Simple Church Journal

'Missional' and 'missional communities' are the buzzwords these days, and I am deeply appreciative of that. But let's not forget that the flip side of the same coin is the community of believers: learning to love and care for one another, providing a place of safety and healing, speaking into one another's lives in word and action. This is also at the core of a vibrant, impactful, outward-facing community.

I am re-quoting here a post I wrote several years ago entitled What Does 'Community' Mean?

Community is almost a ruined word. I refuse to give up on it though. Just because its been misused, battered, and tattered does not mean it can't be useful. But it needs some definition.

Community means availability. It means time spent together. Real time. Time for conversation, interaction, and a deepening of communion, of intimacy between 2 or more people. Community is never general or generic. It is always specific and definable by people spending time together. Now, time spent together does not guarantee community. There has to be a certain quality to the time spent together. Time doesn't guarantee it but it is a pre-requisite.

 

Community means vulnerability. If we aren't willing to open up our lives to others we will never experience true community. This is why mutual confession builds community. We come to the table with our strengths and our weaknesses and we lay ourselves bare, exposed to the scrutiny and more importantly the love, acceptance and forgiveness of others. This doesn't happen overnight nor should it. It needs to be a progressive deepening. People who lay themselves bare at a first encounter scare me. There is something unhealthy in over-exposure especially as a first approach. These things take time and discernment to know how much to share and when. Mistakes will made. Over-hiding and over-exposure will happen. There can be no set rule for such things. But if we expect to gain community and constantly flee vulnerability we will never have it.

 

Community means a shared life. This ties back in to availability but goes beyond it. Our life in one regard is made up of time. So if we want a shared life we must spend time together. Resources also need to be shared. Basically our checkbooks and our schedules can be a good gauge of community.

 

Community means stability. Benedict was a genius to introduce a vow of stability into his Rule. If we want to experience community we need to be rooted somewhere among some people. If we constantly move on in search of greener pastures we will not be around long enough to grow the roots necessary for community. Community can not happen on the fly.

(Originally posted in 2005, but perfectly relevant today)

The Christian world, the entire Christian world, is permeated with a religious spirit.  It's in me, in others, in traditional churches, in house churches.  It is such a pervasive dysfunction that it's no wonder Jesus addressed it so forcefully.

The religious spirit is not just "them," it's also "us."  We think, oh so subtly, that we are somehow better than "them."  We look at externals of some kind: how we worship, how we do liturgy or don't do liturgy, how we view Scripture, our pet theological perspectives and we hold tightly to these things because on some level we believe them to be "right."  We lose our humility and our "rightness" becomes a judgment of others.  We are better than them.  We "do it" more correctly.  And there it is–a religious spirit.

We take on a religious spirit when we get focused on the way to live the Christian life rather than the Person that we live the Christian life with.  We turn relationship with God into rules.  A relationship is an ongoing, everyday, living thing.  When we are not living out of that living relationship, we begin to retreat into the rules of Christian living as a substitute.  We do, after all, know the "right" way to live.  It doesn't take long before we are judging others because they are not living the "right" way like we are.  We quickly lose sight of the fact that the reason we are in this place of judging others is because we ourselves are unsettled.  We have lost our peace because we are no longer fully embracing the Person.  We try to repair our sense of unrest by setting up the rules, the structure, in order to live right and thus feel right.  We project that onto others.  We quickly become the pharisees who encourage others to live for God based on the letter of the law and in so doing we lead people away from vibrant relationship with God.

We take on a religious spirit when our theology becomes more important than the Person behind our belief systems.  We believe we know the truth; we often believe we know MOST of the truth even though Scripture affirms that we "see through a glass darkly."  Yet we base much of our personal security on knowing "the truth" and we leave little room for humility, for paradoxical theological positions, and for learning deeper truths.  Because our "truth" makes us feel secure, we judge the theological positions of others as being "less than."  We become the scribes and we miss the heart of the One from whom all truth flows.

We take on a religious spirit when we believe we are part of a "movement" of God that others have not yet experienced but "should."  Perhaps what we are involved in is NOT what God is calling someone else to be involved in.  Yet we take whatever God has done for us and judge others by whether or not God has done it for them or in them or to them.

We take on a religious spirit when we have been hurt or disappointed by other Christians.  Rather than heal, forgive, let go, set boundaries and move on, we become bitter.  We find reason to judge them and their "hypocritical" brand of Christianity.  We hold up a standard of "righteousness" that we judge others by (because we have been hurt).  We become standard-bearers of righteousness seeking to hold people accountable to what's "right."  In the process we become the legalists.  We forget that we are all just humans deeply in need of the washing of the blood of Jesus Christ and His eternal mercy.

