So, this is Liberty, Missouri. An upper middle class, Northeastern suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. The population of the municipality of Liberty is 31,319 (2025 Census) – that grows to about 65,758 when you include the parts of Kansas City on the West side of I-35 and rural Clay County residents that are part of the Liberty school district . Right in the middle of the “Bible Belt.”
Statistics for this region say that about 60% to 70% of the population identify as “Christian” and that about 40% of people say they attend church regularly. So that means about 20,000 of the 31,000 in Liberty proper would say they were Christians and about 12,500 would be members of churches (whether they attend regularly or not). In Liberty, there are between 50 and 60 identifiable fixed Christian congregations.
None of these are “The Church of Liberty, Missouri.” Neither is the accumulation of all of them “The Church of Liberty, Missouri.” Those are just buildings. You are part of the Body of Christ because JESUS voted on you and said you could be a member, not because you’re a regular in a particular building. Working in a garage every day doesn’t make you a car.
There are a whole variety of “flavors” of Christians in Liberty – the most of any one thing being the Baptists, as you would expect for this part of the country. We count at least 12 Baptist congregations ranging in weekly attendance from 3000 to 15. While there is a long-standing “Liberty Ministerial Alliance,” the president currently is from the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and the vice president from the re-branded Community of Christ (RLDS Mormons) and only about a dozen pastors want anything to do with it. Otherwise there is basically no interaction between these 60 or so congregations. Some are sure they are the only ones going to heaven.
So this is how the City Church works. Let’s just take a sampling to use as an example.
Here we have four congregations of different sizes, showing their average weekly attendance. (Not “membership” – that’s usually three times higher and many of them only show up once a year, if at all.)
Now, most revivalists in history, from Charles Finney to Billy Graham, have figured that maybe 2% to 5% of ALL the people that SAY they are “Christians” are actually legitimately saved. Yeah… that’s horrifying. Don’t hear many sermons on THAT, do you?
Now, statistics say that currently about 66% of people in the United States claim to be “Christians” on a census questionnaire (Pew 2025 Census of American Religion). We could give some extra grace to the people attending regularly and say they are more likely to have made it through the Narrow Gate than the percentage that SAY they are “Christian,” but don’t show any signs of it in their life.
So out of the 40% that are attending regularly in Liberty, let’s be really generous and say that 33% of those are truly, legimately “saved.” (That would be 6,600 out of the 20,000 attending regularly. Or 22% of the 30,000.) Maybe the others are on their way and seeking – maybe they are content and think they are rich and have need of nothing.
So if we assume 1/3 out of each building, is that then the true “Church of Liberty, Missouri”?
Well, no. There are lots of people that won’t darken the doors of the steeple houses anymore. There are people too old or handicapped to make it. There are kids that love Jesus with all their heart that met Him in Vacation Bible School, but their parents won’t let them go on Sundays. There are home groups and people that learned from Covid that they can get fed online. Yet, even out of all those groups, most aren’t really “saved.”
But if we gather the subsets from each of these who are truly “Born Again” and are filled with Jesus, THEN we arrive at those who are truly part of the Body of Christ and make up The Church of Liberty, Missouri. That may sound exclusionary, but we didn’t make these rules – Jesus did.
Does that mean we don’t fellowship with the others? NO! There are real seekers that need us to mark the way to get here. And there are those that need to be shaken back awake. Remember, revival isn’t for the lost. They were never “vived.” RE-vival is for the sleeping church that has forgotten about Him and gone their own way. First we RESTORE the Church and get it on the right foundation (unity and love and one body – not Luther, Calvin, Menno, Wesley, etc.), then we RE-vive the saints on life support or in a coma – THEN we evangelize the lost and have somewhere to send them!
How are we going to reach all of these? Well, that’s what CitySaver is for – to connect the little dots of light spread out all over town. But it would help if we found the Elders. And it’s not about trying to get all the pastors in agreement. I mean, truthfully, they are the MOST entrenched in their denominational distinctives. They went to seminary (school of opinion) to learn why they are more right than the guys at that other seminary (school of opinion). No, it’s about about the guys we hired – and we can fire if they stop being funny or preach too long and make us miss the Chiefs game.
To be an “elder” you just have to be a four year old in a room full of three year olds. You don’t have to be perfect – you just have to be a little taller, a little farther ahead. So we need to find the people that are just a little more full of Jesus, reflect His light better – people that are more led by Him, love like Him, manifest the Fruits of the Spirit, and are better at getting out of His way so that HE can move through them.
People ask me, “How come people get healed in Africa, but we don’t see that in our church in America?” Well, partly because you have insurance and aren’t as desperate. But also, the Bible says that if any among you are sick, to call the elders of the church and they will lay hands on you and by the prayer of faith you’ll be healed. (James 5:14). Get that? Elders of THE church. The one.
That is written based on a City Church, not factions. Why aren’t people getting healed here? Maybe because the “elder” is Grandma in the wheelchair in back and she hears God really good and has the faith for it. Maybe the elders for the CITY aren’t even in your Sunday morning box. Maybe the “elders” aren’t the guys with funny collars that are touching kids in the youth group.
Is it possible that we’re not even properly discerning the Body? What about 1 Corinthians 11:27-29?
- 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. 30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
Every single one of those congregations in Liberty are taking Communion – and they are doing it while purposefully excluding other parts of The Body. Maybe even parts of The Body that are sitting right there but aren’t proper “members” of their building! This passage says clearly that because you aren’t properly identifying who IS and who ISN’T part of the Body of Christ, some of you are sick and some dying. Could it be that we are sick and dying because we don’t even know who the Elders are that we should run to when we’re sick?
Is it possible that we’re sick in the first place because of our division? That we’re under a curse from God for having split off into teams and gone our own way? Isaiah 58 makes a list of what is required if you want to rebuild on the ancient foundations and restore streets with dwellings – if you want to be guided by God continually and be like a well-watered garden with springs of living water that never fail. It’s really contract law – If/Then.
Here’s the WRONG thing to do:
- 1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. 3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
OK, so that’s the WRONG thing to do! They were seeking daily, but they were pretending. They asked for instruction on justice, they love going to the Temple. They fasted, but complained that He didn’t hear them. They “afflicted their soul” agonizing, but still He wouldn’t hear them. Why? Because they made HIS day about THEM, because they were full of strife and debate and love to smite each other. Then He goes on to say that THAT is no kind of fast if you want to get God’s attention – even IF they sit in sackcloth and ashes and make a big show of how religious they are.
Then He is very clear about the terms of what He DOES want:
- 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
Can that be true? That we could have food pantries and clothes closets and homeless shelters – but if we’re dividing off from our own brethen we void the whole deal? Yep.
- 8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy reward. 9 Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
What does that “putting forth of the finger” mean except pointing at THOSE GUYS and telling everybody how wrong they are? What is speaking vanity except puffing yourself up over others?
- 10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. 12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
IF you draw out your soul and satisfy the hungry and afflicted soul … so you even have any idea how to do that? We do! We can show you how to get your cup full, keep it full, and then pour out on others and help them get full. It’s all about learning to drink from the River that flows from the Throne of God. And IF you do this, THEN God will “guide you continually” and you’ll overflow endlessly. AND your people will fix all that’s broken.
Then we do it again.
- 13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: 14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
IF you STOP doing your own thing on the Sabbath, make it about Him, stop with your plans and programs and making sure YOU are pleased – if you’ll stop from opening YOUR OWN mouth and saying whatever – THEN you will delight in Him and HE will lift you above nations.
Always pay attention to the If/Thens of God’s law. All you have to do is meet all the requirements and His promises kick in – probably beyond what you could think or imagine.
