SimpleChurch Journal aka House Church Blog

Jim Rutz Crunches Numbers on House Church Involvement

Jim Rutz has used George Barna's research to paint an interesting picture on house church involvement in the United States:

But this week, even I was shocked to discover how big our house church community in North America really is. Briefly stated, we're right about halfway between the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention (which is the second-largest denomination in the U.S.).

Rutz goes on to comment on this trend:

Bottom line: Worldwide, the original church is back, re-creating the biblical model: "Day after day, they met by common consent in the Temple Courts and broke bread from house to house." (Acts 2:46) God is again pouring out His power on plain folks, bringing a megashift – not in our doctrine, but in our entire lifestyle.

House churches in North America are no longer seen as being in conflict with the traditional church. In fact, much to our amazement, noted leaders like Rick Warren have recently come out strongly in favor of house churches. Saddleback Church is even sending out their own members as "missionaries" to start house church networks! And just last week, John Arnott of Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship asked me, as a house church spokesman, to speak at his big annual conference. Unheard of.

You can see the entire article here.

House / Simple Church Stories

Sometimes it is good to reflect on the stories that come out of "house/simple church." Most stories that we relish are not about something earthshaking taking place, but rather they are about simple events that reflect the culture and lifestyle that has become so special to us...

Led by an Eight-Year-Old

We recently had a significant part of one gathering led by an eight-year-old, precocious, darling little girl by the name of Sarah. She led us in prayer. She shared some songs that she had brought and taught us some hand motions to one of them. Every time a new song would begin, she would shake her hands and say, oooh, I love this song so much. She had the words memorized to every worship song we sang together.

Finally, when the songs finished, she said quite matter-of-factly, "I think God told me that I am suppposed to pray for anyone here who is sick." So she did!

I am sure that, reading this, one would assume that there was a room full of adults patronizing this little "children's church" experience. But really that is the point of this. That was NOT what was taking place. Because we have so embraced the reality that the Holy Spirit works and leads through every member of the body, including the youngest, this room full of adults was as worshipful and as intent on the working of the Spirit as if a "famous spiritual leader" was present in our midst. That's what makes this simple story so powerful. Jesus was present to us through a child... and we got it.

NonChristian Enjoys Worship and Scripture

The house/simple church lifestyle is one of taking the Good News out to the smoking section of life--where people live their lives. Nevertheless... someone recently invited a nonChristian to come to a house church gathering (a rather traditional approach) and this woman came! God can work any ole way he wants to!

In any case, this woman had just faced up to an inevitable divorce and found herself driving home the night of this house church gathering that she had been invited to. She had not intended to come but, in her words, "the car just turned onto this street." When she introduced herself to the rest of the group she said, "I don't know why I am here. I don't even care for Scripture."

Nevertheless, tears fell down her face during a time of worshipful music and when the group opened Scripture to learn from and talk freely about, she shared some powerful insights from her own background that helped illuminate the discussion. I believe what made all of this work for this nonChristian was that we were not engaging in a theological exercise or debate, rather we were sharing our own real life stuff and interacting with Scripture as though it had something to say to us, in our day-to-day needy lives.

As she was leaving, she told her friend that had invited her, "Don't tell those folks, but I really enjoyed the Scripture."

Father Performs Marriage Ceremony for His Son

Sometimes people want to know how house churches handle weddings, funeral, etc. We really like to see these ceremonies revolve around the natural and spiritual extended families as much as possible.

The young man who approached me to marry him was not involved in house church, he was looking for a traditional wedding, he grew up knowing me as a card-carrying pastor, so he asked me to perform the wedding ceremony. However... his parents are involved in house church... so I wondered if I might be able to steer this in a different direction.

Mind you, I am not opposed to stepping into a traditional role when it is insisted upon. I believe those who are getting married should do whatever is most meaningful to them. But, after speaking to his father, I just put the suggestion out to this young man... "What would you think about your own father performing the ceremony?" (It so happens, that in our county, any person can apply for a one-time license to marry someone!)

This young man and his fiance absolutely loved the idea. Though the wedding has not taken place yet, it is already apparent that the meaning of this event has been heightened ten-fold by the family dynamic that is taking place as the ceremony is being planned between father, son, and future daughter-in-law!

Simple Stories

Again, these are simple stories that, undoubtedly, have more meaning to those experiencing them than those hearing them. But they do, hopefully, express something of the uniqueness of the simple church lifestyle.

If you have a relevant story to share... feel free to do so in the comments.

New Apostles and New Ways of Doing Church

Dick Scoggins, a veteran house church planter, has written an excellent article in the recent Frontiers Missions magazine: "Nurturing a New Generation of 'Pauline' and 'Petrine' Apostles."

