Simple Church Journal

One of the transformations that the church is going through is the metamorphosis into a new creation that has the motivation and ability to love with no strings attached.  Our more institutional churches struggle with aspects of this because the business of church requires attenders and givers to keep it all going.  However, we often carry into simple/organic forms of church life a similar performance mentality.

Let’s be honest here, while Jesus said that His followers would be known by His love, this is frequently NOT the case.

While intentionality to share the Good News of Jesus Christ is good, it must never supersede the imperative to love people, genuinely, without the motive of anything coming back to us out of some sense of credit or performance-score.  The latter is not love!

Someone wise said:

Christians are re-discovering that the heart of the Jesus-way-of-life is not church attendance and a smug attitude toward others, rather it is truly embodying the love of Christ—anywhere and everywhere—in a world that is desperately in need of this love.  It is a type of reaching out that is marked by authentic concern for people. (Okay, I wrote this myself in Simple/House Church Revolution).

When Jesus-followers are known by their outbreaks of love towards a world in need, we will again find a fertile environment for making disciples and our gatherings will be filled with vitality and excitement.

Easy to say.  But it does require a transformation of our inner heart that can only happen by His grace and powerful love creating this ability and motivation in each of us.

May this Christmas story (the birth of incarnational love) become a reality in each of us this year.

Comments?

There is nothing like Victor Chouhrie to keep our compasses pointed true-north and to… well… challenge us.  Victor has one of the most fruitful ministries ever with thousands of churches planted and hundreds of thousands of baptisms in India.

You can read all 21 of his steps in a paper entitled “Mega Church to Meta (Beyond) Church.”

Here is just a taste:

• Rewrite the job description of professional clergy from a pulpit orator, sacrament dispenser and tithe gatherer to a shepherd who feeds his flock to be healthy and reproducing by encouraging them to practice priesthood of all believers with authority to baptize, break bread and equip fishers of men…
• Move from meeting in temples to gathering in ‘houses of peace’. ‘God does not dwell in temples made by human hands’; rather He dwells in human hearts…
• Phase out programmed Sunday ‘services’ while implementing informal, small gatherings. The Bride of Christ must have intimacy with her Lord every day, not only for a couple of hours a week, lest she become unfaithful…
• Replace professional music with believers speaking to each other in psalms and spiritual songs, making melody in their hearts to the Lord…
• Shift from spectator-oriented church to ‘metastasizing’ interactive, participatory, prophetic church…
• Infect barren Bride with the multiplication virus. A healthy mature female (Bride) implies that she is ready to have babies…
• Unglue from the pews all those Christians who sit, soak and stagnate and send them to heal the sick, raise the dead, tread on snakes and scorpions (expel demons), bind the ‘strongman’, plunder his possessions and demolish the gates of Hell…
• Empower every Sunday school, bible school, prayer cell, women’s fellowship, and cottage meeting, by calling them full-fledged, authentic churches. They must make disciples who baptize, break bread, equip laborers and send missionaries…
• Filter out selfish-goat church members who come only for hatching (baby baptism), matching (wedding) and dispatching (funeral), and replace them with sheep who take care of the hungry, thirsty, naked, strangers, sick and prisoners….
• Simplify disciple making. Get a Bible and invite a couple of truth-seekers for a meal where the main dish is – The Lamb. Redefine authentic church as wherever two or three friends meet to eat, gossip the gospel, and to multiply…
• Reorient your own personal paradigm. Your business, workplace or home, wherever you spend most of your time, is your ‘primary nuclear church’. It matters little whether you are the CEO, or the janitor or the kitchen queen, you are a full-time minister there and accountable…
• Re-set your priorities to preach Christ where He has not been named. For this you do not have to go to church from Sunday to Sunday nor work from paycheck to paycheck. You are “ordained” to be fruitful, to multiply, and to fill your home/workplace/neighborhood and the city with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea…

I met with a thirty-something couple yesterday who was describing the frustration of reaching out to people their own age who had grown up in church youth groups offering a typical ‘relevant’ Gospel.  While the appealing music and messages drew crowds together, many of those youngsters somehow missed the reality of a lasting intimacy with Christ.  Worse, according to this couple, the youngsters have now grown up, rejected the cultural Christianity they were exposed to, and have the attitude regarding Christianity of “been there, done that.”

Now, let me be fully transparent: my own mantra throughout the eighties and nineties was this very thing: a relevant Gospel in a seeker-sensitive church.  Further, I still believe that the Gospel does, indeed, need to be communicated in a way that can be fully grasped by the culture it is planted in.  Thus Paul’s statement that he became “all things to all people.”

So here’s the question: How do we keep missing ‘the real?’  How is it that we communicate a Gospel that can draw crowds (or not) yet the reality of the power, life, transformation, mystery, awe, and wonder of that Gospel is not caught?

Yes, the Gospel must get out of the walls and into the streets where it can be most potent.  I believe that the church must be committed to this in the way that it walks, talks, and behaves.  Thus my own commitment to simple/organic church life.

But, the Gospel must also be… well… potent.  Because that is its very nature!

