Simple Church Journal

So here’s the problem…

Either we press into an ever-deepening, hearing-from-God relationship, or we settle for someone else’s voice as the primary authority of our lives. It is a simple choice.

I have been enjoying a fresh read of Dallas Willard’s Hearing God in which he addresses this issue as squarely as I have heard it:

From the humility and generosity of his great heart, Moses said, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” (Num 11:29). But this might be a mixed blessing, for one further serious objection to individual believers’ living in a conversational relationship with God comes from a feeling that this would lead to chaos in the church, the community of believers…

Such logic drives toward a hierarchy of authority and subordination and naturally results in one person’s speaking for God and thus enforcing conformity.

Willard goes on to say that the ‘redeemed community’ is meant to be made up of ‘living stones’ who live ‘in conversation with God.’ But, due to the hierarchy of religious structures, we too often find leadership is focused on ‘getting others to do as they are told.’

They [such leaders] will invariably turn to controlling the flock through their own abilities to organize and drive, all suitably clothed in a spiritual terminology and manner.

And, let us be honest, this happens because so many followers prefer giving this authority to someone else rather than take responsibility for the supreme task (and joy) of learning the ways and voice of God through our deepening relationship with Him.

As Willard says, “God has created us for intimate friendship with himself—both now and forever.”

When we grasp this, it becomes the central focus of our lives as we take on both the challenges and joys of developing such a friendship.

Today there is a desperate need for large numbers of people throughout various arenas of life to be competent and confident in their practice of life in Christ and in hearing his voice. Such people would have the effect of concretely redefining Christian spirituality for our times. They would show us an individual and corporate human existence lived freely and intelligently from a hand-in-hand, conversational walk with God. That is the biblical ideal for human life.

Isn’t this the very heart of the spiritual revolution that God is after for his people, the church, in this day?

Leave a comment on your thoughts or share how your own conversational relationship with God is developing!

On living radically for/with Jesus:

‏@bradjoegray The #Christian life isn't a mountain climb, it's a cave dive—a plunge into all the unimagined and undiscovered fullness of Christ.

Living in Faith and Grace in a Polarizing, Angry World, Ann Voskamp: “Turns out what we want most is someone to just sell us some certainty about who is who, and what is what, so we can have this sense of knowing what’s safe — instead of knowing Who is the Savior who calls us to love in dangerous, upside-down ways.”

On simple/organic church

20 Truths from The Church as Movement by JR Woodward and Dan White, Jr.: “The Church as Industrial Complex is a resource-driven form of church that has a gravitational pull that unintentionally turns spirituality into a product, church growth into a race, leadership into a business and attendees into consumers.”

"What would the church look like today if we really stopped taking control of it & just let the Holy Spirit lead?" -Francis Chan

On discipleship and movements

“I don’t think you have a movement unless you have grandkids and great grand kids you don’t know…” What the Global Church Taught Bob Roberts About Church Planting.

@Mike_Breen If you make disciples, you always get the Church. But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples.

Keeping the Word at the center of movements. Steve Smith in Mission Frontiers. “Perhaps the central tenet of why CPMs emerge is that they emphasize returning to biblical norms of discipleship.”

On taking the Gospel to the nations

@SteveSilkRoad If your church planting strategy in a foreign culture is not fully reproducible by locals without your help, you're doing it wrong.

Six-word lessons to help believers live missionally. David DeVries. Examples: "Disciples Make Disciples Who Make Disciples." "It’s His Mission, What’s My Part?" "Think and Act Like a Missionary."

On caring for the poor

@randyalcorn When will we learn that God doesn’t give us more to increase our standard of living, but to increase our standard of giving?

@povertycure …the poor, no matter how destitute, have enormous untapped capacity; find it, be inspired by it, and build upon it.”

It’s easier to go to church or join a church then… just keep loving people.

It’s easier to prepare a sermon or listen to one then… just keep loving people.

It’s easier to share an opinion or bash the opinion of another then… just keep loving people

I am preaching to myself…

It’s the simple basic command of the Gospel that Jesus spoke of and demonstrated… just keep loving people.

We all know people who are good at this in different ways. Some of you are great at loving addicts and alcoholics. Some of you are great at loving your neighbor, or the lonely, or the infirm. And some of you are great at carrying your love across cultural and/or geographical divides to love people from different places and different backgrounds.

Sam Riviera has a great post, from his own experiences, on how to love homeless people. As Sam says in his article:

I remember that old adage “I don’t care what you think until I know you care about me.” I probably misquoted it, but you get the idea. Another way of stating the same idea: We must earn the right to be heard. Our currency is caring and loving.

The church and Christians lost the right to be heard in many peoples’ lives long ago. Instead of finding caring and loving, they found disinterest at best, meanness, hatred, anger, and judgment at worst.