Whew... hefty title... but some very good meat.

First off... Scoggins clarifies what he means by "apostle." He does NOT mean "someone who gives oversight to large churches or groups of churches." Rather, he sees apostles as "mobile, dynamic groups of emissaries of the Kingdom. They are called to minister as bands or groups – at the very least in twos, as Jesus taught (cf. Acts 13:3,4;14:4,14; 15:39-41), and sometimes with helpers (cf. Acts 13:5)... The key mark of apostleship is not a big personality, but rather big suffering (cf. 1 Cor. 4:9-13).

Okay, that said, Scoggins goes on to talk more specifically about "Petrine" apostleship... the apostle called to reach his own people (as opposed to Paul who was called to go cross-culturally to the Gentiles).

Peter helped to bring new expressions of the Kingdom of God for the Jews who would follow Jesus.

I believe we are seeing a similar pattern today. Western Christendom is in a key transition, perhaps undergoing as large a cultural shift as occurred during the Reformation (when I think that last great era of Petrine apostles brought the Church out of medieval forms and into modern forms). The world is changing, and the Western forms of church, birthed very much according to modernity, are not keeping up. I believe that the world has changed so much that simply adapting existing church structures will not enable appropriate expressions of the Kingdom to come forth for new generations. What is needed is a whole new way of doing “church” (and I think we actually need to drop the word, but that is for a different article). New types of communities of the Kingdom need to be envisioned and created to be Good News in a new era. I believe that apostles are the creative agents sent by God to bring about radical, creative forms of the Kingdom.

Many of you reading this are the very apostles that Scoggins is writing about... You are seeking new and relevant Kingdom expressions for our generation. and many of you have paid the price for exploring new forms of communities. You will find this article affirming.

Scoggins goes on to say:

If the Western church is not going to die out, then we will require new expressions of Kingdom communities. I think this will require a recovery of Petrine apostles – creative pioneers who will explore Kingdom communities appropriate to our postmodern world...

These pioneers are not called to make further adaptations to faltering models, but rather, like Jesus, Peter, James and John, call God’s people to move on from old formulations in a journey to the new. Such a journey will be every bit as radical and terrifying as it must have been for those early Jewish believers who watched the destruction of their nation and traditions. Today’s Petrine apostles will bear the same primary mark of apostleship – persecution, for their ministry is bound to be misunderstood (at best) by existing churches.

You can read the whole article by going to this link and then clicking on the article that reads "Nurturing a New Generation of 'Pauline' and 'Petrine' Apostles."

Neil Cole on Living Missionally

We asked Neil Cole to spend an hour with a group of "church planters" on a phone conference... just to pick his brain a bit. He gave us quite an earful on living the missional lifestyle. His biggest challenge was that Christians tend to have few, if any, deep, personal relationships with nonChristians. I suppose we all know this, but it was a good kick in the booty to give some real thought to being intentional about real, deep, nonChristian friendships.

Neil's challenge, which is well documented in his book Organic Church, is to get out of the "Christian ghetto" and to do life, as Christians, in the smoking section.

My hope is that as we simplify church and programs that we are freed up to actually live the kind of 24/7 everyday-missional life we are meant to live.

Neil offered some direct pointers starting with the necessity of prayer. He mentioned four types of prayers that he regularly engages in.

1. On a daily basis be begs God for the souls of a specific list of people that he keeps.
2. He prays the Luke 10:2b prayer asking God to raise up workers and asking God to raise up workers from the harvest itself. You can read more about the Luke 10:2b prayer virus here and here.
3. He prays against strongholds that may be keeping certain people or people-groups from opening their hearts to the Gospel.
4. When the opportunity arises, he prays with and for the nonChristian for their needs so that they can encounter God in their own life.

Neil also offered four suggestions for building relationships with nonChristians:

1. Listen. We need to connect with them in their world first. This is, after, just basic relationship. Caring about them.
2. Build bridges into their world. Engage in social activities with them that are part of their world.
3. Ask good questions that help them get in touch with the condition of their life and soul.
4. Break the sound barrier. At the right time, do not be afraid to let them know who Jesus Christ is.

If this sounds like some kind of canned "program" approach to friendship evangelism, that would be because of the way I have summarized it here. It's not meant to be that way. It's simply about loving others and engaging with them fully and honestly as friends. If we are doing this, we will certainly be praying for them, listening to them, sharing life with them, and opening our own life to them.

The challenge, again, is that we are so much more comfortable befriending like-minded Christians than not-like-minded nonChristians. For me, It's about being willing to be incarnational with my life just as Jesus was and is.