Insecurity in Church Movements…

Can’t we all just get along!  This expresses how I feel so many times when I read what people write about the church and others get their two cents worth in how they think.  I am all for a free … Continue reading →

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Simple Church: Global & Generational Movement

After the last post concerning the House Church Movement in China, I ran across this article at World Mission Impact:

“200 Christian leaders from 40 nations met in New Delhi, India, Nov 11-14th, 2009, to explore the scope and significance of house-based discipling communities and emerging house church movements worldwide. Known best from the history of the underground house churches in China that report by now an estimated 100 million members, a similar phenomenon has emerged in the last 15 years in numerous nations outside of China. Conference reports indicate that, from very small beginnings, in many nations fairly sizeable house church movements have emerged, including on the continents of Africa and Latin America.”

Other Sources: Joel News and Wolfgang Simson

God will use many different ways to reach the nations.  However, there seems to be a momentum growing in the House/Simple/Organic Church around the world.  There is also a shift in evangelism, discipleship and Church Planting  to a Kingdom focus with a change from sharing the Gospel to build churches to sharing the Gospel to build the Kingdom.  This is causing the Church to be more relational and decentralizing the Church and its leadership by encouraging all members of the body of Christ to function in their gifts.

The House Church Movement is bringing the Church into a natural flow and rhythm of people’s lives.  Two things seem to be affecting this change and it’s growing momentum: 1. The shift from planting a Church to planting multiple churches and… 2.The decentralizing of hierarchical leadership to a Kingdom focused leadership that is recognizing all members of the body as equals by submit to one another based on their gifts and functions not titles of spiritual superiority.  This is becoming more and more attractive to those in their 20’s and 30’s, who think more globally.

Previous generations have thrown stones at the children of the digital age as escaping relational connection and developing pseudo-relationships through the internet and cell phones.  However, I believe the opposite is true.  This generation sees itself as a part of a global community and believes it can affect global change.  They are utilizing the tools of their generation to reach around the world.  I believe this has made them relational in a global community rather than just a local community. 

We need to embrace the zeal of our youth while our youth need to embrace and appreciate their father’s in the faith.  We must encourage the House Church movement while not dismissing what God has been and still is doing through the Traditional Church.  God always reveals new tools for each new generation.   However, these are not replacements.

Each generation of leaders has to deal with insecurity and legitimacy.  We need to embrace what God is giving us and what He wants to do through us without delegitimizing what God has done in and through others in order to feel secure about what God is doing through us.  God will not honor sons who do not honor their fathers.  Instead, He wants the fathers to turn to the sons and the sons to their fathers.  Unless we get this, we will bring immaturity into the next generation of the Church.  As my father taught me:

“You cannot be a father unless you first know what it means to be a son.”  John W. Hobbs

Simple Church – putting a number on it…

Ever feel like you are the only one?

Simple Church, Organic Church or House Church is no longer thought of as some fringe, obscure or illegitimate expression of the Church made up of hippies and those too strange to belong to traditional christian churches.  Let me take that back… some of us are strange.  However, there is a longing amongst many believers today for something more than the status quo, more than church attendance.  There is a growing desire to not change the structure of church but rather be changed people.  This is leading to a shift in how believers meet and gather.  It’s less about the building and more about the relationships and Christ being the center of communal life. 

So is this a passing fad?  It doesn’t seem so.  By the growing numbers it’s becoming a movement – a Jesus movement and is gaining acceptance even among mainstream traditional and denominational churches who are not only embracing it as legitimate but who themselves are now planting Simple Churches.

Give it to me. What’s the number?

One of Christianity’s most influential leaders, George Barna, who has both been a part of the movement for many years and has done extensive research share some interesting facts.  This is a recent article written by the Barna Group entitled “How many people really attend a House Church?”.  CLICK HERE

Simple Church video…

This is a great video about the Simple Church movement by House2House featuring a number of leaders and Simple Church practitioners.

Forgive them for they know not…

“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”  Hebrews 13:17

Having lunch today with my wife at TGI Friday’s, (great salad by the way) I was deeply saddened and angered as I sat by two older women.  One of them was speaking with great authority and let me say venom, spite, disrespect and self-righteous pride, about her church and specifically her Pastor.  I don’t think she could have found many more ways to verbally tear him down.  I’m glad I was almost done with my great salad when she said “I think we are just going to fire him.”

I wanted to walk over and ask, “What church do you attend, so I can know where not to go.”  I had many other thoughts, but had I said them, someone might be writing a blog about me right now.

No one knows the burden of a Pastor but a Pastor and/or his wife.  How can people become so arrogant and unloving?  According to Barna Research, in 2008 there were over 1700 Pastors that left formal ministry every month.

Let me encourage you to take heed to the passage in Hebrews and Paul’s encouragement.  Repent if you have been guilty.  If justifying yourself is at all running through your mind right now  or this blog personally offends you – you need to repent.  Make it your aim to make your Pastor’s labor on your behalf a joy.  Go out of the way to serve him as he serves you.  Love him with the kind of love Jesus died to give you.

The Vision and The Journey…

Not all journeys begin with a vision, but every vision is the beginning of a journey. 

As I mentioned in my last post, I am talking about something that originated from the heart of God, not the desires of man.  We have all felt strong desires and placing them in beautifully crafted words and called them a vision.  Church leaders are notorious for this , the proof being captured in many churches’ three part vision statements.  I’m not slamming on the desires of Godly men who want to do good things, but there is a big difference between the visions of men to do Godly things and the visions from God that only He can give and fulfill. 

“That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  John 3:6

God fulfills His visions through us and by the resources He supplies.  We cannot see or understand the full scope of this kind of vision.  If we did, we would run away from it like Jonah or run right out thinking we can fulfill God’s vision.  A true vision from God frightens you and captures you at the same time.  You don’t go looking for it, it finds you.

It was a typical Sunday service.  We were going through the same routine we go through every Sunday.  As we came to our time of worship, I was engaged as I usually am somewhere between sorting out the last thoughts of the sermon I am about to deliver and half listening for any last minute promptings from the Holy Spirit and trying to worship.  All of a sudden I am arrested by God with a vision.  I am engulfed by what I see in the Spirit as everything in the natural fades into the backdrop till I am only aware of God and what He’s showing me.  And, this is all I see…

I was taken outside of our Church building as I watched a storm appear.  It was sudden with no time to prepare.  You could not see the storm, only it’s effects.  It was like seeing one of those storm stories about a hurricane or tornado on the Discovery Channel.  The power of the wind began to tear the building apart starting with the shingles.  Piece by piece the building tore apart, shingles, plywood, timbers and bricks, til all that was left was the concrete slab foundation.  Then as quickly as the church was torn apart and stripped away, God began to build it back.  Suddenly, I found myself back standing in our sanctuary singing our last song if worship.

I tried quickly to compose myself.  What now?  I sensed in my spirit that God was about to do what I saw, but I had no idea what that meant.  As I said before, it frightened me and captured me.  I heard the Lord say, “surrender.”

I made my way up front and stood before the people God had been so gracious to bring together as our church.  I felt compelled to share what I saw and what God said to me.  When I was done sharing the vision, I said to the church that I sensed God telling us to surrender, that if He needed to strip anything away, we needed to surrender and let Him.  If I needed to go, the building needed to go, any programs, any people, finances, ideologies about ministry or personal issues, then we needed to surrender and let Him.   I asked everyone to pray with me a prayer of consecration.

What came next, I would not have expected.  And, so the journey began…

Come along with me.