Five Rocks, Byfield 

An Age of Religious Complexity – AW Tozer

Came across this great quote from AW Tozer, from The Pursuit of God, written somewhere in the 1950/60s. What would Tozer say today?

"Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. 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. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of Christ scarcely at all."

THE CHURCH AT MATTHEW’S HOUSE

This is a good story on home church that I read on my Radio NAG show recently. It’s both encouraging and thought provoking. The website is worth a visit. The pictures themselves tell a story.

THE CHURCH AT MATTHEW’S HOUSE by Jason Evans www.matthewshouse.com

I was tired of the church, as I knew it. It was an event, a building, a program…I wanted to be the church; I wanted my “un-churched” friends to be the church, not become churched. I wanted it to be something I lived, rather than something I lived for. I heard of crazy people that met together, ate meals, shared their resources and studied the Scriptures together... in homes and coffee shops of all places! It couldn’t be that simple! You were supposed to bring the sofas, the coffee (and the candles if you’re real serious) into the sanctuary, but not use them in their common setting! That was ludicrous! It was two years ago that I thought that. Now, I’m one of those crazy people…

My wife and I along with several other couples had a burden, I’m not so sure it was a “vision” but it was definitely a burden. We were certain that the church was simpler than what we had known it to be. We wanted to be a part of something that encouraged spiritual things to evolve in a natural way. We wanted to go where God was rather than build a place for him to reside. We had a desire to invite people into an experience that was informal, yet intentional like the story of Levi throwing a party at his house with Jesus. Not long after that we found ourselves becoming the church to each other. It was a house church I suppose, but we weren’t quite sure what to call it.

On a usual Thursday night, we would meet at about 6:30 p.m., eating dinner together, talking about our weeks, sharing high points and low points and getting introduced to a couple of new people that might have just stopped by. At one point, one evening, towards the end of dinner one of the new girls opened up a little. She said that she couldn't believe how welcome she felt. She had always been so "turned off" to religion and had become very skeptical. But she felt more comfortable and loved than she felt normally with her closest friends. This night was already the high point of her week and dinner wasn't even over yet!

And then one night it happened

After dinner, all of us crammed into the family room to carry the conversations further. At the end of a time of reflection, people decided to wrap things up in prayer. And then it happened... without any explanation, no instruction, nor a request, this new girl said, "I don't know you God, but all I know is that I want more of you. I need you to be part of my life, like these people. Jesus, please, I want to know you..." As people kept praying there was this rush of wonder and amazement as those Christians in the room began to realize that one more had come into the Kingdom. To think, this girl hadn't been given a Gospel message, she wasn't told how to become a Christian... she just knew. This was a totally un-evangelical salvation!

We had committed ourselves to no longer putting on a show and just lift God up in our lives. Through that the Holy Spirit got all the credit; we did nothing. He drew someone to the Savior without us tripping things up along the way. Many more young adults were coming and things began to quickly get tight around the dinner table and in the family room. We soon started another church to relieve some of the size limitations in the first group. We didn’t know what to do next; all we knew was that God was up to something.

PUNK CHURCH

Not long after that my wife and I began opening up our home to the many young people involved in the local punk/hardcore scene and started a church there. The night began with dinner together and then each shared a few chapters of our personal stories. As we talked the conversation moved into what each expected of a group like this. What blew me away was that each of them was saying the same thing. Learning to love God and other people in an authentic way was what each of them wanted.

By the end of the night, this group of young people was bonded together on a journey to learn what it meant to really love God, love their friends, and provide a safe haven for them to come, hang out, and talk about life. They decided that we would come together every week to do this for each other and anyone else who came through the door.

Less then 6 months after that church was born two young men within that group have been called to shepherd that church. Less then a week after we talked with those two young men, all of us were sitting in our house, sharing life together, and the Spirit laid it on my heart to challenge another young person to begin a house church. Once again, we will help him lay the foundation and empower him to guide a church. A few days later, at a concert, some of us were talking to some old friends that live in the next county to the east and they are catching the vision. We now have the opportunity to help them start a movement of simple churches planted by normal people.

SIMPLE CHURCHES COME TOGETHER

Monthly, we have gatherings where all of these simple churches come together to share and celebrate God's work. I had the opportunity to speak with a housewife that is incredibly excited about the church meeting in her home. To my amazement she told me that the group is getting ready to bust at the seams. Therefore, she felt God must have been getting ready to call some of them to go and start some new churches where there will be more room for more people!

