The following is an email sent to me from John White… It’s regarding John Arnott’s term: “Supernatural Church”… and it’s regarding two predictions that John makes… read all the way to the end:
A recent email from Felicity Dale pointed me to an article by Arnott in the recent edition of the “Spread the Fire” magazine which is put out by his church www.tacf.org. The article, entitled “Let’s Get Back to Supernatural Church”, clearly articulates many of the basic concepts of simple church (see the John Arnott post below). By “supernatural church”, Arnott means “one that depends on “the foundation of Jesus as the Anointed One, rather than on structure”.
What a concept! House church…simple church…organic church…supernatural church. This may be the best name of all for what God is doing. This article is especially significant because Arnott is the Sr. Pastor of a megachurch and also gives leadership to an informal network of traditional churches. These are the kinds of churches that have traditionally been built on “structure” and they are beginning to call all of this into question. Amazing! This certainly is God!
The article is also significant because it reminds us in the house church movement that meeting in a home (or Starbucks) is no guarantee of “supernatural church”. We also must be alert to the danger of becoming “structure dependent” instead of “Jesus dependent”. At the recent House Church Conference, John Eldredge warned us that if Satan cannot stop the house church movement, he will attempt to “co-opt” it by tempting it with “Churchianity”. This is what Arnott describes as “man’s attempts to organize and institutionalize the Church”.
My predictions: 1. In the next year, we will see a growing number of traditional church and parachurch leaders embrace simple church concepts. 2. At the same time, as these concepts become more and more accepted, we will see a growing number of attempts to “organize and institutionalize” the house church movement.
Comments
6 responses to “Supernatural Church”
Nah… I don’t believe that it will happen that fast… too much money and power in traditional church for it to be fled that fast by professional pastors.
I’m interested in tghe house church movement, do you know of any in my area?
Thanks God Bless
Danny,
Where are you from?
Peace
I sadly agree with Arnott’s prediction about the institutionalizing of house church movement. As the body moves toward a more simple style of meeting, opportunity to “grow” networks, instead of mega-churches, could become the temptation. I pray that we can all stay accountable to each other!
Institutionalization is already begining within some house church movements. The good news is that God always finds a new way to bring about a new thing…so that his purposes are being accomplished.
The institutional church system is destined for destruction for several reason. It treats division an normal, naming their divisions. It is focused on one person and building its vision around that person. Misplacing funds to earthly things like buildings, pastors and staff. It is focused on programs rather than power. Finally, it is self sufficient, they have need of nothing.
House churches have several problems also: they forget that the New Testament church was not a house church movement, but a Jesus movement. It too lacks the unity mentioned in Jesus prayer before He went to the cross, the house churches made up the church in the city, in today’s house church movement it has become isolated and thus insolated from one another in the various cities. They have become mini-division without unity.
God will never bless divisions.
God will never bless anything that is not sold out to Him in first love.
I have a few articles that might appeal to a few: “Power vs. Form,” “Early Church Meetings.” And the “Real Church.”
http://www.TheRealChurch.com
Andy