Our friends, be they the homeless, the poor, our neighbors, or our gay friends, want to talk. They tell us their stories. We listen. They ask us questions. We answer their questions, talk with them, shake their hands, hug them, and in the case of the homeless give them some water and maybe an orange and a pair of socks, a tarp, or a warm coat.

Sometimes when we’re on the street and we answer their questions with “We’re here to show the love of Jesus to the folks here in the neighborhood,” they start crying. I don’t remember how many times this has happened, but it’s not unusual.

Just keep loving people… and do it your way!. As Mother Teresa said, “Find your own Calcutta.” It does not get any more real, organic, and fruit-bearing than that!

1. Passion. Nothing matters like passion from start to finish. When God found me, changed me, and filled me with Himself, I had no greater desire than that others experience the same. The reality that there were whole people groups who never would have this opportunity unless the Gospel was taken to them caused me to be smitten with the longing to do just that.

2. Vision. From passion it seems easy enough to develop some sense of vision and even an action plan. The challenge is that the early years are often a mixture of a lot of my own ideas sprinkled in, maybe, with some of God's. Think of Moses trying to free his people by killing the slave master or Joseph trying to explain his dreams to his brothers. Well-intentioned, but…

3. Faith Steps. The vision is initially walked out with steps of faith that are “certain” to lead to God's blessing on life, ministry, family, and all areas of life. So, with confidence I launch out. And, indeed, God always honors our faith and some wonderful things do happen because of it. He is faithful, but He is still in the business of shaping me big-time!

4. Vision thwarted. Somewhere along the way, the early vision and faith-steps encounter obstacles and, despite the fact that there may be some fruit from it, eventually it comes to a standstill. The resulting disappointments are so confusing. I was certain that I was 'the man' fulfilling 'God's calling' so why are things not working out as I had planned and envisioned?

5. Patience, Perseverance, Character Growth. This is the most difficult season of all. It seems to be a time of just slogging it out one step at a time. The vision has dimmed, the glamour of it all is gone, and the way seems dark at times. In my own life, I went through a series of painful, personal seasons that seemed to make the way darker, dimmer, and more confusing than ever. Yet this often seems to be the most important part of the entire process as God shapes the heart more fully for Him. It was a time when my identity became less about 'the vision' and more about simply being the child of God. It was a painful, difficult, necessary, growing-up phase.

6. Contentment. This may be the fruit of step five through which God becomes greater, being-with-God becomes more the point than anything else, and there is less of the push to 'do something' or try to 'be someone.'

7. Vision Renewed. The final step (to-date) is a vision that is re-shaped by all of the steps mentioned. It is more of God and less of Roger. When I begin walking the faith steps this time, doors open, things happen, and it is much more about Him. He has re-formed everything in a way that I could have never imagined nor done on my own. It is a vision that He has inspired and then placed me in the right places to see it come to pass. Challenges still? Plenty? Heartbreaks and disappointments still? All the time. But coming from a place of deeper surrender and clearer dependency, there is the sense that God will do what He needs/wants/plans to do. I can let go more than ever and just be part of His ride. And, at the end of the day, He will indeed work all things together for the good of his purposes, for my good, and for His glory.

It has been quite a ride, without a doubt, yet when looking back it so easy to see the way God has masterfully and miraculously coordinated every part of the journey. He is an amazing God to do life with!

Have you experienced something similar? Share!

Apparently I missed Roland Allen Day (June 8) in which he is celebrated on a liturgical calendar. But this is no surprise as 1. I was traveling, and 2. I don’t follow that calendar.

But let me celebrate Roland belatedly!

As this article says so well, “Allen was one of the leading missional thinkers of the 20th century. And his influence continues well into the 21st. In fact, if any of the following applies to you, then you have felt that influence:

• you are interested in church planting movements
• you think about church multiplication
• you have strong convictions about the role of the Holy Spirit in missions
• you prefer contextualized church planting over paternalism
• you believe in raising up leaders from the harvest
• you are crazy enough to believe that the New Testament has something to say regarding how we should be doing missionary work today”

Allen’s book, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church has had a significant impact on me and our work both overseas and here at home. It is available online for free here, and for $.99 in Kindle format here, or as a free download:  Download Spontaneous Expansion Roland Allen.

Here are a couple of quotes from this groundbreaking book:

“Spontaneous expansion must be free: it cannot be under our control; and consequently it is utterly vain to say, as I constantly hear men say, that we desire to see spontaneous expansion, and yet must maintain our control. If we want to see spontaneous expansion we must establish native Churches free from our control.”

“The spontaneous expansion of the Church reduced to its element is a very simple thing. It asks for no elaborate organisation, no large finances, no great numbers of paid missionaries. In its beginning it may be the work of one man and that a man neither learned in the things of this world, nor rich in the wealth of this world.…What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire.”