I sat with a friend to think about these various situations and we could see up to 10 churches being born out of the hearts of people committed to loving others and Jesus in a simpler, honest manner. I don't think I've ever seen a multiplication process happen like this before.

The question many are asking is, "is it really that simple?" In fact, I think it is. Welders, daycare supervisors, housewives, electricians, waitresses and others are gifted to care and guide small, simple churches in there homes, apartments, coffee shops, tattoo parlors, bars and diners across the country. They won't separate the saints from the seekers. They will blur the lines between what we deem secular and what we raise up as sacred. They are gifted to express their creativity in new, unexpected ways and mediums, but not in the walls of our homes and church buildings but out there, in the real world. They are prone to make us uncomfortable and question our methods, which is exactly what Jesus did. They are gifted to teach us through rabbinical-like conversation, rather than monotone dissertations. They are gifted to help us become selfless Christ-followers, rather than selfish commercial-guzzlers. And most importantly they are gifted to take the church into realms us “clergy-types" never could. Who could ask for more?

Can we humble ourselves to set aside the complicated organizations for a simpler organism? Can we humble ourselves to take our gifts, talents and abilities to serve this movement? I believe that it will allow people to come to Christ, flourish in their giftedness and be a part of revolution across our country that we never expected!

So... who’s in?

THE CLASSES OF JOHN WESLEY

THE CLASSES OF JOHN WESLEY
(Excerpt from an article by Maurice Smith www.parousianetwork.com)


Jesus never concerned Himself with large numbers of converts. In fact, as best we can tell, he never concerned Himself with more than twelve. Why? First, because knew how fickle the easily-led masses could be. He knew that the same masses who would hail Him with loud Hosannas on Palm Sunday would trade Him for a murderer and cry out "Crucify Him. We have no king but Caesar" only one week later. That's fickle. Second, Jesus knew that the day would eventually come when the Holy Spirit, working through even one of those twelve disciples, could sweep thousands into the Kingdom of God on a single day. But that day, He knew, would never come if He did not pour Himself into 12 illiterate fishermen, zealots, tax collectors and peasants, and if He did not prepare them to be clothed with power from on high.

It is ironic, but it should not surprise us, that whenever the Church has focused upon the masses we have eventually lost them. The history of the Church in America and its traditional love of crusades and mass meetings should be proof enough of that. But we press ahead with mass meetings in the firm but failed belief that "big is better."

The wisdom of Jesus’ model of 12 has been demonstrated in church history during times of revival. John Wesley’s ministry of evangelistic preaching coincided with another great outpouring of the River of God’s Spirit in the 1700s. His preaching ministry was so successful that in the year 1743 alone one thousand new members were added to his London Society. This kind of rapid growth presented a problem for personal pastoral care and supervision. How were so many "awakened" seekers to be supervised and encouraged and false professors weeded out? Wesley was adamant regarding the necessity of constant, personal pastoral care (i.e., discipleship). "How grievously are they mistaken who imagine that as soon as the children are born they need take no more care of them," he wrote. But how could he personally minister to so many?

The answer began in Bristol where Wesley's Society had grown to 1,100 people. A society member by the name of Foy suggested that one person call on eleven others during the week to inquire of their status. The Bristol Society was quickly transformed, "In a while, some [class leaders] informed me that they found such and such a one did not live as he ought. It struck me immediately, 'This is one thing, the very thing we have wanted so long.'" These weekly visitations soon became weekly class meetings, "This was the origin of our classes at London," he wrote, "for which I can never sufficiently praise God, the unspeakable usefulness of the institution having ever since been more and more manifest." Soon, every Methodist Society was broken into smaller Classes of 12 persons who met weekly with a Class Leader for pastoral care, examination, encouragement and exhortation. According to Wesley, "Many now happily experienced that Christian fellowship of which they had not so much as an idea before. They began to 'bear one another's burdens,' and naturally to 'care for each other.' As they had daily a more intimate acquaintance with, so they had a more endeared affection for, each other."

The "Class," consisting of 12 people pursuing the discipline of Christian godliness, became the centerpiece of Methodism for the next 100 years, until the mid-1800s. It was in the Class that the "awakened" were discipled, examined and instructed, and where they shared mutual fellowship and learned to bear one another's burdens. It was in the Class that the "Rules" (those standards of behavior expected of every Methodist) were read and where individuals were examined to see if they were sincere in their desire to live according to Methodist discipline. Eventual membership in the greater Methodist Society was contingent upon a probationary period in the Class. People whose lives appeared to genuinely mirror their profession would be recommended for full membership. Those who continued in their old ways and demonstrated no willingness to change their walk would eventually be excluded from the weekly Class and the quarterly Love Feast.

