What do you do when you realize that all of your years in church have been spent building the dreams and empires of self-appointed leaders? What do you do when you realize that you have been theologically blinded and fooled into paying tens of thousands of dollars in tithes, yet the tithe itself is not a scriptural practice for New Testament believers? What do you do when you realize that church leaders have no more authority to teach the Word than anyone else? What do you do when you realize that Jesus condemned many of the practices and organizational methods we use every day to run our institutional, commercial churches?

 

 

What makes a church valid? In today's society, anyone can start a recognized church. It just takes a few minutes to fill and file the paperwork. Within hours, you can begin recruiting people who will call you pastor and offer to be your "armor bearers". Within months, you can rent a place and begin holding 30-45-minute mini-concerts and 60-minute editorial sessions. Within a year, you can have everyone truly believing that God will curse them if they don't give you 10% of the gross income. Within a few years, you can live in a nice house, drive fancy cars, and eat out every day on your church's dime.

 

And no one will question it.

 

We chose to do something different. Instead of "plugging in" to a commercial church, we decided to actually search the scriptures in order to understand what, or rather WHO the Church that Jesus spoke into existence was and is. What we found was that it contradicted everything about our current contemporary Christian system - and we were convicted to explore that.

 

Our group of friends, some who had been institutional Christians and church leaders all their lives, decided to break free, or UNPLUG, as we like to say. With several families represented, we began meeting in our homes in Tampa Bay, sharing our lives and resources with each other to pursue God's true purpose without the distraction of building campaigns, pastoral salaries, and ridiculous evangelistic techniques. We started with the most foundational doctrines we had always believed and ripped everything apart.

 

Some doctrines were strengthened by our collaborative study. Others absolutely crumbled under the weight of the scriptures and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Most importantly, we began to grow closer together, more convinced than ever before to chase God with our entire beings. Today, that is what we still do.

 

We have no need to grow our group. We have no pastor to dictate our doctrinal stance. We do not raise money nor tithe to an unscriptural "covering." Instead, we build each other up and find opportunities to serve those around us. All of us acknowledge than any one of us could be a leader, but we have all chosen to serve each other instead.

 

In our group, we have people that come from different walks of life and different places in their spiritual development. Some of us have studied the Word of decades, while others have barely scratched the surface. But, we all come together, humbled by our individual and unique experiences, ready to learn from each other through the leading of God's Spirit.

 

There are no names to print on this page. There is no staff. There is no bank account. We are only a part of a much larger family of unplugged believers throughout the world. Some are unplugged by choice. Others are unplugged because of persecution. Others are unplugged because they have been hurt by the commercial church. But, we wanted to create a place where we could all connect and be encouraged that even though Christiandom has been overrun with greed, politics, and heretical doctrines, there is a true Church that cannot be numbered by membership cards and yearly tithe reports. Their only manifestations is the fruit that they show through their hard work and dedication to God, each other, and those around them.