SimpleChurch Journal aka House Church Blog

What Is Simple Church Video

Here is a resource I just received that I want to get into your hands right away.  Many of you will find it very useful.

Scott Linklater, with the help of Foursquare Church, has put together this video entitled "What Is Simple Church."

Here is the email I received that describes it:

This last spring The Foursquare Church helped to finance the filming of a documentary about Simple Church and though it hasn't been duplicated and sent out yet, we now have it up on the web and want to share it with you.  It is a small sampling of the wonderful things happening in the simple church world, and how the concept is making a major impact on how churches are being planted.

You can watch it on the site below and you can also download it, burn it to DVD, share it with others, give it away, etc.. (to download it and watch it you will need the free Divx plug-in - the link is on the site). 

It's about 45 minutes and profiles 9 different simple churches from different parts of the country (we only wish we could profile more because there is so much great stuff happening!)  Enjoy!

http://www.whatissimplechurch.com/

Scott Linklater
Las Vegas

Thanks, Scott, for a great resource.

John Fischer: Being Around Not-Yet Christians

Someone shared this article with me, by John Fischer, and I wanted to post it because it is an excellent piece on hanging around with not-yet-Christians.  I am posting it in its entirety because John does not bookmark his articles well, so this way I can find it next time I want it.

Coming Alongside

I am normally not a fan of ten steps to this or five ways to do that. But for one of my recent talks I came up with these six things to remember about being around those who may not yet be Christians, and thought some of you might find it useful.

1) Assume everyone is searching for God. Why? Because everyone is. We were created this way. God has purposely frustrated humanity by creating us with eternity in our hearts, yet with an inability to fathom what that is or what it means (Ecclesiastes 3:10-11). He has done this so that we might reach out for him and find him though He is not far from any of us for in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:27-28).

2) Come alongside. This is really the crux of it all. Just walk alongside people and enter into their lives. Listen. Talk. Laugh. Cry. Find out where you can contribute and what you can learn. There's something to give and something to receive in every relationship.

3) Point. You don't tell someone what the truth is; you point to it. "There it is over there," or "Here it is in my life." This is why we need to learn to identify truth in the context of the world around us. Truth isn't religious. You don't have to get into a certain posture to see it. It's not something that hasn't been there all along.

4) Find out what people already know before you set out to tell them anything. Don't ever think you have to clear the table and start over. This is why it's so important to listen first. Find out what's already on the table that you can use.

5) You don't have to tell everything you know. Just the next thing.

6) You don't have to correct everything someone says that is wrong. You are not the protector and defender of truth. You don't have to decide where to draw the line. You don't even have to be concerned if someone may be walking away with the wrong idea. You are not that smart anyway because you don't know what's in someone's head. As long as they have something to think about, that's a good thing.

And now here's the one final thing that makes all this possible. It is the most important of all. (This is the one thing that makes all six of these make sense.) We don't save anybody, convince anybody, "win" anybody to Christ or close the deal. All that is God's business. The Holy Spirit is doing this all on His own terms and timetable. We are not salesmen, marketing reps, counselors or prosecutors. We are just friends who come alongside.

John's Fischtank is found here.