Take note: The River of God’s Spirit is about to flow in unprecedented power and blessing. But are we prepared to receive it? In his book, The Second Coming of the Church, Dr. George Barna argues that the Church today is completely unprepared to handle the anticipated fruit of revival. Where are the classes and small groups needed to absorb, encourage and equip these new converts? According to Dr. Barna's research a majority of the people who make a decision for Christ in one of our evangelical churches are not to be found in any church context within eight weeks of making that decision. Our current church infrastructure is not adequate to handle the results of "normal" activity, much less the overwhelming stress that comes during times of revival, or from times of crisis and upheaval. It reminds me of God's word to Jeremiah, "If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses?" (Jeremiah 12:5) If we have been tired out and exhausted by the "normal" requirements of daily Christian living and ministry ("running with the footmen"), how do we expect to "keep up" with the intense demands placed upon Christian leaders during the intensive times of revival and great out-pourings of the Holy Spirit that He plans to send upon the Church ("competing with the horses")?

I believe that the experience of Wesley suggests that God is raising up the house church/simple church paradigm at this particular time in history in preparation to receive and to disciple the fruit of the coming revival. I believe that House Church represents a return to the importance of investing ourselves in a handful of people who, in their turn, will do the same with their own handful, etc. etc.
So, let me ask you. How many people are in your House Church? If it's more than 12 then you're doing better than Jesus ever did, so be encouraged.

What's your goal? Is your goal is to impress the crowd, your traditional church friends or the faculty back at the denominational church planting office? Or is your goal to usher in a Kingdom? To impress the crowd will require big numbers. To usher in the Kingdom of God requires only 12. Choose which it will be. A simple House Church of 12 committed disciples or families could change the world.

"We should not expect a great number to begin with, nor would we desire it. The best work is always done with a few. Better to give a year or so to one or two men who learn what it means to conquer for Christ than to spend a lifetime with a congregation just keeping the program going. Nor does it matter how small or inauspicious the beginning may be; what counts is that those to whom we do give priority upon our life learn to give it away."

HOUSE CHURCHES REACH 'CRITICAL MASS' - BARNA SURVEY

A new Barna Survey shows house churches on the rise in America.

The study was directed by George Barna, whose current best-selling book, entitled Revolution, estimates that this trend will continue over the next two decades, substantially reducing the share of adults who call a conventional church their primary spiritual community.
“The house church now appears to have reached ‘critical mass’ in the United States,” commented Barna. “Analysts typically find that once a new tool or institution reaches 15% market penetration, and has evidenced a consistent or growing level of affirmation for at least six years, that entity shifts from fad to trend status. At that point, it becomes a permanent fixture in our society. Today, house churches are moving from the appraisal phase into the acceptance phase. We anticipate house church attendance during any given week to double in the coming decade, and a growing proportion of house church attenders to adopt the house church as their primary faith community. That continued growth and public awareness will firmly establish the house church as a significant means of faith experience and expression among Americans.”

Read the article.
http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrowPreview&BarnaUpdateID=241

SHEEPCOMIC – ‘HEAVEN GREENEST HEAVEN’

Sheep Comic is a bit of a favourite with me. A fun send up of the type of church none of us want to belong to. You can search it yourself but here's a taster, one that might inspire the songwriters among us.
http://www.sheepcomics.com/strips/heaven/heaven.htm

DEAD MAN WALKING (2)

Continuing the journey into homechurch ....

THE BATTLE OVER PREACHING

I read once that every person needs, at least once or twice a week, a positive experience that fills up their need to be loved or appreciated and to engage in something significant. For most pastors that sense of personal fulfilment is associated with their one moment when all eyes are upon them, the Sunday morning preaching time. They give a lot of attention to that moment, working hard during the week to come up with a finely tuned word, full of wisdom and well developed logic, just enough humour to endear them to their congregation, and a passion and power of conviction that hopefully will, under the anointing of the Spirit of course, result, hopefully, in at least a mini revival, bodies scattered on the floor, catchers exhausted.

They wish.

Most times they are happy to settle for a few positive, appreciative comments by the more spiritually astute, enough for the Pastor to wend his way home feeling fruitful and needed, a good shepherd with contented sheep.

