Simple Church Journal

As I head off to Africa this week, these words are ringing in my spirit. “Let’s Change Our World.” As I reflect on the needs that are all around me where I live and then the dire needs of those whom I will be with this month who live on so little, I still find myself wondering, “Can I believe that the Jesus-filled life really, truly has the ability to change a world?”

I am concerned that we often lose faith and succumb to a life of survival rather than a life believing that we, as God’s people, are designed to turn our world upside down. I wrote this on my Facebook status as I was reflecting on this:

Read more here on my travel blog.

It was the end of our evening and it had been a rich house church gathering: worship, prayer, Scripture, great conversations, etc.  Often we take a moment and share a “take away” in order to highlight whatever has impacted us most deeply from the evening.

One man (who happens to be my son-in-law) spoke just five words: “Follow Jesus and expect miracles.”

I can’t recall what part of the evening led up to this comment, but the words seared themselves into my mind and heart as soon as he spoke them and they have continued to reverberate with me.
Perhaps it’s because I have been so focused on the following dynamics that I see as important for moving the church from programs to organic movements:

• Every believer becomes a daily follower.
• Every follower becomes a disciple/gatherer.
• Every gathering becomes an apprenticeship for life and mission.

Every believer becomes a daily follower… of Jesus… expecting miracles.  Yes!  That is the heart of our walk.  It is unquestionably and of necessity a supernatural life.  If we are following Jesus… then our walk and life are no longer simply natural events that unfold according to the physical laws of life and science.  Just the opposite, we follow Him by His supernatural grace and step into a life that is a supernatural encounter filled with supernatural experiences.

Follow Jesus and expect miracles.

I have a friend, Michael, who loves to hit the streets on a regular basis and expect miracles as he prays for people facing all kinds of situations and problems—including physical ailments.  Legs grow out, illnesses disappear.  This is good stuff.  You can follow his journey here.  And, I must comment that there is little true progress in the Gospel in so many parts of the world where we work without God’s confirming miracles.  Clearly this is part of what we can expect as followers of Jesus—that signs will follow.

Yet there is also much more to this supernatural life with Jesus.  It is so important to open our awareness to this miraculous existence that we, as followers, get to walk in.

Think about it:

1.    Daily intimacy with Jesus is about His supernatural love invading our hearts, drawing us toward Him, opening our ears to hear Him, and giving us the motivation and ability to love and obey Him.  It’s such a marvelous, miraculous process—a daily faith journey into the joy and wonder of knowing and serving God.

2.    Transformation (healing, sanctification) is available continually.  The Spirit of God is at work in us through a dynamic, supernatural process: we open the parts of our life that are hidden, in darkness, covered over with shame, or broken and find that He frees, heals, and transforms (glory to glory)—a miraculous process that we cooperate with through openness and vulnerability before Him… but marvelously miraculous, nonetheless, from beginning to end.

3.    Redemption and restoration of those parts of our life that have broken.  If we have been followers for longer than five minutes, we have found areas in our lives (marriages, children, relationships, failures) that can only be restored, worked through, and redeemed (good brought forth from it) by God’s supernatural hand.  He does this.  He has done it.  He continues to do it.  Even in the darkest moments (and I have had many) this supernatural process is taking place!

4.    He fulfills His purposes (Kingdom purposes) through us.  He uses our various spiritual gifts and works wonders through us as we step out with Him.  It’s a wonder, really!

5.    He works in and through our vocation, our job, our various callings.  He gives us supernatural ability to create new ideas, new ventures, or new approaches to what we are doing.

This list of the supernatural ways God works as we follow Him could be nearly endless… The point is that I hope to be deeply reminded to follow Jesus AND to expect miracles.  This changes the landscape around me so much so that I barely notice that it takes any effort at all to put one foot in front of the other… because of who I am looking at and because of what is going on around me when my eyes are expecting and seeing miracles.

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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, I long to see a little more of the same in our home context.

I have some thoughts that I plan to share throughout the year as we, as a local family of believers, implement some new ideas in the context of middle America.  Nothing earth shaking.  Nothing that would be characterized as paradigm-busting, but hopefully a synthesis of simple, Biblical, Jesus-following life that produces more of the same: Jesus-following life.

This, in fact, brings us to the first characteristic of what we want to focus on, again, and stay focused on: Every Believer a Daily Follower.

There is no other starting point, no other place to live out the believer’s life other than Jesus’ call: “Come follow me.”

