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
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
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)
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)
Monday, May 29, 2006
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 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.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
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.
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.
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