Actually it was before we went homechurch that I noticed how discontent I was becoming with the weekly preaching routine. It came to a head one day when I had finished my ‘performance’ and we’d broken for coffee. I noticed that, although I’d preached well and the word had been received well, the moment we finished the conversation immediately turned to fishing, work, kids etc. But I was still on a high from the word. Why wasn’t everyone else buzzing with it? Well, the fault was not with the congregation. I had simply not engaged them in any interaction with the Word.

Not only that but on this afternoon there was less than 15 people there. It would have been far more productive to pull our chairs into a circle and throw the topic into the ring and let them, under the inspiration of the Spirit, teach themselves - with me just acting as a facilitator. Sure it may not have had the three points, the brilliant ending and altar call but maybe we ALL would have gone home buzzing with the experience of the Spirit speaking through EVERYONE and not just me. Maybe Paul’s picture of each person having a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation - all for the strengthening of the church - maybe that is actually a much more fruitful way of meeting. (1 Cor 14:19)

Anyway, that’s what we do now. Not that it’s always easy. The preacher in me often wants to dominate and has to be tamed. And the trained passivity in the rest of us is also pretty intransigent at times. But when the real thing happens we go home buzzing, each of us having been engaged in the process of being taught by the Spirit.

There is a place for preaching though and I’m not walking away from it. I sometimes really miss it. But it’s all about horses for courses and getting away from religiously doing church the way we’ve always done it. Too many church meetings centre on the performance of the preacher and the worship team. If they perform well you go home feeling good. If they don’t you don’t! It isn’t meant to be that way and I suggest that there is a lot of dying that has to happen in those ministries before we truly become the mature man that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 4, which is growing up into Christ as “the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

Personally I think that most Christians could go without hearing the weekly sermon for a couple of months without taking a nose dive! Especially if the time they spent listening to sermons was spent actively engaging themselves in spending purposefull visiting time with their ‘not-yet-believer’ friends. In fact what they would probably find is that every sermon they’ve ever heard would come alive inside them as they faced the challenge of being Christ in the market place instead of in the pew. Perhaps we preachers have to give them freedom to experiment. And perhaps when they do turn up for the next sermon they'll have a disciple in tow - and a fairly well grounded one at that!

DEAD MAN WALKING (3) coming up

WHY ENGLISH TEACHERS DIE YOUNG

I picked this up on another journal and can't resist passing it on.

They are actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. You kind of wonder what the rest of the essay was like.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge free ATM.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
16. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
17. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
18. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
19. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
20. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
21. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
22. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
23. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
24. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
25. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
26. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

I will get to the 2nd installment of 'Dead Man Walking' when I get some time to compose it. Maybe I could get some inspiration from some of the above. Make it more interesting.

Maybe not.

Time Magazine Article on House Church

Time Magazine published an article on house churches in it's 7/2/06 issue. You can read it here.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1167737-1,00.html

DEAD MAN WALKING (1)

OUR JOURNEY INTO HOME CHURCH

Our journey into home church over the past year has been a mixture of life and death. Along with the enjoyment of discovering more refreshing and satisfying ways of relating has been the battle against the old foe of the church, religion. And it is very ingrained. I thought I’d briefly record a few of the battles and the victories gained along the way.

1. THE BATTLE OVER TRADITIONAL MEETING STYLE
Part of our reason for change was a sense of disillusionment with a meeting style that was based around the performance of a worship team and a preacher with little involvement from a congregation that had been unwittingly trained into passivity. If the performers did well you could go home with a feeling of satisfaction without having had to do much except sing along, listen and participate in the offering and communion. We sensed that the early church meetings were not like that but ‘each brought a song, a teaching, a revelation etc etc’

What happened though, when we moved into our house, was that we found ourselves after a few months doing in the house just what we were doing in the building. Same format of singing, then announcements, then preaching all led from the front. Fortunately we recognised it and gave some thought as to why we were meeting and what were the basic ingredients necessary for us to experience Christ among us. We examined whether we have to sing four songs (or any songs), formally take up an offering, having a three point sermon etc and finished up laying aside much that we were used to in favour of developing the kind of interaction that builds relationship.

2. THE BATTLE OVER THE OPINIONS AND EXPECTATIONS OF OTHERS
When you are leader that has at one stage built a church of 80 or more people, in a new building with a good worship team and activities program, and are then reduced down to half a dozen or so couples, some singles and a few kids crammed into a house, you go through a lot of self examination. Am I like Moses leading the people out into the wilderness only to die? Is there really a Promised Land of a better way to be the church or am I just a tunnel-visioned idealist? And what must this look like to those observing us? Surely it just looks like we are in some kind of a freefall destined for an inevitable nasty meeting with annihilation and oblivion.