I am tempted to add many great adjectives to the word “Follower:”

• Lovesick Follower
• Listening Follower
• Surrendered Follower
• Intimate Follower

All of these apply and, in the end. I hope we can all re-capture the simple beauty and glory of what it really is to be Jesus’ follower every day.  No, I mean JESUS’ follower.  Really… HIS follower… the Creator of All and Originator of Life and Glory… Follower.

Do you remember when this reality first grabbed you with a life-changing energy?  Jesus.  God of Wonder, pursues you, desires you, loves you with everything within Himself, giving everything of Himself in sacrifice, so that He can call you His own and invite you to do life with Him and to reveal His life within you?

I was a nineteen-year-old, lost and shame-filled bungler who was absolutely captivated by Him.  His reality turned my life inside out—and following Him was the greatest privilege I could imagine.

Glory and wonder.  Wonder and glory.  Joy, even when the following leads through difficult times.

And yet, we have allowed the wonder to dim.  Or MUCH worse, we have replaced the wonder of being a “Follower of Jesus” with religious baggage, attitudes, and behaviors that have turned these words into nothing more than:

• Dutiful serving of a church or leader
• Conforming to the rules of a Christian, religious culture
• Striving to re-shape ourselves to be more like “others” who seem more “spiritual”

My heart for simple/house church expressions of church life was never born out of just another “way to do church” or to find a different place to meet, rather it’s that original longing that is in all Believers to live, 24/7, as Spirit-filled, God-empowered, grace-energized, lovesick, turned-inside-out-for-God people that we really ARE.

Daily Followers.

Every believer a daily follower for reals… Imagine just that transformation alone… what our world would look like.

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 on average 3-20 people – grow with 22 percent annually. This makes simple church planting currently one of the most fruitful missions approaches in Europe."

"SCEU describes three kinds of simple church networks:

• (a) Apostolic networks: simple church groups started by an apostolic worker 'straight in the harvest', mostly along the lines of the instructions Jesus gave his disciples in Luke 10 (planting a new simple church group in a household/social circle instead of inviting people to an existing church meeting). These networks are primarily made up of new believers who just heard about Jesus, are being discipled, and win others to plant new groups.
• (b) Bridge networks: simple church groups made up of existing Christians who intentionally seek to be 'missional'. They try to build relationships with non-believers, often using conventional forms of evangelism and a 'come to us' approach.
• (c) Christian networks: simple church groups formed by existing Christians who mainly seek a more relational and participatory alternative for conventional church. These groups tend to be inward-focused and sometimes reactionary: seeing their way of church as more biblical and healthy than the churches they come from."

"Recommendations… Actively learn from the 'Apostolic networks' that form the vanguard of the simple church movement. These networks are at least 4 times more effective than the other simple church networks in reaching non-Christians. What can we learn from them about discipleship, missions, contextualisation, training leaders and multiplication?"

The full report is here.

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 reflecting on what I wanted to put into my bag I thought, “I want to put a living room in my bag because I am so grateful for the living church experiences I have had, that I continue to have, and that others have all over the world in living rooms! (Since I couldn’t fit a living room in my paper bag, I ended up putting a coffee cup in to represent the community experience of life in a living room).

So, this has me thinking about living rooms.  Even the name: “living” room. Very cool.  Sure, it’s about a place where people can physically “live” together, but isn’t it amazing what happens in these living rooms all over the world as these normal spaces are being reclaimed as centers of worship and spiritual, community life.  They are, quite literally, fulfilling their purpose as a room where “life, real life” happens.

Think about what happens in “living” rooms that have become central gathering places for the Body of Christ:

• Worship of the King of Kings
• Intercessory prayer for friends, neighbors, and nations
• The Presence of Jesus enjoyed
• The living ministry of Jesus present as ministry takes place one to another
• Authentic, one-another, family-community expressed
• Much more (this list can easily be doubled and tripled)

But here is what really got me excited!  Think about all of the “living rooms” all over the world.  Now, granted, many living rooms are very small.  Some are covered with thatched roofs.  In fact, some “living rooms” are literally outdoor areas under a tree.  But, these are still the place where living people live together and gather together.  

So think about all of these living rooms and the potential for each and every one to be a gathering place for the presence of Jesus!  What potential!  What an amazing, simple vision!  Every living room a gathering place for the Body of Christ!  Every living room a display of the family of Jesus!  Every living room a place of worship and prayer!  Every living room a focal point from which “life” is pouring out into the community surrounding it.