Perhaps the obsession with ‘relevancy’ is not so much the problem as the dependency on methods and program rather than complete reliance on the simple power of the Holy Spirit.  And this, then, begs the question of where am I today?  Am I still looking for the model, the program, or the method in my quest to serve God and reach out to others—including organic church models and disciplemaking models—or have I been stripped down to the raw bone of just-plain-ole dependency?

Where are you at?

“The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us.  In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart…

“We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood…

“When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself.  The evil habit of seeking 'God-and' effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation.”

— A.W. Tozer

I was trying to think what I have read, recently, that has been ultra-inspiring on the topic of simple/house/organic church.  Since nothing came immediately to mind…

I decided to ask YOU!

What have you read, whether book or blog post, that has been particularly meaningful, very helpful, paradigm-shifting, or just plain good on this topic?

Share it with the rest of us!

Whether simple-church or mega-church, motivation is an issue. What stirs us?  What grips us?
Craig Kirkby, in his book called “Living on the Edge of Time” suggests that some of the problem with the western church has been our fascination with a “tarry until the rapture” mentality with a fatalistic view of the world and our part in it.

Kirkby says, “I’ve got to remind myself that Jesus did not teach us to pray for God to take us to heaven. He taught us to pray for God to bring heaven to earth through us. We are to pray and then actively participate in bringing the rule and order of heaven to earth.”

This book has many theological challenges, particularly around our understanding of the end times, that are worth a look.  But whatever you believe about all of that, I believe the central message is imperative.

The Gospel is too often reduced to a “salvation from sin” message, when it is, in fact, a “dominion over everything” mandate!

His “altar call,” if you like, was in complete contrast to the evangelistic appeal we often hear today: ‘If you want to go to heaven, invite Jesus into your heart. Just repeat this prayer after me and you will be saved’. (Where the implication is that repeating a formulaic prayer secures eternal “insurance”). This is in stark disparity with the King’s call: an invitation to relationship with a loving Father, whose arms are open wide, and to embrace an entirely new way of living, thinking and breathing as a son and disciple (learner, student, apprentice) of His government Rule – cooperating now with His vision to bring heaven to earth.

Am I captivated and motivated by His vision to bring heaven to earth?  It’s compelling and wondrous when I reflect on it.

Muhammed Yunus (pioneer of micro-finance for the poor), who is not a believer as far as I know, said that his new year’s resolution was to help “create a world without poverty.”  Isn’t his vision closer to God’s kingdom than that of many Christians?  What if we were compelled and motivated by a vision of “creating a world without spiritual or material poverty?”  Isn’t this just a taste of what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to seek His kingdom first, and to live Jesus’ prayer “your kingdom come… on earth as it is in heaven?”  Doesn’t it bring a whole new dimension of the wonder of what it means to partner with God and live out of His presence in a way that transforms the world around us?

I believe the church, the whole church, can benefit from an infusion with the joy and privilege of joining in His vision to bring heaven to earth!

Some may still believe that the “call of God” is for those select few who have a ‘higher’ purpose than others: to be ‘in ministry,’ or to be ‘a pastor,’ or to serve in ‘fulltime Christian service’ as though there is any other way to live for Jesus.

Fortunately, one of the primary messages of God’s movement in simple/organic churches is the truth, and practical outworking, that all are equally called and gifted for the purposes God shaped each for.

However, just because we leave traditional church structures, it does not automatically follow that people will discover and move more deliberately in their calling or destiny.

First of all, calling and destiny in Christ are for the sake of the kingdom.  It’s not enough just to seek personal fulfillment and ‘doing what I’m made to do’ as though that is the end goal.  Yes, God has shaped us uniquely, but those special abilities, personalities, and gifts that we have been given are designed to be used in allegiance to Jesus and his kingdom purposes.  I don’t mean that we use them separate from the world.  No, we are meant to use them in the world and in all places where we live and interact.  But ultimately, as we submit our total self to God, we expect to see our uniqueness used in a way that reveals the Kingdom of God in word and/or deed and ultimately leads to disciples being made—people growing in their ability listen to and follow the voice of Jesus.

Secondly, our calling and destiny is often shaped most clearly by pain and difficulties.  This is something that is often resisted.  While we may follow the vision of another for a season, as we grow into our own uniqueness, a deeper, more personal calling always comes out of the brokenness that we walk through.  Oswald Chambers put it this way:

We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside.  Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us.  And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, “Here am I! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8).

Finally, our calling and destiny does not simply appear as we plough helter-skelter through life.  Rather, it becomes clearest as we find ourselves present to God Himself.  This is one of the benefits of getting our eyes off of ‘the church organization,’ or ‘the church leadership’ and onto Jesus.  As Leanne Payne says:

Saints of all ages have made it their business to be present to God, and out of this has sprung their truest vocation.  They become, therefore, the ones who blaze spiritual trails for others.

Perhaps my deepest cry is that the church, as fragmented and unfocused as it sometimes is, will somehow come forth and give birth to an entire generation of trailblazers who are so present to God and to their true calling/destiny in Him, that their imprint on the world is the unmistakable imprint of Jesus himself.