Well, although I’m sure we are not in freefall, that doesn’t mean we are not dying. The Bible is full of people who on the outside looked like failures. Sarah in her barrenness, Job on the ash heap, Joseph in prison, Moses in the desert, David running from Absalom, Paul in Tarsus, John in the dungeon, and Jesus on the cross, all surrounded, not just by concerned, head-shaking friends, but also by the taunts of those who measured success by outward accomplishments and the standards of men. For all of them, obscurity, barrenness and the wilderness where vital times of preparation. But they were also times of death – death to their own techniques and expectations, and death to the opinions of others.

Not that we are closed to the input of others. After all we are surrounded by people who love us and walk in wisdom. But we need to discern where counsel comes from and what older mindsets are sometimes in play. That’s always the challenge – how to walk in the integrity of your own convictions whilst also maintaining and honouring the important relationships and accountability structures that God has given. Lord, give us wisdom to discern.

Coming up: DEAD MAN WALKING (2)

WHY WE CHANGED

A year ago we made a big shift as a church away from the traditional church meeting, based around a Sunday worship/preaching event, into home church. We now meet around a meal rather than a program and we love it. I thought I’d add to this site the letter from our website (slightly revamped) that explained our reasons for do so.

THE REASONS WHY WE AT LONG LAST WENT HOME CHURCH

1. IT HAD BEEN PART OF OUR VISION FOR A LONG TIME
From the start home groups, cell groups, house church, whatever we called it, had been a feature of our church. We started in a house and had always felt that it was in homes that we’d experienced our most valuable times of connecting to each other. It was in our homes that we relaxed and opened up, and often where we’d learned the most, both about God and each other.

But we’d also been a church that had valued the Sunday corporate gathering. It was the value that we placed on that that eventually led us, via a number of rented facilities, to build The Fellowship Centre. At the time we felt that Sunday morning church was an important expression of what it meant to be a church. Building the Fellowship Centre was in fact a bold and exciting move. I had no doubt at all that God was in it. It was a very prophetic action requiring faith and a unity of vision that was rare among the churches on the Coast.

However, as we were about to move into our building, I was troubled by a concern that the building and all that happened in it would become for us 'church'. And so in '96, quite prematurely and with a lot of enthusiasm but not much wisdom, I embarked on a bold experiment to make sure that that did not happen. We put our home groups on Sunday morning and met for our Celebration on Saturday night. I loved it - no dressing up, no musicians practice at 8am, no late night sermon preparation, relaxed Sunday morning breakfast - just the way it is now!

But it seems that only fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and I hadn't noticed the look on the angels' faces. I'm sure that they knew in their wisdom some things that I was about to learn. Namely that you can't rush people into change and that the prophet, although he can see what the church is meant to look like in the future, has to live in the now and be much more patient and pragmatic in bringing about God's purposes. The experiment lasted three months and then we were back to church 'as normal'.

I learned a lesson from King David in this. You will remember that David wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant up to Jerusalem and how his first attempt finished in failure. This was not, however, because his vision and enthusiasm was misguided. Not at all. This act was driven by a hunger to see God's glory and was profoundly prophetic and strategically important. What was at fault was simply his understanding of God's ways. It took him awhile to get that right but the day eventually came for him to carry out God's purpose which is what he did.
Last July I felt that we were standing at such a time. The years since '96 had been valuable years. They had matured us, refined us, clarified the vision within us and prepared us to make the move into home church. It was a natural move for us

2. IT'S HARD TO BUILD HOME CHURCH UNLESS YOU ARE IN A HOME.
Another thing I realised last July was that if our vision is to build a network of home churches on the coast then we can only effectively do that by making the home the centre of our activities rather than our building.

I had long felt that while we meet on Sundays in a special building we will continue to see that as 'church'. We therefore needed to move out in order to get our thinking in line with New Testament thinking. In the New Testament we only really find one main setting out of which the church operated and that was the home. It was in the home, gathered around bread and wine, that the church experienced the fellowship of Christ and the life of the Spirit. It was simple church, unadorned by the clutter of activity that goes into modern Sunday church services. And it was powerful church, an underground movement that was able to be easily reproduced. It turned out radical disciples and changed the world.

