Simple Church Journal

You, too, can receive expert training on being an usher… for $150… This is for reals. Any takers?

George, at WaterCarriers, has something to say about this (he’s not very excited about it… what’s up, George?)

I have been re-writing my article on Transitioning From Traditional Worship to House Church Worship. I wrote and the re-wrote the article here if anyone would be kind enough to give me some additional input.

Justin Baeder has an interesting post on Worship and the Heart here.

Churches, themselves, are not cool. House churches are not cool. Traditional churches are not cool. Emerging churches are not cool. Mega-churches are not cool. Seeker churches are not cool. Cell group churches are not cool. Churches with buildings are not cool. Churches without buildings are not cool.

We have such a human tendency toward unhealthy self-centeredness that we want to take our human expressions of God’s grace and admire the human aspects of them.

Churches are not cool.

God is cool. God’s redemptive power in the lives of humans is cool. God’s grace expressed in and through humans is cool. God humbling himself to take the form of a human is cool. God giving himself to die because of His desire and love for humans is cool.

Humans responding to God are cool. Humans filled with the grace of God are cool. Humans gathering to worship are cool. Humans going into the world to express Kingdom life are cool. Weak humans filled with the grace of God are cool.

We talk too much about “churches.” Having a “house church blog” can put the focus on the wrong thing. We get too much concerned about how we do church. We get too much wrapped up into our own ideas of a “better” church, or a more “scriptural” church, or a bigger church, or a next-generation church, or a whatever church. Our tendency to want a better church, whether it’s a better building or a better post-modern expression, misses the whole point.

We are the church. How we express the church, or “do” church, or gather, or build, or worship when we gather, doesn’t make it any better. How we be the church, today, ourself, is the only point. How we, as humans, reflect the wonder and grace and beauty of God, and point to Him, and let Him express His glory through our weakness and brokeness, is the point. God’s grace seen is the point. God’s redemptive work displayed through us is the point. God’s Kingdom revealed is the point.

God help us when we think our self-conceived concepts of “church” can cause any of this to take place.

Wherever and however we gather today, may we be on our knees asking God to take our frail, weak, and fully imperfect human lives and gatherings and somehow, by His grace, display His wonder through our brokenness. Let’s do it in cathedrals, and let’s do it in houses, and let’s do it in the streets.

Then, if God’s grace does, in any way, show up and move hearts and touch lives… let’s remember that it has nothing to do with how cool our church or gathering is. Rather, it has everything to do with how cool God is.

Here is an email I received from some folks planting a new house church. Thought it was interesting:

Hello Roger.
I found your website today. It is very interesting. We are going to be moving to work with some friends in a home church. They moved there already with another couple and began a window washing/painting business. It is doing almost enough to support the 2 families. Now with my family moving there we are looking at other simple, easy, and inexpensive companies that are easy to start, and bring me in touch with people in the community. This would be a great topic, and a bunch of help.

Good topic! Ways to support house church families that also put them in touch with people in the community. I love hearing about all the creative ways that people are seeking to expand and express the Kingdom!

Tim Bednar reminds us that church is essentially a “missional community.”

A missional church seeks to incorporate its members into being part of a larger purpose, encouraging them as subversives, giving them tools to engage their culture, teaching them how to bridge and interact with culture, setting a biblical agenda for holy living, fostering spiritual formation, developing spiritual giftedness, encourage social action, and serving in community… It invites outsiders to a journey within a Christian community.

He also reminds us that this kind of community “engages the outside world using relationships, rather than business tools (i.e. marketing, advertising, and entertainment).”

Good stuff. Read the entire article here.

Thank you all for your outpouring of love during this season of my life. It really does matter to hear from you! We really do matter to each other!

There have been so many times, over the years, that I have seen God’s grace work wonders within my children to bring beauty out of ashes. Sometimes this grace has come quickly, other times it has come very, very slowly. But it has always come.

Nevertheless, knowing this does not take the pain away. It still hurts. It still tears the heart and soul. For these hurts, I have learned, I need others. I need you. Words of comfort and empathy and concern and love and care do matter. Not being alone does matter. People reaching out does make a difference. We often feel like we can do so little to help another in pain. And it’s true from the standpoint that we cannot “fix” that pain. But we can stand with another by just caring.

You have done that. Thank you.

Last night I experienced “real” church.

We met in a friend’s living room. I was surrounded by friends. Some I have known for over ten years, others for merely months. All friends. Caring people. Concerned for me.

