SimpleChurch Journal aka House Church Blog

The Unstoppable Excitement of New Simple Church-ers

One of the things I enjoy about offering an online course on Simple/Organic church is that is keeps me in touch with people who are discovering many of the principles and joys for the first time.

Here is a quote from a recent participant who is finding renewal and excitement in simple church:

What we have unleashed here in Philadelphia is unstoppable. In the few short months we have been talking about this thing called Simple Church, two others have asked us about what we are doing and we've learned that one lady has started a church in her house on Sunday evenings. My wife and I are going to visit her next week. Another man started further north of us and we'll be meeting with him soon. Then we have heard of a couple of other places near here that has a meeting going on. So, the network of churches is beginning to take shape. I hope to visit all of them over the next couple of months. It is unstoppable.

And what we see and hear is that God is moving and the miraculous is taking place. People are being healed, marriages are being restored and in one case a woman on methadone was instantly delivered from the dependence on any drug or substitute. How awesome. I have one methadone user in our group and I am expecting to have her delivered. Her husband was delivered months ago, now it's her turn. I believe the the steps to her deliverance will come about because the group is beginning to see and hear of others who are being set free in the House Church. The Big Church prays for people but then they get on with the service.  In the House Church we can concentrate on the needs of one person for the entire time and see God work.

California Greenhouse (Neil Cole) & Tenessee Retreat

Neil Cole's workshop, called "Greenhouse" will be taking place in our own local area: San Luis Obispo, California, on March 5-7.  Neil (author of Organic Church) does a great job of orienting people toward the principles of organic church life and church reproduction.  You can find more information here along with more details here: Download Greenhouse Weekend Intensive SLO

The Way is hosting a retreat in White Bluff, Tennessee, that will be facilitated by Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings, on April 16-18.  "Join other followers of Jesus... as we gather for a weekend of fun, relaxation, and encouragement.  Life in Jesus is not about getting it all right. It is about learning to live in His love. Jesus is the Way!"

Stage 2: Exploring New Testament Gatherings

I continue to reflect on the “stages in the journey of simple church life” that I outlined in a previous post by looking at each stage one at a time.

Since our old paradigm of church life has often revolved around the Sunday morning gathering, we often find ourselves on a quest to discover what “New Testament” gatherings might look like and feel like.  We have learned from our church traditions that the make-up and how-to of the gathering is at the crux of the Christian life so, if we are transitioning into simple/organic/house church type experiences, we tend to become very focused on the make-up and how-to of these new types of gatherings.

The result is that stage two, for many transitioning Christians, is the exploration of New Testament gatherings.

While this is natural, if we remain in this stage as the end-all of our transition, we will not fully grasp that Jesus calls us first to an organic lifestyle and only secondarily to organic gatherings (as a result of our lifestyle of fully following him).  I have made this point clearly here.

In fact, one of the difficulties in describing New Testament gatherings is that scripture does not provide us with the kinds of specifics that we would want.  Jesus called his followers to radically follow him, yet he offers virtually no instruction on what to do during a “prayer meeting” or a “church service.”  Yet the disciples did gather and were an intimate community.  From this, we can deduce that the lifestyle of mission (following Jesus and being a light to the world) was the guiding star of their relationship with God and one another.  Gatherings supported this lifestyle, not the other way around.

Having said this, I am again acknowledging that during the stages of transition out of our institutional forms of church life, focusing on the New Testament gathering is often part and parcel of this journey.

Furthermore, stepping into many of the principles of New Testament gatherings does help to move us out of old ways of viewing the Christian life and re-discovering an intimate, organic walk with Jesus.

SO, what are some of these principles of New Testament gatherings that are explored during this stage:

1. Participatory rather than priest led.  Much is written about this in this blog and in many excellent books today.  You can read more here and here and here.  Felicity Dale’s book “Getting Started” has an excellent chapter on this.  Frank Viola’s book “Re-Imagining Church” is helpful as well.