I am definitely celebrating living rooms!  Me-thinks God has had a vision for living rooms from the beginning of time!

Note on Thanksgiving Paper Bags: So here is how we did this.  Everyone brought a paper bag with three objects in it representing three things that they are thankful for.  Important rule: You cannot include God or your family as things to be thankful for.  This is not to negate that we are all thankful for God and our family, but—that’s just the point—we are ALL thankful for God and our family so that would take up two or three objects already.  So, move past those and come up with three other things to be thankful for, then put objects in your bag that represent those three things.  When we gathered, one person chose a bag (not their own) to open.  The idea, then, is to try to guess whose bag it is based on what’s in the bag.  The person who opens the bag tries to guess the owner of the bag.  If he is not successful, others in the room can chime in until the owner is identified.  Then the owner of that bag explains his/her three objects, what they represent and why they are thankful for that.  Finally, that person picks up the next bag and the process continues.  Very fun and very meaningful.  We have used this with family on Thanksgiving Day as well.

 

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 American Protestants now attend only house church. This is an estimated 6-12 million people."

Read the rest here.

Click here to view the video of this report (if you received this by email.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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, listen to teachers who are gifted at bringing it to life, strategize how to make it relevant and meaningful to others, contemporize it, write books on how to live it, and expound on it some more.

My friend, Kevin Sutter of YWAM’s Church Planting Coaches, has a gift of keeping it simple.  He recently wrote:

It seems our instructions are pretty simple.

In Matthew 10:7 (New Living Translation), Jesus says:

“Go and announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

Is this to be our message?

Is this to be the theme of all the stories we tell?

Is it as simple as the King and His Kingdom constantly reinforced in word and demonstrated in action?

Is there any part of our life or its needs that are not abundantly met by the simple reality of the King and his Kingdom in our life and the meaning that comes from joining with him in sharing that Kingdom in word and action?

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 and how we live this out together in a way which will impact the communities around us. Some are involved in 'transitioning' more traditional/inherited models of Church to incorporate a more missional/organic vision. Others are 'pioneering' new forms of Church amongst their family, friends and communities.

You can read more about their efforts at their website: http://www.simplechurch.co.uk/.

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 becomes a distraction to real spiritual life. It offers an illusion of spirituality in highly orchestrated experiences, but it cannot show people how to live each day in him through the real struggles of life.”

Sarah's response:

I could not agree more with this! The saddest thing I have seen at our [previous institutional] church is people who have come (through some relationship, or however) with a genuine hunger for God—to draw near to God—and instead of them being drawn into a family, walked along side of, and discipled into the ways of Jesus, learning what it looks like to live out the ways of Jesus in real life, studying the Bible on their own, they end up becoming great church-goers. This is a tragedy!

I believe there is something in those services that sparks their hearts (hearing the word of God preached, singing songs that praise Jesus), and yet they are told (or its modeled) that by signing up for a 'ministry' of the church (i.e. children's ministry, coffee ministry, greeting etc.) they are fulfilling the duties of a good Christian and therefore should be experiencing all that there is to a life with Jesus. They become so busy with the operational duties of the institutional church, they either are guilted into prioritizing these meetings and putting committees above family or they stop altogether because they want to protect their family free time. Either way, (at least in my experience) I've seen so many of them leave disillusioned with 'church'…

Even last night as we all did share our 'life stories/testimonies' Jeremiah and I were heartbroken to hear most of them all just share how they've become a part of church… Nearly none of them actually shared the person they were before Christ changed them—a crisis, brokenness, or vulnerable place where they saw their need –and then any fruit or change of the new person they have become in Christ.

I believe there has been such an emphasis on learning/knowledge in our churches… and not enough emphasis on daily repentance and obedience (in dependence on the Spirit). Because so many people 'add Jesus' to their life in the form of church activities, they are missing out on the adventure of following Jesus practically and radically. (Do any of you see this trick of the enemy in your churches? People being converted to 'churchianity' ??)

Our prayer for our group of people is that they would begin to discover the wonder, excitement and simplicity of walking with Jesus. I desire that as we gather we would each share what the Lord has been doing in our own lives as we take steps of faith and boldness to love others radically, share as the Spirit prompts us, and learn how to OBEY rather than just gain KNOWLEDGE.

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 to the planting of a lot of churches. To further facilitate multiplication, an apostolic team of twelve people regularly comes together to hear from God, encourage each other and strategize to plant new churches in the nation. Read on to learn more."

More Here.