There is a concept which is very popular in the organized church, its called covering.  Usually, the question goes, “who’s your covering?” in other words, “who are you accountable to?”  It’s not necessarily an improper question but can lead to oppressive attempts to control brothers and sisters in the body.  Such control is truly one of the main factors in our departure from the institutional church.

The body of Christ is to be made up of brother and sisters living together in unity following our Head, Jesus as He guides us by the Holy Spirit.  This model is by nature messy because it includes humans, we are quite imperfect at hearing and following the leading of the Spirit.  We must have examples of godly men and women who’ve gone on before us down this path and can help us along the way.

So we come to the conundrum.  We have a Head, Jesus alone is the Head of the Church, His body here on earth.  We also need examples of successful followers of the way.  Into this problem the human organization of the institutional church has stepped.  This requires much prayer and guidance from the Holy Spirit to discern what all is going on in the local body and that it is in line with the true Gospel of grace.

It may take some amount of time associating with a particular church (local expression of the body) to determine how closely they are following Jesus and what their particular bent to the Gospel is.  Churches can operate in various modes and be well within the guidelines of Scripture.  So we as individual believers must listen carefully to the witness of the Holy Spirit about the situation.

I know this is not a clear answer, but it is a call to maturity.  We are each responsible to Jesus to follow Him with our whole being.  To do that well we must continue to grow daily in our fellowship with Him.