SimpleChurch Journal aka House Church Blog

The Insider, Still More on Part 3

It's been a little while, but I am continuing to review the seven life-patterns of a fruitful "Insider" (one who is effective at sowing Kingdom life into the people around him or her). This is from Petersen's book, "The Insider." We have already mentioned the first four: taking little initiatives, praying, serving, and conversing the faith.

The fifth life pattern of an insider is "partnering:" joining with others in the process of sharing our faith. We would call this step "church planting." Petersen's comments are powerful when applied to house churches.

First... a summary of his thoughts:

At this point, the insider has invited a few people to "come and see." Petersen gives another example, from his own life, of what this looks like. When he and his family moved to a new community he was having difficulty making new friend because of his travel schedule. After a time, however, they realized that their children were connecting with the children from a couple of families so they developed relationship with the parents. After a time, Petersen and his wife approached this couple this way: "We like to get together with friends to read the Bible. It helps us keep our lives pointed in the right direction. We don't have anything like that going on right now, and, as you know, my travels make it hard for us to do anything like that with much continuity. But you travel too, so we figured you would understand."

The couple responded by saying, "We don't know much about the Bible, but we'd be happy to help you with this if we can."

So... Petersen, his wife, and a couple of others who "partnered" with them began this study. By the time they completed the book of John together, faith was being birthed. Petersen then asked this couple if they had any friends they would like to invite so they began the book of John over again with several more couples. Today, 20 years later, there continues to be a significant flow of the gospel to many people from that initial study!

This brings us to the discussion of "parntership."

We often think of sharing our faith as a solitary effort when, in fact, we were meant to join with others and use a diversity of gifts in serving nonChristians. Just as different gifts bring different aspects to the Body when we gather, so too, when we reach out to love and serve the nonChristian, different gifts bring different contributions here as well.

So, when Petersen has a nonChristian interested in Bible study, he looks for other Christians to partner with him. Resources are pooled. The need for prayer, coordination, hospitality, communication, facilitation can be shared among several and each one can contribute according to their giftedness. This allows every person, not just the "gifted evangelist" to participate in the process of reaching the lost.

This kind of "partnering" also provides support and encouragement along the way. We were designed to work with others in these endeavors to keep us motivated and built up.

Now... here is where Petersen's thoughts really become interesting for the house church. From his experience, it's very difficult to get a nonChristian to join a small group that already has some history together!!!

This is because any group that meets with any regularity will quickly acquire its own culture. The members accumulate a set of shared stories. NonChristians especially sense this history and often feel uncomfortable with it. Their most common fear is that they will be embarrassed by their ignorance of the Bible. They are certain that everyone else in the group has already mastered it.

So what do we do? It is usually better to reconfigure the existing group into something new than it is to try to insert nonChristians into it... Insiders multiply, not by adding numbers to their groups but by dividing up to fit the needs of the people who are responding. New people need to feel they are participating in the formation of something new, that there are others like them who are also just getting started.

This is such a powerful insight for house churches. And a challenge to all of our "existing" churches. Could it be that we will have to be very open to the rapid re-formation of churches? This would mean being open to "starting something new" whenever nonChristians are interested, birthing a new sprout/church to accomodate the new growth so that the nonChristians feel comfortable to join in.

The Insider, More on Part 3

We are discussing the seven life-patterns of a fruitful insider (one who is effective at sowing Kingdom life into the people around him or her). We have already mentioned the first three: taking little initiatives, praying, and serving.

The fourth pattern is worth taking some time with: Conversing the Faith.

Many of us have been trained in certain “skills” for evangelism that are forced and that simply don’t work. Petersen calls this “hijacking a conversation.”

We have all had the experience of having a conversation hijacked. There we are, in what we think is a casual, informal discussion, when all of a sudden the other person slips into a subject he or she has rehearsed—which is obviously headed in a predetermined direction. A yellow light goes on in our head, and we wonder what the other person is selling. As Danny DeVito’s character in The Big Kahuna put it, “When you hijack a conversation, it is no longer a conversation. It is a sales pitch. It is a sales pitch, whether you are talking about the product or about Jesus Christ.

Petersen suggests that we need to make a distinction between what is appropriate for apostle and evangelists who proclaim the gospel, and what is appropriate for insiders who are to converse their faith. This latter has to do with being “wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Paul is saying, “converse your faith in such a manner that people will ask for more!

Petersen goes on to give some more suggestions on what this means:

1. Be honest and open about yourself. Let people know how you feel about things. 2. Take a sincere interest in the other person. Ask questions, and then listen to what the other says. Listening is the first rule of good conversation. Establish a trust as a common ground to walk together on. 3. As the trust grows, sharing one’s experiences in trying to walk with God begins to have a natural place in the conversation. Slip people salty morsels… a little at a time as their interest grows.

The more we understand how the gospel affects us in our daily affairs and relationships, and the more we learn to converse about this in everyday language, the easier it becomes to let people in on what it means to know God. Because the gospel envelops all of life—how we conduct ourselves with our family, in our society, and our work—every subject, when fully explored, will trace back to Jesus Christ…

Boldness is not brashness. Boldness, for the insider, means having enough confidence in the gospel to use it as the frame of reference for living and interpreting everyday life.

As people’s interest develops, Petersen likes to invite them to explore the Bible with him.

There will come a time when it will be appropriate to suggest something of this nature. On several occasions I have approached a few nonChristian friends with the invitation, “My wife and I are thinking about getting a few friends together to read the Bible. We find this helps us keep our lives on track, and we’re not doing this with anyone right now. We’re not ready to get started, but when we are we’ll let you know.”