I needed their care.

My 19-year-old has gone astray in a profoundly self-destructive manner and has even hurt others. I was in pain. I was in grief. I was in mourning. I was in shock. I was broken… and still am.

But I was with a group of friends… who know how to touch God and who know how to love on others.

Last night was my night to need that kind of lovin’.

I got it.

We turned our hearts toward God for awhile… and then two dear friends came over and began to wash my feet. “I wouldn’t normally step out in this way,” one friend said, “but I really believe God wants me to just be His hands caring for you by holding your feet.”

I cried. I wept. I cried. I wept some more. Prayers spoken, words given, all helpful… but mostly I felt deeply and thoroughly loved. I wanted to take that love and somehow give it to my son… but he couldn’t receive it right now… and it was for me. So I did my best to open my heart and receive it. I wept, and God’s people loved me with His love.

That was real church. I will gladly invest my life with a group of people who want to be the church to one another rather than listen to (or give) a thousand awesome sermons where platitudes about brotherly love are given but rarely experienced.

This is not a statement of bitterness… I actually still love to preach. But it’s simply an expression of my incredible gratitude that I get to live life within a community of believers where I am known and loved for who I am. It’s awesome. For me, it’s a necessity of life. Don’t know how else I would hold up. I am profoundly grateful.

Take a look at this article from Parousia Network in Spokane. It’s about a down-and-out neighborhood being transformed by the presence of God’s people bringing Kingdom life right into the neighborhood. Check it out here.

At church last weekend, someone felt impressed to share an image in their mind of feet standing upon a rock– an encouragement that our feet, by faith, our firmly planted on the indestructible Rock– Jesus.
Two day later, my wife saw a card with this image on it:

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John Eldredge, in an interview with Christianity Today, gives a much clearer picture of his views on church and on his own house church in particular. John is the well-known author of Sacred Romance and Journey of Desire and will be the speaker at the national house church conference in Colorado. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

One of Eldredge’s most striking and controversial comments concerns the demands of attending church. “When the deepest treasure becomes our most dutiful burden, it really kills our hearts,” he writes in The Journey of Desire. “You might even need to give up going to church for a while or reading your Bible. I stopped going to church for a year; it was one of the most refreshing years of my life. I hadn’t abandoned God, and I very much sought out the company of my spiritual companions. What I gave up was the performance of having to show up every Sunday morning with my happy face on.”

What prompted Eldredge to take such a radical step? “The biggest clue was that I found myself sitting in the parking lot reading Scripture because I couldn’t find God inside. For me there was absolutely no life in it. It was routine,” he says. He spent the year reading the book of Psalms. “What is described in the Psalms is so much more passionate, so much more honest, and so much more true to human experience.”

Eldredge did not return to the congregation where he felt at such a loss for God’s presence. Instead, he has spent the past few years in a home church of about 20 people, including his colleagues at Ransomed Heart, their spouses, and friends. For a few years the church called itself the Nebuchadnezzar, named after the hovership in The Matrix, says member Aaron McPherson, who came to know Eldredge while studying at Focus on the Family Institute.

“We listen to one another’s stories. We worship together, and we minister to each other in the four streams,” Eldredge says. (In Waking the Dead, he spells out these four streams of ministry—walking with God, receiving God’s intimate counsel, deep restoration, and spiritual warfare.) Church members gather frequently, and not just for worship. They go camping together, celebrate one another’s birthdays, and share holidays such as Thanksgiving.

Eldredge says he wants the church, now called Imago Dei, to multiply into several more small groups that will meet weekly and come together monthly for a larger gathering. Eldredge says he asked his old friend McConnell to lead Imago Dei because its members need to hear teaching from a variety of people.

Some argue that Eldredge’s theology of church is thin, and thus ultimately inadequate. But Eldredge believes this different approach to church is more spiritually demanding than attending a larger church outside Ransomed Heart’s orbit. “It would be so easy to go to a large church right now. You really don’t have to love people there,” he says. “If you really want to know somebody, go camping with them. Our camping trips have really brought out some great awfulness.”

McConnell agrees with Eldredge that the intimacy of Imago Dei is its strength. “So much of what is asked of the church—life, vitality, engagement, bearing one another’s burdens—can only happen, it seems to me, in small groups,” McConnell says. “Living with these people is a whole lot harder than being in a large church, because they see my blemishes and I see theirs.”