For sure there were other settings in which they met. There was Solomon's Porch, a large outdoor gathering where they initially met daily, and in Ephesus we find Paul teaching daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. But note that these had little resemblance to the public meetings of today. They were almost exclusively for the purpose of teaching, preaching and evangelism. It is highly unlikely that they included musicians, worship or the breaking of bread or any of the other things that are part of 'normal' Sunday worship services today. Not that we are at all tied into copying such early church meetings. My point is that in the NT these public meetings had a definite focus of teaching and training. They were not where the main life of the church was at.

We do have a building, a nice one and fully paid for. But the building cannot dictate our vision and will be an important asset to us in the years ahead. For now we are blessed that it has become a greatly appreciated meeting place for a number of other church fellowships in town leaving us free to explorean alternative way of meeting.

3. GOD IS CHANGING THE EXISTING EXPRESSION OF THE CHURCH
Mike Bickle, in his book Growing in the Prophetic, relates a revelation that came to him in 1982, in a hotel room in Cairo, where the Lord said to him, “I will change the understanding and expression of Christianity in the earth in one generation”. When I ask myself what is the main 'expression' of Christianity in the earth today it is, apart from our denominational systems, the way we meet. To most onlookers the church is 'a group of religious people who gather each Sunday morning in a special building, sing special songs and listen to a sermon by a specially ordained pastor or priest'. Whether it is the Catholic mass or Hillsong (or all that is in between), that about sums up Christianity for most onlookers.

Well, God is changing that expression of the church. I suspect that in the future, although there will remain an important place for teaching and preaching, the main meetings of God's people will be far more informal and will be for interaction, fellowship, prayer and hands on, practical outreach. Like Mary and Martha there will be a sorting out of what is really 'necessary' in order to be the community of Christ on earth. This will involve the slaying of not a few sacred cows along the way (see Stuart Gromenz’ Micro Church site for a few that have to go).

But the move back to simplicity and the stripping away of the excess baggage will in the end produce a church that is very different to what we see today. A church that has thrown off the trappings of this world, discarded its techniques and values, and is sold out for Jesus and Him alone. Mat Redman summed it up in ‘The Heart of Worship’. It’s all about You, Jesus. Let’s go back to when it was more simple.

The Tide is Rising

Hi. Welcome to my blogsite. I won't have something everyday (as some more verbal bloggers seem able to do) but I wanted something to just put down my thoughts and the thoughts of some of my favourite people in regard to some of the challenges facing Jesus' on-earth community, the church.

I should start by explaining the title,'The Rising Tide', which began as the name of our Prophetic Gathering which happens in Yeppoon each October. I reached into the archives and found the article I wrote for our first Gathering. It explains the vision. Here it is.

THE TIDE IS RISING - October 2003

I don’t often get up in time to watch the sun come up over the Keppel Islands but I have occasionally done so and at times been powerfully moved by its symbolism.

Two and a half thousand years ago, as the prophet Isaiah observed the sun rising daily over the land, a revelation entered his spirit of the Glory of God and His intentions for the earth. Visions entered his heart of a day when the knowledge of God would “fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:8). As he gazed into God’s purposes and plans for planet Earth he saw streams flowing in barren deserts, the parched land drinking in the rain and the Lord coming to His people ‘ like a pent up flood that the breath of the LORD drives along” (Isaiah 59:18).

Over two millennia have passed since Isaiah’s revelation of God’s glory breaking upon the earth and yet for many the vision is still as alive as it was with Isaiah. Many of us are like surfers, tired of the little swells that never really went very far and waiting with expectancy for ‘the big one’.
Mind you, catching the big one has its challenges (so I’m told). You first of all have to stop chasing after the lesser ones. Then you have to move out into deeper water, out where the swells can build, away from the shallows – put yourself into position for the big one so that you are ready when it begins to rise. Then you have to watch. Watch and keep watching, dreaming of the big one, ready to move at the sign of its arrival.

Well I’m not a surfer and neither was Isaiah, but I tell you, in the spirit my board is waxed up and I’m hunting down Isaiah’s wave. I’m joining that crowd of glory seekers that are tired of playing around in the shallows as far as church is concerned. There’s a tide rising up! We can’t stay where we were. There is a movement upon the waters and a flood of glory is gathering strength. An ocean swell of over two thousand years of the prophetic word is about to rise up and sweep across the earth. God’s word is sure and, praise God, it is not bound by time. It is eternal, and having proceeded from his mouth it goes forward like a pent up flood towards its destiny and will not recede until its purpose is accomplished.

So I hope you brought your board along. There's a gathering going on, out there, out near the horizon. Bless you and have a great gathering.