Simple Church Journal

(Re-posted from 11/27/07)

Highlight: "The Body of Christ needs nothing more than to become its fullest and most complete expression of every part.  Good leadership facilitates and serves that end."

In our needed quest to re-define leadership from hierarchy to true servanthood, we have created a leadership vacuum.  This is understandable.  We are so afraid of anything that looks like status-grabbing, or personal-kingdom-building, or one-upmanship that we can fail to walk in our God-given functions to lift, bless, encourage, and speak into the lives of others.

I want to suggest that we do, indeed, need to re-think leadership, and also, not be afraid to exercise the real, true, biblical, God-given authority that God has given to us.  To further this process, I want to offer the following simple thought on leadership…

“Leadership is the spiritual grace to be able to see another person’s divine destiny and impart something into their life that moves them forward toward that destiny.”

If you have the grace-gift to flow in just this way, then please, please do it.  We need people who call out our destiny in our lives, and we need to be people who can do this for others!  The Body of Christ needs nothing more than to become its fullest and most complete expression of every part.  Good leadership facilitates and serves that end.

Jesus came and turned everything upside down.  Especially for the religious people. If we have been a believer for over a year–we have likely become religious people and part of the religious system.  It is like a gravitational pull. We must be turned upside down in order to release the work that Jesus came to do.

He was upside down.

They expected him to hang out with them. They were the important people. Instead he was with prostitutes and sinners.

They thought he would honor them for their religious lifestyle. Instead he told them that they don’t even know God.

They expected Him to come like a big man, a king. Instead he came as a poor baby.  He turned everything upside down from what people expected.

The disciples thought he would rule.  Instead he went to the cross and gave up his life.

Everything upside down.

He turned the religious church upside down in Luke 4 when he said he came for the broken and oppressed. He turned the religious church's finances upside down at the temple. He turned leadership positions upside down when he washed feet. He turned the mission upside down when he said just go and make disciples.

After paying the price for all sin and resurrecting, the disciples must have thought that now, at last, he would equip them. After all, his vision—his last statement—was that they were to go to ALL nations. He has commissioned them to the world.  He has ascended.  He is God.  Surely He would give them some big tools to use.

We always think bigger is better.  Big crusades, big crowds, big buildings, big events, and big to-dos.

So think about being a disciple– given the big command to go to all the nations.  Surely Jesus would fill their pockets with a million dollars.  What about a sound system?  How about some religious clothes so that people would listen to them?

No—he just taught them how to heal the sick, preach the Gospel, and lay their lives down.

The very things we often don't want to do.

The way of Jesus always has been and always will be the upside down way.

I am not one for Christian movies as they too often have two-dimensional characters and trite plot lines.

In several ways, War Room (top box office sales last weekend) is guilty of this. But rather than focus on its short comings I thought I would mention what I did like.

1. The heart of the movie’s message is about a prayer-relationship with God. I give the movie a thumbs up for keeping the spiritual encounters out of the walls of the church and into the closet of a personal relationship with God.
2. The acting was better than average… well… for a Christian movie. I hate to put it like that, but it is true.
3. The movie focused on one-on-one mentoring and personal discipling as the primary element for personal growth to take place. The plot line did a decent job of exploring the relationship between the older woman-mentor and the younger wife in need of personal transformation. This emphasis helped me buy into the changes that took place albeit within a two hour movie-time slot. I appreciated that small groups and one-on-one relationships were seen as key catalyzers of spiritual growth.
4. The need to pass the mentoring relationship on to others was an excellent side-note for the movie. Intentionally asking God for people to reach out to and disciple was shown to be vital, organic, relational, and reproducible. Impressive.
5. (Spoiler alert!) Finally, I appreciated that the renewed husband, in re-focusing his life toward Christ, became involved in community outreach with an outward focus rather than simply becoming one more church attender.

All in all, The War Room, has its shortcomings for sure, but it also has enough credible inspiration that it is worth the look.

Note a CNN article on the movie's unexpected success.

Your comments if you have seen it?

Comfort zones are just, well, comfortable.

No matter where we are in our journey we tend to seek predictability and routine over the wild ride of following the real Jesus.

The pull toward institutionalism and religion is a continual gravitational force that draws all of us away from the risky and unfettered lifestyle of an intimate communion with God as the central, guiding North Star.

