SimpleChurch Journal aka House Church Blog

Life After Detox

I still remember the joy and freedom that came from stepping out of the institutional/organizational world of Christianity.  In fact, that sense of relief is still with me almost four years later.  John White forwarded a letter from a pastor recently out of a traditional church staff position:

    As of midnight Saturday night...I AM FREE! No more institutional church. I am no longer on staff at my church...  Please pray for Kristie and me (and our kids) as we "detox" for the next three months (or so). We want to follow God, relax, and rest in His presence...  Sunday morning we slept in--the first Sunday morning "sleep-in" in my adult life...  Then at 4:00 PM we went to a friend's house for a house church meeting...  We played some horseshoes in the backyard before dinner. We enjoyed communion together and ate a meal together. I got my guitar out and played a few songs and then the host popped in a worship CD, passed around some song sheets and we sang a few more worship songs. One lady's dad who lives in Oklahoma had recently been diagnosed with cancer (lymphoma) and she was really upset, so we spent quite some time laying our hands on her and praying for her dad. It was a very moving time...  The freedom is almost overwhelming!

But what is life like after detox?  I have noticed a few shifts over the past year or so that are probably worth noting.  I do not want the institutional-church lifestyle now any more than four years ago, yet...

• Community life, authentic community life is challenging and requires attention, courage, and work
• There are honeymoon seasons of church life and then times to deal with the conflicts and underlying agendas that must be honestly faced
• We, as people, still resist our primary calling to live missionally in a broken world
• We still have a responsibility to see his kingdom life reproduced in others and to step out of our comfort zones to do so
• If we want to reproduce authentic community and missional living, we must be living it ourselves
• We constantly find new ways to be selfish, cantankerous, self-serving, comfort-seeking, love-resisting people indicating how deeply we will always need God's grace and strength in this life

But hey... we can still sleep in on Sundays (perhaps)!  The missional adventure is more exciting than I ever thought it would be!  Authentic community life is worth all of the challenges that go along with it.

In short, life after detox is more challenging than I expected, yet I am more convinced than ever that God is unleashing his church... one person, one simple church at a time... and it's awesome to be a part!

Reviewing the Basics

We have invited some folk from our community who are interested in learning a little more about the "house church movement" to join us for some coffee and discussion.  It has provoked me to reflect again on the basics which I always find to be an invigorating and useful exercise.

So, if you do not mind, I will use y'all for a sounding board here by outlining some of my thoughts.

• The "house church movement" is not about getting the church out of bigger buildings and into smaller, homier, ones.  I would suggest that it is about seeing the church become a movement again as intended.  In other words, the church is God's people lit up by the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Our sense of this, from the New Testament, is that God intended his church, his people, to truly be a wildfire taking his life, power, and transformation from one person to the next until the world is engulfed with him.  God was and is on the move through his people.  A movement that is led by the Spirit of God (the church) can not be contained nor controlled without it losing its very essence.  In that sense, he never intended for us to build fireplaces.
• Over the years we have, with very good intentions, become focused on building fireplaces.  Much good has come from this.  However, we have often found ourselves so busy with housing the fire that we have lost the intensity and fervor that fuels a movement.  It is this movement that God has always been after and that he is restoring.
• Simplifying church back to its basics makes room for us to re-align our time and energy with God's purposes to fuel movements of his Holy Spirit everywhere.  Just because we have simplified church does not mean this will happen.  But it does provide the opportunity for us to put the priority focus back on those things that can facilitate that movement.
• The basics of "simplified church" are:

1. Shared community life.  This simple dynamic is far more powerful than we realize.  It is the basis for transformation as well as for support for the "quests" that each of us are called to be a part of.
2. Participatory community life.  This is also a simple concept with powerful results.  As each one learns to take responsibility and develop his or her gifts for the good of the community (1 Cor 14:26), there is a maturing process for the whole body of Christ that is so vitally needed.  We become "self-feeders" rather than living dependently on others to bring us the milk of the word.  We are thus equipped to become mature disciples and to multiply ourselves in others.
3. Missional living.  We discover the joy and adventure of partnering with God out in the world where life happens and where God's life is meant to be shared.  This is a unique journey for each and every person and we are not expecting one person's adventure to look like anothers.  But... we learn to get out of our Christian-go-to-meetin' comfort zones and allow God to develop our missional-adventure-partnership-with-God lives.

Well... that's a basic outline!  It's a challenge to walk it out.  Pitfalls and victories along the way.  Stumbling and learning as part of the process.  But at this stage in my Christian life, I would not want to be pursuing anything short of God lighting us all on fire for his purposes.

Leadership as Fatherhood

I want to follow up on the last post on leadership with some quotes from an article given to me by Mike Steele (Dawn Ministries).  I must confess that Mike may (or may not) be the author of the article (I will be checking with him to find out).  --NOTE: I AM ADDING THIS TO THE POST ONE DAY LATER-- MIKE STEELE IS THE AUTHOR.  This article offers one important perspective on leadership: Leadership as Fatherhood.

This article first looks at the business model of leadership:

Based on the success-oriented model of the business world, the "bottom line" is the motivation in this form of leadership and strategies and measurable outcomes are the rule...  Everyone's activity is measured against the bottom line and their promotion and acknowledgement is based on meeting or exceeding the goals. Great ideas and large organizations come forth but run the risk of missing the mark of focusing our efforts on people and their growth and relationships.

The author then takes a look at team leadership which he calls a step in the right direction because of the multiple leadership.  However, the organizational goals are still the focus:

Team members are rewarded for their contributions to the effort. Outcome is the bottom line and relationships are built on the ability of each team member to perform. Acceptance and recognition is based on your proficiency in adding to the outcome of the team effort. While this has merit, it does not exemplify the type of mutual love and benefit derived from a commitment to people over task.

Finally, this article looks at "the heart of the Father":

From my understanding of the Scripture, this ideal can be expressed in the concept of "The apostle who is a father." I believe the answer can be found in the heart of Father God. It is embodied in the saying "A weeping father crying out for his sons to overtake him." It is the blessing of a father that is irreplaceable in the life of those who will lead the church in the next move of God. I pray this would become the heart of leadership in the Church in America.

It is exemplified by fathers who mentor, empower and release their sons. These fathers are not controlling, but with wise counsel and wisdom "that comes with age" they impart to their heirs the way of the Kingdom. Continuously willing to resource and support the emerging generation and their call from the Holy Spirit, they encourage them to step out further into the vast arena of those seeking to have an intimate relationship with the Father.

You can download the entire article here:

Download the_apostle_who_is_a_father_steele.doc