House2House Ministry is going through a number of great changes including several regional conferences.

Following is the info on the San Francisco Bay Area Conference in October.

Be sure to check out their updated website as well!

House2House in association with The Well is pleased to invite you to attend The Bay Area Momentum Conference to obtain tools, insights and resources to plant an organic church in your own home or community.

At Momentum you'll spend a day and a half learning, practicing, and discussing issues critical to making an impact in the mission field where God has placed you.

• Obtain practical training, tools, techniques, and support for planting and growing your own organic church from leaders in the field with decades of experience.
• Meet your personal organic church coach who will continue to provide insight and support beyond the conference. 
• Interact with other organic church practitioners to discuss challenges, solutions, and new ideas for planting and growing the Body of Christ.

Facilitators include:
•    Felicity Dale (An Army of Ordinary People)
•    Ross Rohde (Viral Jesus)
•    Ken Eastburn (House2House Ministries)
•    Keith Giles (This Is My Body: Ekklesia as God Intended)
•    Linda Bergquest (Church Turned Inside Out)
•    Hermie Smit (City Team)
•    Bill Hoffman (Bay Area Church Planter)
•    Walt and Marci Pelot (Life Exchange Ministries)

 

There are challenges in the organic/simple church movement:

• Believers seeking the latest fad rather than a deeper lifestyle of faith and sacrifice. 
• Churches that are simply smaller versions of institutional ones. 
• People attending house churches to see if this model can meet ‘their needs.’

But there is another side that is sometimes less visible: a growing swell of simple folk who just want to live like salt and light in a broken world.  The same way Jesus did.

These are people who are making friends with no strings attached—just out of love for others.  They genuinely care about the people around them and others are surprised by this brand of ‘Christianity’ that is both compassionate and deeply personal.

These are people who are starting simple gatherings around food, or videos, or a Bible study in their neighborhoods, or in their work place, or local coffee shop.  They are not counting numbers or marking their success by how many meetings they start.  Yet, they are passionate that others encounter Jesus.

These are people who are finding new ways to use their God-given gifts and passions to help others and in the process see Jesus glorified.  They are starting simple ministries, or opening their doors to neighbors, or visiting jails, or preparing for careers where their gifts can be fully invested for the Kingdom within their society, or pioneering non-profits.

These are people who are scheming ways to reach out and touch the deepest needs of their communities without seeking credit for their efforts.

These are people who build authentic relationships that draw others out and that make room for deep connections leading to changed lives.

These are people who are working among some of the less-acceptable people in our society: the mentally ill, the sexually addicted, the repeat offenders.

These are people who are selling their homes and moving to Tanzania because God has spoken to them about a group of people there who are broken and oppressed but who have never heard the name of Jesus.

These are people who are simply learning to live their lives naturally, yet supernaturally, in whatever way God has made him/her, enjoying life while being a genuine God-lover in a world that is becoming more and more love-less.

These are people who will not be writing books or blog posts about what they are doing.  Their ‘results’ may not make the traditional church world stand up and applaud.  In fact, many of their closest Christian friends may not think much of them.

These are people who will never make headlines.  They may never have something that could be labeled a ‘ministry’ or recognized as a ‘movement.’  They are motivated, instead, by the longing to just follow Jesus.

These are people who are seeking to live their lives fully around their love for Jesus and their desire to hear and follow His voice alone.  Their follower-lifestyle invites others to do the same.

These are people who would not think of themselves as revolutionaries.  But they are.  They are part of the quiet, underground swell of simple folk who want to do nothing more than love God and love others—simply, organically, authentically, and purposefully.

I meet these people every day.  This gives me great encouragement that the true revolutionary wave is growing.

Join up!

Comments.

We have someone who would like to head up a team-effort to translate the Simple/House Church Revolution book into Spanish.  If that's your native language and you would be willing to lend a hand, please comment below or reply to this if you receive it by email.

As a sidenote, this book is currently available in French, Polish, Dutch, Romanian, and Hungarian.  If you would like a copy of any of these, let me know.

When we talk about various ways to express ‘church’ we must always keep in mind that external change alone is meaningless if it does not put Jesus back at the center of our life.  But, sometimes, changing externals does give us the opportunity to renew Jesus as the center and focal point and to help us keep Him there—with no additions and nothing else added to the mix.  That is the whole point!

Oswald Chambers says it well:

Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus. “. . . unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).”  (Emphasis added).

Are we still relying on externals as the primary source of our spiritual life?  Listening to the teachings or experiences of others?  Relying primarily on the gatherings we go to for sustaining us?  Looking for our main inspiration from the next book or blog post?

Or are we developing a rhythm in our life that revolves directly around the person, Jesus:

• Encountering Jesus directly, daily
• Listening to His voice
• Opening the broken places of our life to His redemption, power, and healing.
• Going into the world with a sense of His leading and an awareness of His creative ability to bring Kingdom words and deeds uniquely through us.

And, one last question.  How are we doing this?  If it’s not just externals, and not all religious duties, then how do you keep Jesus at the very center of your life?

Your experience?