I admit this in myself.

I recently found encouragement from Floyd McClung in his book “Follow: A Simple and Profound Call to Live Like Jesus.”  He says:

“I have written this book with the underlying belief that any hierarchy and all institutionalization of the church lead us directly away from Jesus Himself.  We must, therefore, constantly return to Jesus as our source and our example for how to live life and how to do church together. Studying His life, spending time in His presence, seeking to be filled with His Spirit, and fulfilling His mission with others in community—this is how we are to experience life as Jesus intended it.”

Floyd goes on to say that this book is about “how to be a fully devoted disciple of Jesus and not a pretender or an unthinking captive to cultural Christianity.” He says the beauty of living the Jesus way is summed up by living his simple lifestyle: love Jesus, love the world the way Jesus loves it, and to love others who love Jesus.

Worship—Love Jesus.

Mission—Love the world.

Community—Love one another.

While we may be continually challenged to forsake the comfort zones of religion, the Jesus-following life is inherently authentic, God-connected, and impactful in God’s infectious-yeast sort of way.

Two of my favorite people, Tony and Felicity Dale, are guest speaking at the Simple Church Conference later this month in Kentucky.

The conference, hosted by the Simple Church Alliance, has this description:

You are not alone! This year our heart is to encourage you with stories of what God is doing across our country and the world through people like yourself who are seeking to make disciples reproduce simple/organic forms of church.

More information here.

If you know of other upcoming, related conferences, please use the comment section to share with others!

“Movement” is probably an over-used word today, but I’m going to use it anyway.

One of the biggest faith movements in all of history is underway today. It’s the spiritual undercurrent that is slowly but inexorably rising because of Simple Jesus Followers. It is this steady growth of such followers that I call a movement.

These people are everywhere, on every continent of the world, and in every strata of society. They are not pointing at themselves, they are not broadcasting who they are on billboards, and they don’t even have a website defining themselves this way. But they have become radicalized by the radical love and reality of Jesus and He is their thing. They are all about the business of being in love with Jesus and expressing His glory through their everyday lives, gifts, and vocations with the understanding that all parts of life are sacred and meant to be lived in love and obedience to Him.

I know simple Jesus followers who are instigating movements of disciples that will impact nations. And I know Jesus followers who are impacting a disabled friend, neighbor, or adopted child thus expressing Jesus and, in God’s economy, having the same impact as the nation-slayer! The will of God being expressed is the mark of these followers and the measure of impact is the Spirit of God at work. Period.

The age of the limelight is over. It’s no longer about the professional ministers, the professional worship choreographers, and the professional religious-organization marketeers. It’s no longer about who is known, who has the giftings that are idealized and idolized, and who has exponential numbers in their resume. I am grateful that some good things came out of these types of expressions, but I am even more grateful that such grandiose demonstrations of religion are fading and making room for followers of Jesus to understand that the real movement is the growth of the uncommon, everyday expressions of the simple Jesus follower.

Jesus was and is an upside-down God. He was born in a stable, ridiculed by religious leaders, condemned by the rich and famous, beaten and spit upon. No, these are not necessary qualifications for His followers, it just points out that His movement, His Kingdom movement that is still alive and well today according to His promise, is being carried out mostly by those least recognized. Further, to sign up for his movement you can be rich or a pauper, you can have a degree or no education at all, you can have world-recognized talents or none at all, you can be outgoing and charismatic or just the opposite. God’s unrelenting plan, from the very beginning, is to work through those who love him and desire him above all else. No other qualification needed! And he is doing just that!

Perhaps the biggest obstacle of the western church is that the everyday follower does not believe in himself or herself or, maybe more to the point, does not believe in God’s power to work through ‘normal’ everyday lives. It’s time to throw off the shackles of the big and the beautiful and believe that every one of us is called to simply follow, with heart and passion, the God who does great things through us, and to see that, by so doing, we have the opportunity to be part of the greatest world-changing movement in history.

Mike Breen, in an article here, describes the slow death of the American church if it continues to give in to these three enemies:

• Celebrity
• Consumerism
• Competition

The article quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., who said:

If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

Indeed, the church must come out of denial and face those things, and those enemies, that keep us from being authentic followers of Jesus or face the ongoing decline into irrelevance and impotence.