We take on a religious spirit when we fail to recognize God in each and every person that He has created and redeemed.  When we believe that we have something to teach others but fail to see what they have to teach us.  When we take something from our spiritual life or experience and imagine that we are, in some way, better than those who do not share exactly what we are "into."

A religious spirit robs us of our real spirituality.  We do not live out of the vitality of union with Christ, we live out of the push,the guilt, and the shoulds of duty.  We live out of a subtle pride; we lose the joy of first love.  We may feel good about "being good," but we lack the passion of a lover's life.

Worse, we pass on this spirit into others.  We model a Christianity that lacks the zest and peace that comes from relationship.  We exemplify a dour, sober, lifeless Christianity.  We sometimes even heap the guilt and shoulds on others and, in doing this, keep them from finding the joy of the Person.  We take the religious burdens that we have put on ourselves, and we wrap them around others in a way that stifles their openness to a God of relational, creative, beautiful love.  No wonder Jesus said, woe unto you!

So, I say, woe unto me.  Woe unto us all.  To repent and break free of religion in order to experience the power of relationship with Creator-God… isn't that the call of the hour?

I have noticed a similar morphing taking place within some organic/simple church participants as well as some traditional church participants. The movement seems to be toward disciple making and missional communities as the core shape of the church.

Some might suggest, myself included, that the simple/organic church emphasis has helped pave the way for this. But the point is that, regardless of the impetus, the movement in this direction is positive.

Here are some voices, from a variety of backgrounds, which echo the focus on disciple making and missional communities as primary:

Jay Pathak, Vineyard Churches, talks about being missional in your locality:

It’s hard to be the church where you live, when you go to church where you don’t.

And we say all the time that church is supposed to be a people that are about what God is doing. And so churches aren’t buildings, they’re people, we’re the body of Christ, we’re the family of God…

So we’ve been trying to figure out, and push people towards, being the church where they live.  Building Small Groups, engaging their neighbours, taking where their kids go to school very seriously, parents.  Any issues or problems that are unique to their neighbourhoods – believing that we will be a part of a redemptive history of a city, if the church is the church where they live.”

Jordan Elder talks about the importance of missional communities which he defines this way: “a missional community is a family of servant missionaries committed to growing as disciples and making new disciples in all of life."

Simply put, the process of crafting a unique MC vision is about pursuing God together with your missional community, asking him to show you how he wants to work in you and through you during this time and place.

• We do this because we believe God is working in this time and place. This is what we call Ancient Work. He is at work around us, accomplishing his purposes, using his people. It is our job to have eyes to see, ears to hear, and lives that are available to be used.
• We do this because we believe that evangelism and discipleship best happen in community. Disciples cannot be mass produced. Disciples of Jesus are made life on life, life in community, and life on mission.
• We do this because we believe that God speaks to us. He speaks to us about his work in the here and now. He speaks to us directly as we seek him in prayer, and he speaks to us through one another as we discuss and discern.

Mike Breen calls for the ‘American Church Revolution’ with these markers:

• They are totally committed to making disciples, rather than just gathering believers.
• They are defined by Mission to the world, rather than Ministry to Christians.
• The wider Church community is comprised of a series of interdependent, smaller Missional Communities or, “Families on Mission.”
• They are diligently deconstructing the expectations and aspirations of spiritual feudalism: everyone is the spiritual equal of everyone else.

There is significant common ground in the voices calling the church to recognize missional communities, incarnational ministry, and apprentice-like disciple making as fundamental DNA of the living church. The future of an impactful church is being shaped by these voices.

Jesus

Jesus

Jesus

Make disciples who are followers of … Jesus.

Not followers of doctrines, opinions, or church visions.

Not reciters of creeds or religious points of view.

But followers of the One.

Followers who follow because they know Him. They have tasted, touched, and encountered Him and now they want to continue to develop that closeness, intimacy, and relationship with Him. They know no greater joy.

They are not turned into members of denominations, attenders of services, or clones of the latest way to do Christianity or church.

They remain His and they pursue Him and they follow Him and obey Him out of a loyalty and passion that comes from deeply knowing Him.

They learn His voice because they love Him.

They lay down their own, personal agenda because they value Him.

They take up His vision to see the restoration of His Kingdom come to all people because they experience His everyday encounters that restore and free their own soul and they are driven to see this love transform others.

They know Him, they have found life, and they continue to find life through Him.

And because they know Him, they love Him.

And because they love Him, they follow Him…

Jesus

Thanks to Guy Muse’s blog, I was reminded of Reggie McNeal’s book “The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church.” Although this book is over ten years old, it still addresses key issues that the church, if we are willing to be honest about who/what we are meant to be, must continue to face head on.

1. The collapse of the church culture.

• Wrong question: How do we do church better?
• Tough question: How do we deconvert from Churchianity to Christianity?

