What does Tribe teach about church format?

At Tribe, the teaching on church format starts with an honest look at why most gatherings resist change. Drawing from Luke 5:33-39, Brian Barcelona has taught that everyone wants new wine but almost no one wants to build a new wineskin to hold it. Jesus himself acknowledged that we are creatures of habit, reaching for the old wine because it is familiar and it worked. The issue is not that the old ways were bad. The issue is that new wine requires new wineskins, and wineskins are not free. Something has to die before a new one can be made.

Brian has pointed to the COVID season as a Rubicon moment the world does not come back from, one where the Lord released new wine for his church worldwide. Most churches, he said, scrambled to recover what they had before and missed it. For Tribe, one of the first and most visible things that came out of that season was a different, more conversational format for meetings, a shift away from a one-way presentation and toward something that makes room for the whole room to participate and for the Holy Spirit to move.

Running underneath the format conversation is a deeper conviction about personal intimacy with God. Brian teaches that cultivating a real relationship with the Holy Spirit means continual conversation, listening for small nudges, obeying them, praying in your prayer language, and not forsaking gathering together. The gathering itself is not just a container for information; it is a place where people who are genuinely pressing into God come together. As Brian says, "You cannot burn your lamp off of somebody else's oil."

Taught from Luke 5:33-39 · Hebrews 10:25 · Matthew 25