But, when I read an article like this, I am tempted to only look outward at how others and other institutions have been infected by these enemies. And that misses the point. I share the same culture as the American church, and these same attitudes lurk, often hidden, in my own heart. Real change, the kind that renews and revives the community of His followers and keeps us from being just another social club, begins at the deepest level of my own personal heart repentance.

Therefore, I challenge myself…

Where is my ambition crowding out the simple service of His kingdom?

Where am I seeking people’s admiration more than the satisfaction of God’s approval and love?

Where am I setting myself apart from others, and magnifying differences, in order to feel better than them rather than having a heart cry for every person and ‘tribe’ to simply know God more deeply?

It’s not enough to be ‘against’ the enemies. I want to be ‘for’ change that starts with myself.

Read Mike’s article here.

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:3

The simple/organic church lifestyle opens the door for every believer to step into his unique calling and recognize his unique ‘letter’ written on his heart by the Spirit of God. Every person has the privilege and responsibility of tuning into the process in which God shapes each one for his destiny. Part of that is recognizing the core message—the life message—that He has formed in us.

Tony Stoltzfus says that every Christian has “a special life message that’s a summary of their story—the place where their various life messages join together in one theme… That one-of-a-kind message is the heart of their call.”

There is power in recognizing and affirming our life message so that we are freely sharing this core of who we are with those around us. It fuels our spiritual passion and excitement. Often, it leads us into a clearer understanding of the Kingdom calling in our life.

Recently, as a group exercise, we looked at ways to identify our life message. We used three different methods which I share here. The idea is that you might be able to identify your life message using any one of these three methods.

(Note, that I adapted this from Tony Stoltzfus’ excellent book entitled ‘Leadership Coaching.’)

1. Finding Your Current Life Message by Looking at Your Suffering

Write down a key difficulty you suffered through that has significantly shaped you. Then, write down the core message that this experience built into you for others!

2. Finding Your Current Life Message by Looking at Your Soapbox

What are the themes you come back to over and over when you are helping or serving others? What are you always talking passionately about? What do you most yearn to impart to people? Write down the core message!

3. Finding Your Current Life Message by Looking at What Injustices You Want to Fight

What injustices make you want to rise up and fight for the good of all? What’s the injustice you see, where you have a compelling vision of the better future that could be? Write down the core message that you want others to hear!

I love the way that God shapes us uniquely and then uses that uniqueness for His glory!

On a personal note, it was a challenging season in my own life (which I describe in the first chapter of Simple/House Church Revolution) that led to a re-write of my life message twelve years ago. Out of this came an unexpected re-direction in life and ministry and the formation of Appleseed Ministry. The life message would be something like this: “It’s not structured church or religion that transforms people and nations, rather it’s all about the simple life of Jesus, flowing personally through his irreligious followers, leading to a lifestyle of loving and discipling others.”

I have been reflecting on what it takes to keep my organic connection with God alive and full of passion. All things tend toward a loss of vitality and freshness, and my relationship with Jesus Christ is not immune to this.

How quickly I replace vital connection with repetition of activities. How easily I adopt a spiritual lifestyle that is more about routine or making me feel religiously good about myself then it is about friendship with Jesus Christ grounded in awe. How rapidly I find myself trying to do the right things out of some kind of need-to-perform or duty rather than receiving the grace and love that causes Holy Spirit transformation of my soul.

No matter how ‘organic’ my church expression seeks to be, it is still only as fresh as the interior fire in my own heart ignited by his just-for-today touch.

Jesus encourages us to remember our first love and I have been trying to read Scripture this way. I did not grow up with Bible stories or church sermons, so I remember what it was like to glimpse revelations of who this Jesus is through His word as His Spirit stirred my heart and made Him real and vibrant to me. He can do that again when I give Him the opportunity and approach His word with a fresh and open spirit.

Jesus also commends us, repeatedly, that it is the ‘sick’ or the ‘poor in spirit’ who find Him. My need for His immeasurable grace is no less today than it was years ago when I first reached out to Him. This deep awareness of inner poverty without Him helps propel me into a thirst that is potent and that seeks out a fresh encounter with God.

A.W. Tozer writes: “God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile.”

May God stir us today to long for, receive, and enjoy all that He is!

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.