as a church”—shows there’s something much deeper to the meaning of church than merely the idea of assembling, something closer to: “when you gather together as a community of believers.”
We see this distinction again in 1 Corinthians 14:23. Paul describes what could happen when “the whole church gathers together.” (See also Acts 14:27.) But to be able to speak of the “whole church” gathering together means the church has an identity as the church that’s independent of any particular gathering. It already exists as “the church” before the whole church gathers together. Otherwise the ekklesia would simply be whoever happened to be in the assembly at any one time. They would constitute the assembly. It would be meaningless to speak of gathering the “whole church” together if ekklesia narrowly means one assembly because whoever happens to be in that one assembly would be the whole church!
As you can see, even the concept of church membership would assume a meaning of ekklesia or “church” that’s much deeper than merely a one-time-one-place assembly of people. Church membership assumes the word “church” means something more like a community of believers. But there’s nothing in this meaning requiring a church to have only one gathering of church members. Yes, it’s true the church is to gather regularly. No one disputes this. But we know we’re to meet regularly because of clear biblical instruction unambiguously telling us to meet regularly (Hebrews 10:25). We’re not required to base this necessary aspect of the life of the church on an artificially truncated definition of the word ekklesia that isn’t supported by the lexicons or New Testament usage.
Leeman actually admits much of this. But—he insists—the word ekklesia is still inextricably tied to the idea of one, and only one, assembly in one place at one time. He seems to be saying, “Yes, ekklesia has a much broader meaning in the New Testament than one specific assembling of people—but it still must always mean only one specific assembling of people!” Hopefully he can understand why many of us find this contradictory and confusing. And, again, he repeats this claim throughout the book but never actually establishes a basis for it lexically or scripturally. This doesn’t stop him from taking his peculiar understanding of assembly and using it as a standard by which to evaluate all other churches. He concludes, for instance, at different points in the book that a multisite or multi-service church is “an assembly that never assembles”! This is blatantly circular reasoning, assuming his own peculiar definition of assembling, and then concluding these church assemblies don’t assemble!
Sadly, there are many other examples of poor reasoning and even faulty exegesis in the book. Classical Greek is the Greek language used three or four hundred years prior to the time of Jesus, and all scholars recognize there were important, major changes to the language during the intervening centuries. Leeman admits the classical meaning for ekklesia doesn’t tell us anything about the way the word is used in the New Testament. But then he strangely keeps referring back to the classical meaning anyway, despite the fact it doesn’t tell us anything about the meaning of the word in the New Testament.
He badly misconstrues the editors of the BDAG lexicon, he seems to imply these scholars who disagree with him do so because of denominational prejudices rather than scholarship, and he assumes scholarly support for his view when it’s decidedly missing. He speculatively imports the idea of “place” into the meaning of ekklesia or “church,” and then uses this as an established fact to support his other arguments. This would be like claiming the idea of “place” is intrinsic to the meaning of “family” because families need to live some “place”! This is surprisingly bad reasoning.
A key passage for Leeman is Jesus’ participation in the church discipline process in Matthew 18. Jesus’ presence gives authority to the gathered church to deal decisively with an unrepentant church member who’s harming others. Leeman admits that in a church with multiple services Jesus would also be present in each service and would give this authority to each service in the same way. But, Leeman asserts, Jesus’ presence and authorization somehow make it an ontological, inescapable reality that these multiple meetings are actually separate churches. And he repeatedly insists on this. Of course, he never actually establishes why this must be so. It’s almost as if saying something over and over again somehow makes it a logical conclusion. Apparently if these multiple services feel like distinct churches to the author, that should establish this as reality for everyone else.
This insisted emphasis also leads him to a strangely reductionistic understanding of the church:
A church is a church ultimately because of the authority of Christ and his declaration that he would identify himself with gatherings: “I’m there in the gathering of two or three in my name.” That was his decision, not ours. Consider, therefore, what a church gathering is: it’s a group of people bowed in submission to something. To what? To Christ. Their physical togetherness, then, testifies to his lordship.
Does Leeman really believe this is an adequate explanation of what constitutes a local church? If so, maybe he would agree with those who say periodically hanging out with a few other believers at Starbucks is their church! My guess is Leeman would see much more than this as essential to the church qua church. But then that would mean he’s using an artificially restricted understanding of church to make his point when he knows the reality is actually more complex. Either way, this is a problem.
The book is loaded with all kinds of strange assertions, far more than I could list in a review. He claims:
You can no more be a multisite church than you can be a multisite body.