2. The shift from church growth to kingdom growth.

• Wrong question: How do we grow this church?
• Tough question: How do we transform our community?

3. A new reformation: Releasing God's people.

• Wrong question: How do we turn members into ministers?
• Tough question: How do we turn members into missionaries?

4. The return to spiritual formation.

• Wrong question: How do we develop church members?
• Tough question: How do we develop followers of Jesus?

5. The shift from planning to preparation.

• Wrong question: How do we plan for the future?
• Tough question: How do we prepare for the future?

6. The rise of apostolic leadership.

• Wrong question: How do we develop leaders for church work?
• Tough question: How do we develop leaders for the Christian movement?

I am particularly struck with #4 and the way we have churned out ‘members’ en masse over the past thirty years rather than active, passionate, intentional, risk-taking followers of Jesus. The church has paid the price! We have too often become comfortable rather than comforters, guardians of doctrines and traditions rather than advancers of the Kingdom, externally religious rather than internally passionate, and generally sleepy rather than alive in Presence and Spirit.

McNeal’s challenges are still relevant and will, hopefully, continue to propel us toward the center of God’s purposes for His bride on earth.

My friend shared his experience with simple/organic church and discipleship in the context of authentic community life. There is nothing like real-life examples to draw from:

"What does a "living" gathering look like verses a sterile "man-made" gathering look like?" I'm not sure there is a standard "look" to this. It's more of a lifestyle lived in community with others.

The way it looks for me/us currently (the Lord may change this) is this: The Lord, through business and a few other avenues, grew relationships with me and a few other men who share the same desires to make disciples and BE the church. We began just getting together when we could, over coffee, lunch, at each other's office, etc. to discuss what we see God doing in and around us which led us to pray specifically for others. As we began this, He has led us to other "men of peace" so to speak.

Just because of our desire to spend time together, our families now gather at least once a week, sometimes more, to break bread, fellowship, share struggles, victories, a passage that the Lord may be highlighting in our life, etc. This "gathering" has just naturally come together with likeminded believers.

As we leave from this time together, we are all encouraged/spurred on to go and make disciples, share Christ, and serve those in need throughout the following days each week.

As we go, we are in constant communication with one another. The ladies are talking with one another through the week and the men are talking through the week.

The heart of our group is for each individual family within the group to open our homes each week to unbelievers (or believers that need to be discipled). Then as we build relationships with them, at some point, as the Lord leads, we may invite them into the fellowship of the larger group. We don't do this immediately because we don't want to "invite them to us" as we did in institutional church. Only as we see that they are desiring the community that we have within our group do we bring them into the "church." I think we see this in scripture. As we share the gospel and as the Spirit brings to life a new believer, then they are brought into the fellowship. This is just how things look for us… — Clint

One of the marks I have personally seen of rapid disciple making movements is that new believers are empowered early to do the work of ministry.

Simple church is less about gatherings and more about developing disciples who make other disciples which I write about here.

Part of that process is that we see disciples released early to active ministry and touching the lives of others.

Richard Rohr offers this confession which I have to admit to being guilty of:

After trying to teach the Gospel for over forty years, trying to build communities, and attempting to raise up elders and leaders, I am convinced that one of my major failures was that I did not ask more of people from the very beginning. If they did not turn outward early, they tended never to turn outward, and their dominant concern became personal self-development, spiritual consumerism, church as “more attendance” at things, or to use the common phrase used among Christians “deepening my relationship with Jesus” (most of which demands little accountability for what you say that relationship is).

Jesus’ disciples learned while doing. He discipled them on-the-job using the age-old practice represented by the diagram: I do you watch, I do you help, You do I help, You do I watch. Disciples were apprenticed from the start rather than classroom educated and held back until they ‘knew enough.’

By engaging and employing disciples early on, we can begin to see a whole new generation of outward-facing, disciple-reproducing, world-impacting followers. And such empowered and released disciples are at the core of an unleashed and relevant church.

It's always interesting to see the press covering expressions of house church.

This article is called "House Churches Swap Steeples For Sofas, And Say They've Never Been Closer."

With new church construction at its lowest point since 1967, and with more religiously unaffiliated Americans than ever before, many congregations say they've become more committed communities by losing the pews and stained-glass windows of a central building.

During their new church's meetings, anyone can call out a song suggestion or read a Bible verse. Instead of a sermon, everyone just talks about what's been weighing on them that week. This group says that the only guidance they need to run a church can be found in the New Testament.

Full article here.

We used to have a term for mission organizations that worked outside of the traditional church. We called them ‘para-church’ organizations as if they were not quite the substance of church but, instead, ministries that came alongside the ‘real’ church.

Over the years, most of us have realized that those ministries which we called ‘para-church’ were often more ‘church’ than what we traditionally called ‘church.’ In other words, the efforts made to take the Kingdom of God to people in the world through rescue missions, homeless shelters, and inner city ministries is a wonderful shape of the apostolic church.

