Church Without Walls

They don't hand you a scorecard at the church door, but you can feel the invisible tally marks. Good Christians show up. Bad Christians don't. Miss a week and you'll hear about it. Miss a month and you're "backslidden." It's the unspoken Gospel of Attendance-the guilt trip that says holiness lives and dies in the pew.

Church Without Walls dismantles that lie. With wit, grit, and biblical depth, D. Michael Gross pulls apart the myths that tie faith to brick and mortar. He shows how Scripture never commanded perfect attendance, why Hebrews 10:25 is misquoted, and what happens when we idolize buildings over people.

This isn't a permission slip to ditch community-it's a call to rediscover the Church as a living, breathing body that thrives in homes, coffee shops, workplaces, and wilderness. From the shame-soaked lobby to the scoreboard mentality of attendance stats, Gross exposes the dysfunction and points toward freedom: a faith bigger than Sunday mornings, a Jesus who meets us beyond stained glass, and a community that can't be contained by walls.

If you've ever loved the Church and hated it in the same breath, if you've felt guilty for staying home or judged for walking away, this book will meet you in that tension. It's time to drop the guilt trip Gospel and rediscover the wild, liberating reality of following Christ without walls.