But what of the body of Christ? Is not the universal church the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:4, 15-16; Colossians 1:18; etc.), and isn’t the universal body of Christ by necessity a multisite body? How can we even currently have a universal ekklesia if inherent in the meaning of the word is a one-place-and-time assembly? Leeman seems to think the universal church is a spiritual, not literal, assembly. If that’s the case, then why can’t this mandatory assembly of the local church also be spiritual and not literal? How can we get away with making one assembly spiritual while demanding the other must be literal, with absolutely no more than one gathering constituting a church? (Ironically, he accuses others of special pleading.) If the universal church is a multisite body, why can’t the local church be one as well?
In another place he writes:
Which brings us back to the multisite and multiservice models. Here’s the biggest problem, as I’ll seek to show in this book: They’re not in the Bible. At all. And that means they work against, not with, Jesus’s disciple-making plan.
Notice he identifies this as “the biggest problem” with these models. They’re not in the Bible. Of course, neither is the children’s ministry check-in desk he mentioned just a few paragraphs before this—or children’s classes at all, for that matter. Neither is the church usher he mentioned before that. Neither are church platforms or pulpits or youth groups or church choirs, etc., etc. Does that mean when Leeman was taking his daughter to her Sunday School class, he was working against, not with, Jesus’ disciple-making plan? Of course not, and it would be absurd to make such an accusation—just as it is for Leeman to make this accusation regarding multisite and multiservice churches. (It’s hard to understand how the author could be unaware how unfair this argument is, but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.)
This is even more of a problem, though. Leeman repeatedly makes a big deal out of an inability to find multisite churches in the New Testament. Fair enough. For the record, I, too, would challenge the exegetical overreach of those who try. There simply isn’t clear indication in Scripture any church at that time met—on an ongoing basis—in multiple locations in the same town. (I’ve written about this before.) There’s also nothing in Scripture, contra Leeman, precluding such a church model. But here’s the point Leeman seems to be missing (and probably some multisite proponents, as well): They’re under no pressure to find examples of multisite churches in Scripture, anymore than Leeman has to find biblical references to a children’s ministry check-in desk. As long as they’re not arguing the Bible teaches a multisite model of doing church, but simply that it’s a faithful way of being the church, they don’t have to find a specific biblical example. It then becomes a question of what best fulfills the biblical principles of being the church.
Leeman, on the other hand, is arguing not that these church models are extra-biblical, but that they’re blatantly unbiblical. And this puts the burden of proof on him to show this scripturally. So when he repeatedly makes the observation he doesn’t find any multisite churches in the Bible, he’s badly turning the issue completely upside down. The accusation is his, so the burden of proof is his to show how this model is incompatible with biblical principles of the church. He needs to show where Scripture would clearly rule out a multisite (or multiservice) model. I’m neither endorsing nor defending multisite churches, but this author has simply not made his case.
I know this review is growing quite long, but there’s one more thing I have to mention because I think it’s important. In his third chapter, Leeman describes the problem of a megachurch starting a new campus at a different location without considering the existing churches in that area. This problem is a very real one. Of course, everything he says about a multisite church starting a new campus could also be said of a single-site church planting a new church. But here’s my point. Leeman is contending for the idea that every service should be a separate church. If you need to start another service, then you should plant another church. Ironically, something else we never see in Scripture is anyone planting a church in a community where a church already exists. Never. Not once. Instead, we see a consistent pattern of there being one church in each city. Regardless of whether they met in one location or in multiple homes—they existed as one church in each city. We never see any deviation from this pattern in Scripture. We never see anywhere in the New Testament the existence of multiple churches in one city.
Leeman fails to acknowledge that it’s the existence of many different churches in each city that creates the environment for the very problem he decries. And adding more churches in each town would seem to exacerbate the problem, not alleviate it. If we could somehow return to what we do see in Scripture—one church in each city—even if this required one multisite church in each city, it would actually solve the problem he rightfully laments (as well as many other problems).
The author of this book makes some very bold claims about the essential meaning of the word ekklesia (and therefore the meaning of the “church”), claims that aren’t supported by the lexicons, claims that aren’t consistent with the way the New Testament uses the word, and claims the author fails to conclusively establish logically or theologically. Instead he relies on specious and fallacious arguments while accusing those who disagree with him of repudiating the Bible and fighting Jesus. I’m not critical of this book just because I disagree with it. In fact, there are occasional nuggets scattered throughout the book I would strongly affirm. But the book is so poorly reasoned and so extreme in its denunciations of fellow Christians who would dare to disagree with the author, I cannot recommend it.