2. Family-type authentic community.  "There are over 50 “one another” verses in the New Testament because we live, grow, minister, become healthy, and find support in the context of real relationships."  You can read more on this here and here.

3. Incarnational rather than attractional.  A recent comment to a post suggested that simple/house churches ought to work together with institutional churches since the latter were better for inviting and involving new people in church.  The wonderful opportunity of the simple church lifestyle is that we learn, as believers, what Jesus meant when he asked us to be salt.  Rather than inviting others to join our own Christian activities (attractional) we have the opportunity to season the world with the wonder of Jesus’ love and kingdom wherever we live, work, and go.  More here and here.

4. Training ground for developing spiritual gifts.  "In a loving environment, group members are willing to risk and use the gifts they have."  More here.

5. Word centered.  Since simple churches do not have one person “delivering the word of God,” the concern is often that the word is not central.  On the contrary, simple churches become even more word-centered because God’s word becomes the one authority that all look to.  More here.

6. Spirit-led.  One of the great joys of worshiping in simple, participatory communities is that every believer learns more and more what it is to be led by the Holy Spirit as a community and as individuals.  More here.

7. Simple and reproducible.  One of the geniuses of living things is that they are made out of simple elements (cells) that grow by reproduction.  The genius of the living church is that every aspect of it,  including its gatherings, can be easily reproduced into any setting from the urban west to the remote villages of Africa with nothing more than the Spirit of God and the word of God at work through the people of God.  It really is that simple.

8. Fluid and living.  By definition we will discover that truly organic processes cannot be controlled nor permanently structured.  Margaret Wheatley says it this way: “We seem hypnotized by structures, and we build them strong and complex because... this is a universe, we feel, that cannot be trusted with its own process for growth and rejuvenation... By sheer force of will, because we are the planet's intelligence, we will make the world work...”

Our attempts to “create” simple/organic church gatherings and make them work will plague all of us who genuinely want to see God shape and grow his living church.  We will not do it perfectly.  Nevertheless, the more we can rest in his ability and power to do what he said he will do (build his church) we can allow that process to be alive, changing, growing, transitioning, and flowing according to his purposes.

Online, Interactive Course

I am offering an interactive, online course on the Simple/House Church Revolution.  This course will be looking at the basics and is probably most useful to people who are newer to some of these concepts or fairly fresh into the transition (a year or two, perhaps).

Enrollment is limited to 15 participants, so it is simply a first-come, first-served basis.  More info is here.

Unstoppable House Church Movement

There is an interesting post here quoting from Joel News about the growth of house churches around the world.  This report came out of a house church conference in Delhi, India:

"Conference reports indicate that, from very small beginnings, in many nations fairly sizeable house church movements have emerged, including on the continents of Africa and Latin America."

Read more here.

Stage 1: Letting Go of Old Church Paradigms

I want to reflect the “stages in the journey of simple church life” that I outlined in a previous post by looking at each stage one at a time.

The first stage is: Letting Go of Old Paradigms of Church Life.

Frankly, this first stage is much of what I have been blogging about right here for nearly six years.

So…  I thought this would be a good excuse to go back over past resources and posts and list those that still seem particularly relevant to the basics of letting go of old ways of thinking.

What Is Church Part 1-A and Part 1-B still seem insightful to me (if I have to say so myself):

Our first challenge in grasping what God intends church to be, is to stop looking at it through the lens of our background and through the lens of 2,000 years of “church” as a formal institution. Dee Hock says: "The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out..." So our first challenge is to de-program old definitions and wrestle with some accurate new ones.  Continue reading here.

The second chapter of my book, The Simple/House Church Revolution, is entitled “Defining Church (Webster Has It Wrong).”  This is also a good, brief attempt to re-think our paradigms of church.

Perhaps the best way to describe the church of the New Testament is as small, vibrant, caring families of believers who are loving others and reproducing themselves into every corner of the world.  You can download this chapter only here if you wish: Download SCRevChapter2

A Way to Do Life—Not a Way to Co Church is an old post that I re-posted recently (upon request), but I think it deserves a mention in this list.  Also, Planting the Kingdom Not Churches is in a similar vein.

