Month: February 2004
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House Church Basics — Part 1-B: What Is Church?
(To start at Part 1-A click here.) 1. Church is a movement not an organization. 2. Expressions of church are far more diverse than we can imagine. We have been working at eliminating preconceptions around old definitions of “church.” Our cultural idea of “what church is” can keep us from seeing what church really is!!!…
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The Passion Movie
(If you are looking for the House Church Basics Pt. 1, scroll down to the next post.) Most of us will see The Passion movie over the next few days. I will be viewing it Friday night. I would love to have us weigh on this one question: Will this movie have an impact on…
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House Church Basics — Part 1-A: What Is Church?
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…
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Blogging
If you are newer to blogging… I just want to point you to my Blogging: How To. RSS feeds are changing the way some, including myself, are surfing the web. Many sites, including blogs, are offering regularly updated material or current news through “feeds” that can be gathered and looked at in one place. This…
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Church Membership
One of our energized discussions at church this weekend revolved around the concept of membership. We were aware that, even in a house church that does not have formal “membership,” it’s still possible to develop a subtle sense of “we” as opposed to “them.” We can find ourselves thinking that we are part of “this”…
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Church Planting Lessons
Darren at Living Room posted 10 “Church Planting Lessons.” Here is an overview: 1. DNA – Get some sort of DNA/Core Values etc together. 2. Mission needs to be central. 3. Read ‘The Shaping of Things to Come’ – by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost. It is the best thing I’ve read written about missional…
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House Church 101
Beginning February 24: 12 Interactive “Lessons” that will help us discuss many of the key components of house church: • What is church? • How participatory church funtions • How to be a missional church • The building blocks of community • What about leadership? • Worship and gatherings • More
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Church Membership
Terms You Will Not See In the Bible: • “This is my church.” • “I go to church.” • “I am a member of ‘such-and-such’ church.” • “I belong to the ‘such-and-such’ church.” • “I attend church.” • “I was accepted into membership at church.” • “My pastor.” • “Come to my church.” • “I…
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The Present Future
John White has passed along an excellent review of “The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church” by Reggie McNeal. Following is John’s review: Reggie is a denominational guy. (He’s a consultant for the Southern Baptists.) He is writing to traditional church people but what he says is highly relevant to house church people…
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Why Change Church?
Alan Creech seeks to answer the important question, “why we do church a different way.” His response is this: We have looked and we have seen the deep lack of real transformation going on in the Body of Christ. We aren’t – we haven’t been – being changed into the people we were created to…