“This then is what I mean by spontaneous expansion. I mean the expansion which follows the unexhorted and unorganized activity of individual members of the Church explaining to others the Gospel which they have found for themselves; I mean the expansion which follows the irresistible attraction of the Christian Church for men who see its ordered life, and are drawn to it by desire to discover the secret of a life which they instinctively desire to share…”

An excerpt from Simple/House Church Revolution:

As we let go of control-type leadership and top-down organizations, we become ready to use leadership gifts in a way that serves and empowers the body of Christ to reach her full potential. Positions are not needed for this. Titles that lift one above another are not necessary. Leaders simply function, in servant-fashion, using their gifts to help others grow into fruitfulness.

A leader is one because he or she reaches, disciples, and gathers others. In this sense, all become leaders to some extent. Some may have a special ability (i.e. apostolic, pastoral, or evangelistic) to reach and gather many disciples. This leader is still in a serving capacity, lifting others. He or she does not need to be in charge of or “over” a ministry. Rather, this person simply functions by building up the body of Christ and reproducing his or her own ministry in others. Everything is given away: spiritual authority, recognition, encouragement, opportunities to minister and serve. This leader empowers others so well that his or her own ministry goes virtually unrecognized.

When properly understood, we can see that God’s purpose is to release a multitude of no-name, gifted leadership that will never be recognized yet who function in concert with God’s purposes to serve and empower others.

We like to say it this way.

Rather than:

1. A service or event I attend
2. A denomination or organization I become a member of
3. A program I fit into and help build

Simple church, real church, is:

1. A way of life (extravagant lovers of God engaging the world 24/7 with love, power, and word)
2. A simple community (a spiritual family that gathers with full participation, led by the Holy Spirit)
3. Natural, organic multiplication (disciples influencing others to live as fully devoted disciples)

(This is a re-print of an article I wrote ten years ago entitled "Honest Look at Jesus.")

This is a blog about "church," so-to-speak, but maybe we miss the mark a bit if we don't keep putting the focus back on the One who precedes the church and everything else.  The church is, no doubt, meant to be a much more radical movement than we have understood it to be.  How much more important is it for us to see that Jesus, the head of the church, is a far more radical man/God than we can even begin to understand.  He is the One we, His church, are designed to imitate.  Perhaps if we get Jesus right, and our imitation of Him in keeping with who He is, we will naturally get church right.

Jesus is so… much… more than we can begin to define in a few words, or thoughts, or even a lifetime of both.

He is uncontainable, unpredictable, unorthodox, and unconventional.  As soon as someone would try to put Him in a box, He would break the mold.  If you thought He was meek, He would pick up a whip.  If you thought He was kosher, He would start talking about other people eating his flesh.  If you thought He was a paragon of mercy, He would pronounce woes and judgements.

But wait!  If you asked Him to condemn a sinful woman, He proclaimed forgiveness and grace.  If you told Him a man was a tax-collecting thief, he loved him all the more.  If you nailed Him to a cross, He prayed for you.

He was (and is) radically and completely God… living above the expectations of others, the mores of his culture, and the rules of society.  Tell Him that the Sabbath was for resting, and He would work.  Tell Him not to touch lepers, and He would hold and heal them.  Tell him not to socialize with Samaritans, and He would deliberately converse with a Samaritan woman.

He marched to His own drumbeat.  He lived with a vision set only on kingdom.  He walked out of a perspective that never placed value on temporal things.  He was not of this world and every moment that He lived and word that He spoke portrayed this.

Do we really even know who He is, really?  How honestly are we willing to look at Him knowing that our calling is to imitate Him and be like Him?

I'm just thinking that if we kept our focus really on Him, every church, house church, simple church, and mega-church would be absolutely, thoroughly, and completely transformed and turned upside down in more ways than we can imagine merely by the irresistible force of the life of Jesus pulsing through His imitators.

A disciple making movement coach recently gave me a list of “keys to sustaining movements.” I massaged that list to fit the African context where we work with leaders of such movements. Then I decided to massage the list again to fit those of you who are ‘organic catalyzers,’ i.e. catalyzers of organic/simple/missional churches and networks in western contexts. I trust it is helpful:

1. Keep your focus. Our western culture offers so many distractions from Kingdom purposes.
2. Let your commitment to reach the lost continue to grow. No time for contentment.
3. Continue to depend on God rather than your tools. Prayer is the heartbeat of what you are doing. Lack of prayer will catch up.
4. Keep spending time looking for and raising up other catalyzers. Those who are comfortable to sit and attend can take our attention away from looking for others who will go and catalyze.
5. Be open to learn. You will hit barriers. You must learn, hear from God, and adapt to cross those barriers.
6. Get up when you fall down. Admit when something is not working. Stay above the line of accountability and grow, adapt, and make adjustments when needed.
7. Do not get distracted by negative people or persecutors. They are not worth time defending against.
8. Model everyday what you want to see in your movement. Your life is what you replicate.
9. Push for quality disciples as well as quantity. Maturity and depth matter long term. Don't sacrifice one OR the other.
10. Keep your own joy of God alive.