I think that John Eldredge has contributed much to the process of re-thinking church.  I blogged on him here and here:

Church is not a building. Church is not an event that takes place on Sundays. I know, it's how we've come to think of it. “I go to First Baptist.” “We are members of St. Luke's.” “Is it time to go to church?” Much to our surprise, that is not how the Bible uses the term. Not at all.

There are obviously other key voices that have added much to the shift in paradigm of church-life including Wolfgang Simson, George Barna, Neil Cole, Frank Viola, Tony & Felicity Dale, and John White.

Also, don’t miss Wolfgang Simson’s diagram of the transition from institutional to organic.

I believe the issue of letting go of old paradigms does not just involve church life, but also entire systems of religiosity that we have often encumbered ourselves with.  Wayne Jacobsen’s “The Jake Book” does a good job of breaking religiosity off of our spirits.  Also, I wrote a post on Reflections on the American Church Culture as well as one entitled, I Don’t Like Christians:

There are, truthfully, many, many Christians that I really like… But we can also be miserably religious, ridiculously petty, unbelievably shaming of others, and embarrassingly judgmental.  My passion for "counter-cultural" church is not just a desire to "do church different" nor even an attempt to "do it better."  It's really just a passion, in any way I can, to stand up as a contrary voice to the spirit of religion that destroys true spiritual life, leaves wounded people wherever it goes, and yet is so often touted as Christianity despite the un-Christlike nature of it.

The subject of “leadership” is an important part of this paradigm shift.  Two posts to note are Hierarchies Create Dependencies and What About Leadership:

The number one issue (in my thinking) is simply this: New Testament leadership had nothing to do with c-o-n-t-r-o-l. When this is fully digested then, and only then, can we begin to grasp what leadership is meant to be.

I think that’s probably more than enough for one post.  But I will offer one last link to a fairly recent post called A Tale of Two Voices:

It feels like there are two paths to go down. One path is called church and it makes you want to have a meeting, set up structures and a church name and define who is in and who is out…

Today I feel encouraged again because I genuinely think that Jesus would be doing what we are doing. And that is all we seek - not a big church - just to be doing what we see the Father is doing every day...

Stages in the Journey of Simple/House Church

I have been reflecting, for some time, on the stages that I have seen and experienced in the simple/house church journey.

I would love to have your feedback on this to help clarify and further illuminate this subject.

When I speak of “stages” I do NOT speak of progressive steps.  I am not suggesting that one stage is better than the previous nor that this is about a plan to follow.  I am simply seeking to describe some aspects of the journey itself.  However, since the journey is one of change and transformation, I thought it might be helpful to try to describe some of the experiences in that journey that may be common to most.

Also, these “stages” typically refer to those who are transitioning from traditional church to simple/house church NOT to people who are discovering church-life for the first time in their life.

1. Letting go of old paradigms of church life.  This stage is described in a variety of ways from “taking the red pill,” to frustration with old wineskins to discovering what the Bible teaches about church life to…  It is sometimes accompanied with periods of disorientation, wandering through valleys of confusion, or (alternatively) great relief and a new sense of freedom.  People discover that they no longer want to “go” to church, rather they want to learn what it really means to “be” the church.

2. Exploring New Testament gatherings.  Since our old paradigm of church life has often revolved around the Sunday morning gathering, we often find ourselves on a quest to discover what “New Testament” simple/house church gatherings might look like and feel like.  In this stage, “the gathering” often remains the focus of our church-life as we seek to explore and experience small, Spirit-led, participatory, Christ-filled gatherings.  Our freedom continues to grow and we become more and more enamored with the reality that we really are 24/7, kingdom-living, Spirit-directed believers.  The dividing walls between secular and sacred continue to come down and we become excited about integrating our spiritual life with our “everyday” life.

