Is the metephor for church changing?

This is a developing thought. Not perfect, just capturing a thought for later use.

All of my formative training centered on the idea that the ideal church emulated the early church. Obviously, Christianity was born out of Judaism, so the early church took on a structure they knew.

the synagogue, at the synagogue you went to hear from the rabbi. He was the local expert on the faith. So, in early Christianity, pastors took on a similar role. As modern churches have tried to emulate how the early church operated, it’s been expected that church would work this way. The people come to their pastors to discuss their faith, their practice, to learn about God, etc. In the ancient world, the synagogue and the rabbi were pretty much the only access point to "know about God." And today’s modern church has some remnant of that in their assumptions. (We assume that people primarily come to us to discuss what they don’t know about God/the Bible.)

But I’m wondering how that works in the day we live in. The question right now isn’t access, as it was in the ancient world, as people can go pretty much anywhere, listen to anyone, read anyone’s messages, and even get online degrees in theology on their own without their local church. I wonder if the metaphor for the ideal church in the near future won’t be the synagogue, it will be agora.

The agora, in the Greek city state, the agora was the marketplace and forum. It was an open air place where people from the town gathered to shop and discuss everything.

I wonder if in today’s digital age where people have access to all sorts of ideas, if the ideal metaphor for church will shift from the synagogue to the agora. If it is, it drastically changes how we train ministers. It drastically increases the amount of apologetics that we do as we help people sort out the difference between what they hear in the agora and what the Bible says. (For fun, start listing out syncretisms of American culture and the Bible)

Can the church exist in the agora? It certainly did as Paul traveled in the ancient world and it would today.
Just read Acts 17.

Still a developing thought, it is rich with theological questions, but it has me wondering this Thursday morning.