People need time to digest an invitation like that, as the idea of doing such a thing has probably never crossed their minds. We need to give them time to think about it. As we pray about their responses, the Holy Spirit will help them decide.

The Insider, Chapters 5&6

More from Jim Petersen's book, "The Insider":

Chapter 5 & 6– The Insider, the mission, and the church

To be effective as “insiders” we will learn to connect with people “where they are, on their turf, and at times when they are available. Some unbelievers will respond to the idea of participating in the activities of the church, but increasingly large segments of our society will not. This can be difficult for many of us to understand and accept. What we have works for us in our church, we reason, and we can’t imagine why it wouldn’t work for others as well.”

Part of our difficulty is in our popular definition of church. It has become a place where people meet for certain activities. Our sense of identity has shifted from being a people who are sent into the world to being a place where people congregate to worship.

Petersen contends that if we are going to reach people on their turf, and involve them in meaningful worship, then we are going to have to look at our current form of “church” and recognize its need for reform. We are still depending on a “come to” and “listen to” approach that is not effectively engaging the unbeliever where he or she is at.

The church has become so marginalized to the mainstream of the culture that when such people do come to believe in Christ they often don’t find the existing churches to be viable places for them. It is better, in those situations, to help new believers become the community for one another.

I (Roger) say, “here, here.” How exciting to lift up the calling and ministry of the “Insider” who is able to live a kingdom life everyday and then discover new ways to gather those who come to Christ. A whole new Christian movement, outside the walls of churchdom, in the marketplace, taking Christ wherever His Body goes!

The Insider, Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – the Role of the Insider

Continuing on a synopsis of Petersen's book, "The Insider":

[Jesus] is saying, “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness how will people taste godliness? … You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill.”

We are in the world to reveal Christ to the world. He is saying, Let it show!

While some people are called to drop whatever they are doing to follow Christ, most people are given instructions like the man cured from demon possession:

Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.

As a rule, we are called to follow him back into our own communities.

Paul, as an outsider, would go into a community and reach a few. But the success of his mission depended on the “insiders” who would then turn around and carry the message “back into their networks of relationships… The success or failure of the Apostles efforts… rode on the believers responding to this challenge.

KEY QUOTE:

Are you looking for your calling, wondering what God wants you to do? Paul is saying, open your eyes and look! You’re surrounded! You’ve spent thirty years relating to your family, your community, and your work situation. Some of your relationships are good, some ar bad, but they all have potential for new meaning now that you’re a citizen of the kingdom of God. Live out that citizenship—“hold out the world of life” within this unique world of yours! That’s what it means to be an insider.”

Note: Petersen is still dealing with background reasoning… the practicalities are still to come!

The Insider, Chapter 2

I continue to be challenged by the concepts in Petersen's book, The Insider:

Chapter 2

The Kingdom of God is here. God is at work all around us. God is inviting us to be used for His Kingdom constantly. The problem is that we FAILING TO SEE IT.

According to Jesus, the kingdom of God is within certain people. It is not in our structures, nor in our organizations, nor in our sweeping strategies for world evangelization that we will see the kingdom.

So why do have such difficulty seeing the kingdom? It’s because we are not used to looking in the simple, lowly places.

In our culture, an unheralded individual is about the last place we’d ever think of looking to find anything of importance. We live in a world where “good” is defined by size, where “big” is good, and bigger is better. We measure the success of anything, whether it’s a business or a church, by its volume, by the amount we amass of whatever it is we’re working at, whether it’s money or people. In our value system, we don’t begin to pay attention people until there are lost of them in one place together. We counte them to decide whether or not what is happening is important. We neglect to stop and look at the life next to us. So, we miss the kingdom—even though it’s right there in front of us!

In Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25, he makes it clear that the people who are tuned into the Kingdom are well aware of the needy people that surround them: the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, and the imprisoned. In our culture there are those going through divorces, being fired, losing loved ones, and facing difficult sicknesses.

People with needs surround us.

So how is the Kingdom demonstrated? By people who see the people around them with these needs. By people who show mercy, speak the truth, give grace, and serve people in their time of need.

The witness of a single life lived under Christ’s rule is powerful.

When an entire community of people demonstrate Christ’s rule and love, the message of the kingdom is amplified and the onlooking world takes notice.

By our standards, the ways of the kingdom seem so weak, so insignificant, so unworthy of the bother. The kingdom is in the small voice, in the unobtrusive act… We cannot market it, yet it advances forcibly.

At this point, one may wonder if this type of kingdom living can truly impact an entire world. Stay tuned for more chapters…

The Insider, Chapter 1

I want to highlight key points from Jim Petersen's The Insider as I read it. From chapter 1:

God has purposes and He is working them out.

We all need to live for something. It’s contrary to our nature to be content if we feel our lives are not counting for something that is bigger than life! God made us this way. Whatever the earthly value of our achievements, if we do not feel that what we’re working on somehow transcends the here and now, we find ourselves struggling with feelings of futility. This is a universal phenomenon that runs through all of human history.

We often don’t feel like we have a part because it seems like “the main feature in most Christians’ lives today is congregating. This makes most of us passive participants.”

The purpose of this book is:

We want to help people… understand their calling to participate in what God is doing today. We want people to see that this calling is to be worked out within their existing relational networks where they are already positioned as insiders. God intends that every part of our daily life should line up with his purposes, to his glory. We believe this is something that is within reach for all of us, not just the gifted few.