3. Re-boot to Jesus.  Using Frost & Hirsch’s term (from ReJesus), part of the overall transformation we walk through is the re-centering of Jesus in our life.  This takes place as we find ourselves removing pieces of our religious life that have sometimes taken center stage alongside of Jesus or as mediators between us and Jesus: our church, our pastor, certain leaders, certain teachers, doctrine, our church’s culture (fitting in to the culture), religious rules for church life or behavior, etc, etc.  The result is often a personal renewal of our own relationship with Jesus, a greater longing to understand what it is to be an uncompromising follower, to hear his voice, to respond to him, and to live out of a deep intimacy and love relationship with him that is truly center stage in our life.

4. A new missional heart and longing.  It is inevitable that the process of re-booting to Jesus stirs in us a fresh desire to see his kingdom, his love, his power known and experienced by others.  However, this stage is sometimes fraught with severe challenges because our background around “missional” has sometimes been so pre-packaged and programmed that we are challenged to grasp the unique and fresh ways that Jesus wants to make himself known through us.  This is especially true for those whose spiritual gifts do not seem to fit into the “missional” spectrum.  However, for those who are more apostolic and evangelistic in gifting, this stage often leads to an entirely new excitement and fervor for taking the “real Jesus” into the streets, neighborhoods, and unreached segments of the world.  For those who have NOT seen themselves as “missional,” (in our previous church experiences) this stage can lead to some exciting discoveries of how God wants to embody himself uniquely through each of us (see stage #5).

(Side-note: It has been my experience that each of these stages may lead to changes in one’s own worship community and gathering.  For example, stage 4 may literally lead to someone moving geographically in order to better fulfill his/her calling.  Or, we may find that our own transformation draws us to connect with different people than when we started—or even NO people for a season as we become re-oriented.)

5. Fresh discovery of our own passions, spiritual gifts, and calling.  As we are freed up from church/religious boxes, we are able to more thoroughly discover our uniqueness in the way that God shaped us (passions, gifts, and calling) leading to a new understanding of how he wants to work in and through our lives.  I believe that, in some ways, this stage may lead to the most significant impact on the world as Christ’s church is renewed to walk in all of her splendor according to the unique way that each person is shaped.  This may be considered a “convergent stage,” a coming together of several stages at once: our experience of re-booting to Jesus, our missional excitement about seeing the “real Jesus” shared among our neighbors, friends, and world, and our discovery of how we are uniquely created and gifted to serve and embody Jesus.

(A second side-note: transformational journeys are perilous in that they may lead to new directions in our life that we never imagined.  My wife and I are spending much of our time traveling to developing countries which has come directly out of these converging stages.  Of course, this process will lead in different directions for different people, but it should be noted that transformation always asks us to let go of our own life and allow Jesus to re-shape it.)

6. Integration of an organic, fruitful lifestyle with organic gatherings that support it.  This is simply to re-iterate that gatherings may change as our life and lifestyle shift and that they ultimately support, synergistically, what God is doing through us as we experience stage #7

7. Our kingdom influence spreads and even becomes reproductive in its impact.  Since organic life grows and reproduces, we will discover the life that God has shaped in us not only influences others but becomes a living, reproducing influence.  For apostolic workers in unreached segments, this can lead to church planting movements.  Although our callings and influence may differ from this (and from one another) I do believe that similar types of reproductive fruitfulness can and will occur as we walk out this process of re-discovery of life in Jesus.  Ultimately, it is a transformational process that we are on.  As we are fully renewed in Jesus and he draws out of us who we really are, the Spirit’s influence through us becomes more and more dynamic, natural, compelling, and living (i.e. reproductive in influence).

Please let me know how you relate (or don’t relate) to these stages!

The [Often Blind] Journey of Discovery

I am just back from Africa and have had no time for a new post... but I wanted to pass on this article from Katie Driver's blog "Backseat Driver" (that was also reprinted at CMA Resources). She has done a beautiful job of describing the adventure of organic church..

The Journey of Discovery, by Katie Driver

I have a lot of conversations with people who are struggling with the blind adventure of the simple, organic and missional church life.
I hear things like; " I don't really know what to do!", "I wish someone could show me how this works!", "I tried that/that, and it didn't work so what's wrong?", "What is this supposed to look like?", "Is there a manual or something I can follow?", "Can you give me a blueprint to work from so I know what I'm supposed to do?"

