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Every Believer a Daily Follower Every Follower a Discipler/Gatherer Every Gathering an Apprenticeship for Life and Mission This is a year for breaking new ground in our local simple church life. Motivated by our international efforts where we regularly see the wonder of disciples and churches reproducing and making a kingdom impact in their communities,…

In 2009 and 2010 Simple Church Europe surveyed 48 simple church networks in 16 nations. You can download the full report here.  Here are a couple of highlights: "Simple churches grow 22 percent annually… While the historic churches in Europe face a steady decline in membership, 'simple churches' – small, reproducible communities of faith with…

We did a Thanksgiving interaction at our gathering last night.  Each of us brought a paper bag in which we had placed three objects representing three things that we were thankful for.  For those interested, I will explain at the end of this post how this interactive experience works. In any case, as I was…

John White alerted me to this news report from NBC news.  Be sure to check out John's blog and his discussion of this video on Stories from the Revolution. "Last night (10/21/10), Brian Williams on NBC's Nightly News reported that, at a time when the Crystal Cathedral in California is filing for bankruptcy, 9% of…

Sometimes I think that, rather than focusing on simple church, we should really be focusing on the true simplicity of the Gospel.  We often work so hard to complicate the truth, power, and pure wonder of the simple, undiluted Good News of Jesus Christ.  We explain it, teach on it, expound on it, discuss it,…

If you are in the UK, you may be particularly interested in this post.  But even if you are not, you might enjoy this vision statement by a group there that is working together on simple/organic/missional/churches: All over the UK more and more people are exploring what it means to be Disciples of Jesus Christ…

Sarah wrote the following insights on our Simple Church course forum as a partial explanation of her journey from institutional church to something more organic.  She was writing in response to a quote from Jake Jacbosen (So You Don't Want to Go To Church Anymore): “By providing services to keep people coming, [institutions can] unwittingly…

From Simple Church EUrope: "What are the keys for multiplication in a Western context? Erling Thu, from Kristent Nettverk, shares how their network grew to more than 20 localities. One key for multiplication was just obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit. Besides this, purposely sending out people and finding the person of peace led…

My thanks to David Watson for passing along Dave Hunt’s dissertation (Download 2009huntcpmdissertation) on church planting movements in East Africa.  There is so much of Hunt’s experiences that I relate to, albeit on a smaller scale and budget, that I am excited to see this compilation of what he has been involved in.  There are…

It's always fun to see the national media take note of house churches.  This a very well done article.  Here are a couple of excerpts: The members of this "house church" are part of what experts say is a fundamental shift in the way U.S. Christians think about church. Skip the sermons, costly church buildings…