God has blurred the lines in our definition of church to help us innovate, re-focus, and discover the essential elements of a church that looks more like Jesus-in-the-world would look. As a result, we now use many terms to describe the living church: simple church, organic church, missional church, where-two-or-three gather. The point is that this blurring and, perhaps, refocusing on the true nature of church is giving rise to many innovative expressions.

Spencer Burke, as an example, is experimenting with an incubator to help people shape ‘common cause communities.’

We’re blurring the line between ministries and churches. We are at the forefront of the transition from "teaching-centric" to "service-centric" church planting.

It is an exciting time as God continues to re-shape His church to look more like Himself in a world that needs Him more than ever.

I see many people get tripped up because they do not understand this basic premise: keep the principles, change the method if necessary.

Principles are the foundational concepts that you believe are Biblical. They remain the bedrock of all that you are doing. They do not generally change.

Methods, on the other hand, are the ways and how-to’s that you use to implement those principles. There can be many different methods that support the basic principle (examples below). Methods may change. You may try one and decide it’s not working for you in your context. You don’t need to abandon the underlying principle, but you are always free to change, adapt, or find a new method to use that works better for you.

This is so important because often people adopt a method as the new “key” to church life. They find a method from someone, adopt it, and when it does not work according to their expectations, they then abandon the entire principle and feel let down that it ‘didn’t work.’

Keep the principle, but find a new or different way to implement it (method).

Example 1:

Principle: Everyone participates when the church gathers together (priesthood of all believers and ‘each one brings’ as in 1 Corinthians 14:26).

Method 1: No formal gatherings. Gathering with believers and unbelievers happens informally and sharing takes place through conversation and relationship.

Method 2: Meet with others at a regular time and place and everyone waits on the Holy Spirit together and seeks to simply follow what He puts on their heart to do and say.

Method 3: Meet with others at a regular time and facilitate times of worship, word, breaking of bread, etc, in which everyone has the opportunity to participate (more structure then method 2).

Method 4: Work toward formal small discipleship groups of 3-4, larger gatherings of 12-15, and network gatherings all of which are facilitated to provide participation at every level. (More structure still).

Method 5: Adapt, add to, change, modify, or combine any of the methods already mentioned or design some new methods.

The point is that the principle is sound, but we may find different ways to implement that principle depending on our own gifting, calling, and context. The key is: don’t give up on the principle if you have not yet found a method that suits you!

Example 2:

Principle: The church, at its core, is a going church. (Go into all the world. As the Father has sent me, I send you.)

Method 1: As you live life daily, look for where God is working and build relationships.

Method 2: Go to a particular area or neighborhood and begin prayer walking with a friend. Seek opportunities to pray for people and discover a person of peace in that area.

Method 3: Find a need in your community or somewhere in the world and begin to serve people. Build relationships and begin making disciples from those relationships.

Method 4: Draw together a group of believers who will join together, as a missional community, within a specific neighborhood or area or cause to work together to bless/serve others and reach them.

Method 5: Many other possibilities!!!!

The point is that the principle is sound, but we may find different ways to implement that principle depending on our own gifting, calling, and context. The key is: don’t give up on the principle if you have not yet found a method that suits you!

Example 3:

Principle: Make disciples! (Go and make disciples…)

Note: Each of the following methods assume that you have already reached out to some people through serving, relationship-building, and/or sharing and they are responding with a desire to know Christ.

Method 1: Disciple only through the informal process of relationship. Let the relationship and the leading of the Holy Spirit define all conversations and sharing.

Method 2: Use a curriculum (there are many to use) to disciple the person and equip that person to be able to do the same with others.

Method 3: Life Transformation Group.

Method 4: Discovery Bible Study.

Method 5: Any combination of methods 1-4 as well as many other options that are available or that can be designed.

The point is that the principle is sound, but we may find different ways to implement that principle depending on our own gifting, calling, and context. The key is: don’t give up on the principle if you have not yet found a method that suits you!

Many people agree on some of the basic principles behind simple/organic church life:

• Church is people who live the 24/7 lifestyle of following Jesus
• Loving God and listening to Him is where life comes from
• Loving others comes out of that life-with-God
• As the church walks in love for God and others, it becomes missional, ie, caring for the world and the lost
• Disciples are made life-on-life
• Gatherings are participatory, Spirit-led, where everyone’s gift matters and can take place anywhere and any time
• Serving and empowering others is the core of leadership

But, the models and methods that these principles give rise to will vary greatly!

If you are convinced of certain principles based soundly on God’s word, keep them! Build your life on them! And don’t give up on them when your method does not work as expected.  Adopt and keep the principle. Adapt and change methods when needed.

This is how new wineskins are shaped!