I empathize with these questions. These are real struggles from hearts that want to "do it right" and have been trained to follow models, leaders, organizations, and manuals so that what they do is "successful" and "correct". I resist the tendency, which is so easy for me, to tell them what to do. Instead, we start talking about what they are learning in the process, what their goals are for living this organic simple life in Christ, what the Scriptures say we should esteem, and that it is okay to try different things and even fail a few times in the process.

God is certainly capable to get us where we need to be, when we need to be there, with all that we need in the process. The bottom line is; He is faithful.
Have you ever heard that saying of on "a need to know basis" ? I think that fits well with His leading of us. He takes us one step at a time. He gives us what we need to know and understand when we need it to lead us forward in faith. He also lets us struggle.

Most of us don't want to hear that we learn best by what we struggle with and figure out on our own. We also don't like to hear that failure is a better teacher than our successes. In fact, I recently read a medical study that concluded that we actually grow more brain cells when we fail! How's that for "organically" rewarding our failures? What incredible Grace!

I believe, God is taking us each on our own wonderful, unique and unmapped "Journey's of Discovery". That is what the journey west, of the explorers Lewis and Clark's into the then unknown, was called.

For those of us who admit to being " a Trekkie", you'll be familiar with the saying; "of boldly going where no man has gone before". I like to use the Star Trek motto to illustrate what the journey in the lifestyle of simple, organic, missional church is like. No manuals, no maps to follow, no clear guidelines and directions (yet,... just give it a few more years and the experts will have the '5 steps to simple church success' available soon at your local bookstore....sorry, my cynicism again).

We do have some great folks out there who are sharing their own journeys of what they are learning and experiencing. Giving us some understanding of what this whole simple lifestyle is all about. Lewis and Clark types who, are on the "Journey of Discovery", just like the rest of us, but are a little further along on their expedition and keeping great journals.

Tom and I have been doing something different this summer. We have been taking short three or four day "mini" vacations on the motorcycle, but we've been doing it in a totally new way from how we have done it before.

In past years we have had a general plan to our vacations. Not completely, but we would have an idea of where we were going, where the scenic spots were, where the camping areas and the places available to us for lodging, eating, getting gas, etc would be. We would, once in a while, drive off the planned course and see what we could discover, but that was the exception. Most of the time we just followed the mapped course we'd laid out together in the kitchen over a couple of nights.
In these vacation expeditions we'd also have a definite goal and agenda of what we wanted to see, experience and accomplish. We don't have the name "driver" for nothing, and some days the only goal seemed to be how many miles we could push through in a day!

This summer however, has been different.

Instead of loading up the car and luggage carrier with all our necessities for camping, our suitcases full of "stuff" that we'd maybe use, coolers packed with food and drink, we packed small bags that fit into the limited spaces on the motorcycle. Usually not more than a change of clothes, our rain gear, a couple bottles of water, basic toiletries, a bible and extra jacket. We'd take along a map, but only for the sake of getting us back on track if we got disoriented and lost out on the back roads of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

We load up and take off in a matter of minutes (verses hours), heading out of the city, in the general direction we wanted to go. We would find some road unknown to us and take it, just to see where it would lead. Often times it would lead to some great and awesome place that we would never of found on our own. Sometimes we would find ourselves at a dead end, where we would have to turn around and go back a bit until we found another road and take that for a while. We found some incredible places and experiences that made us look forward to what new things we'd discover tomorrow! We felt alive and revived. Resulting in thankfulness for all that we saw God bless our journey with each day. A beautiful road, a person to encourage or pray for, finding new friends in towns we'd never of known, creating memories and special times of enjoying life together in the goodness of God. It was simple (unencumbered and portable), organic (let's see what unfolds naturally in the process) and missional (what other lives can we bring some aspect of the nature of Christ to today in our encounters).

When Lewis and Clark made their journey into the western wilderness some two hundred years ago, they went not knowing what they would encounter with each day and decision of direction. Sometimes, the river they travelled just took them along it's natural path and when that was no longer possible, they found their way through mountain passes and vast prairies with sometimes the help of those native to the area. They recorded information, observations and drew pictures of what they were discovering and wrote it in journals for those who would be following in the future. Even though this would be the beginning of the westward movement of settlement, each of the pioneers soon to head west on that journey still had to discover, on their own with just a few journal notes of information and helps, the path to where they would eventually settle.

Tom and I driving along this summer on the unknown back roads of MN and WI, not knowing where we would eventually end up that night was exciting, rewarding, adventurous, fun, a bit unnerving, tiring and stressful at times. All of the above and more! I wouldn't give up one moment of it.

The simple organic and missional church life gives us no GPS, maps and instructional directions. Instead, we have the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us in the direction we are to go. We get to learn how to follow Him in a dependent and intimate way. When He says; this is the way, we go that way. We learn to have ears that hear. We learn to discover, on our own with Him, the unique adventure that Jesus has planned for us to experience more of Him and what He has in store of us while we walk this side of heaven. To know Him, and walk daily in an intimacy that is fresh, alive, exciting and dependent. We have the ultimate "journal", the Word, that has all that we need pertaining to life and godliness. We have the journals of others on similar journey's that can encourage and aid us, but in the end, we find our own Journey of Discovery with the Author of it all!

In the vernacular of motorcycle trekking............."enjoy the ride"!

From Katie Driver's Blog, Backseat Driver

Children and Simple Church

My daughter-in-law sent me the following email regarding simple church and her ten-year-old son, Skyler.  I thought y'all would appreciate her experience and thoughts:

As a mom on this untraditional journey, I gotta tell ya...I am always struggling with the guilt (I know, no surprise there!) of not "doing" enough church stuff for my kids. I think stupid things like "are my kids really going to know enough about who God is and being a part of the body by not being in a 'church'?".  I know, of course, that going to a building on Sunday assures NOTHING regarding these two things.  Then I think more legitimate thoughts like, "Moving around a lot makes it more difficult to connect with believers immediately, how can I encourage this connection for my kids?" I'm instantly reminded that the Holy Spirit is much more powerful than an institution at bringing connections.  Then, I think very interesting thoughts like, "Is my faith big enough to inspire a true relationship with Christ in my kids?" (Without the crutch of the institution, I am forced to actually live the life...I don't always like this!)  And then, I am reminded of probably the most rational idea in all of this, that really it isn't up to me to "make" my kids believers.  Surely, I have a giant influence on how they view religion and God, but ultimately, I (AND institutions, for that matter) are completely powerless to convert anyone.  The practice of family church always brings me to that...trusting God...not trying to make things happen...waiting on the Holy Spirit...and how seriously needy I am. 

So with all that in mind, I was pleasantly suprised by Skyler at family church yesterday.  Mitch said it's time for church.  Skyler left for a minute and then came back.  He sat down on the couch and said, "I can't think of anything."  We were a little confused; "What do you mean?" we asked.  Somewhat pensive, he replied, "I can't think of anything to do for church."  We told him that he didn't have to do anything, of course. 

What struck me is that, he assumes that he will contribute to "church" whenever we gather.  How cool is that!  I am not saying that he wouldn't be learning valuable things in traditional church, of course.  You know I love "church" in whatever format, but how cool is it that he has the foundational belief that when he does participate he is willing to participate actively in the meeting. I don't think he would have gleaned that so much from another format.  Needless to say, I was reminded to trust, trust, trust...God continues to teach my babies even in the midst of my chaos, failures, and in the simplicity.

Six Weeks of Travel Coming Up

I will undoubetdly be blogging a bit less over the next several weeks because of our travels in Africa.  You can read more about what we are doing here and here if you are so inclined.  If you want a full download of our travel tales, you will be able to find them here.  Otherwise, I will still try to fit a post or two in right here as usual.