SimpleChurch Journal aka House Church Blog

"From Eternity To Here" - Viola

I agreed to be part of a Blog Circuit event for Frank Viola's latest book in which, today, over 50 bloggers are reviewing "From Eternity to Here."

Viola departs, a bit, from his many books on the nature and structure of church in order to step back and reflect on the larger story of God's eternal purpose.

He first describes the love story that is woven through Scripture from beginning to end: "the story of a God who is an ageless romantic, driven by one consuming pursuit."

The sacred romance of the ages sings its song through rhythms and melodies from Genesis to Revelation.  But its major chord is always the same: A bride who has been hidden in God from eternity...  For you are part of that matchless woman with whom Christ has fallen hopelessly in love with.

Viola then describes God's longing and desire to have a habitation for himself which is ultimately fulfilled through the people of God.

In the third part of this book, Viola describes what it really means to be a new species (his church) fully accepted, in Christ, and organically joined to the Head.

Put another way, the church is the visible image of the invisible Lord.  It is the corporate Christ.  It is Christ in collective human expression.

I believe one can sum up the heart of Frank Viola as well as this book with his statement: "All of the churches and movements I was involved in had effectively preached to me an it.  Evangelism is an it.  The power of God is an it.  Eschatology is an it.  Christian theology is an it... I don't need an it, I need a Him!"

Following is some additional information on Frank's book and this blog circuit:

Today (June 9th), the following blogs are discussing Frank Viola’s new bestselling book “From Eternity to Here” (David C. Cook, 2009). The book just hit the May CBA Bestseller List. Some are posting Q & A with Frank; others are posting full reviews of the book. To read more reviews and order a copy at a 33% discount, go to Amazon.com.  If you live in the USA, you can also visit your local Family Christian Store to grab a copy. They are having a special promotion this week.  For more resources, such as downloadable audios, the free Discussion Guide, the Facebook Group page, etc. go to the official website.

Here is a complete list of bloggers participating today and other info: Download BlogCircuitNote

Discipling Followers of Jesus

Continuing on the discussion of discipleship, I want to talk about what I call the “Jesus and dot dot dot” syndrome.  This means that we have often been discipled (and are thus discipling others) by learning to follow Jesus… and… something in addition.  We follow Jesus… and… the set of doctrines that our church teaches in order to “protect” the Gospel.  We follow Jesus… and… the rules (mostly unspoken) that we must follow to fully belong to the Christian culture we are a part of.  We follow Jesus… and… the teachings of our pastor who works hard to make Jesus relevant and understandable.  We follow Jesus… and… the latest pop-teacher that we are listening to.  We follow Jesus… and… the core teachings of our denomination.  We follow Jesus… and… the instructions of our latest church-leadership guru (even house-church-leadership guru).

The problem is not that we are listening to good teachers, or learning from others.  The problem is that, in our own insecurity or anxiety around being a pure follower of just-Jesus, we take comfort in following others who interpret what it means to be a follower.  This provides us with an easier path and gives us a sense of security in the journey.  The result is that we end up putting this alternative body of information/teaching right up there alongside of Jesus.  We look to Him, yes, but then we look to others to make sure that we are interpreting Him correctly.  We end up seeing Him through the lenses of others.  We end up with human mediators between us and Jesus.  We end up with a watered-down experience of daily following just-Jesus.

The “Jesus and dot dot dot” syndrome leads to two significant (as in huge) problems:

1. We, ourselves, lose sight of what it means to radically follow the untamed Jesus.
2. We make the issue of discipling others far too complicated, difficult, and inaccessible.

Let’s briefly look at each of these.

When Jesus said that man does not live by bread alone (which meets our daily physical needs) but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, he was pointing to a daily followership.  We digest, grasp, listen to, and walk out what God is speaking to us each and every day.  Yesterday’s digested word will not provide direction for our lives today.  That he meant to lead us in such a consistent, radical way is further seen by his challenges to wannabe-disciples who first want to bury a father or say good-bye to their family before following Jesus in-the-now (Luke 9).

The prospect of actually facing Jesus head-on, in daily followership, leads to a radical, obedience-oriented, undomesticated lifestyle.  If this prospect does not make us tremble somewhat (both fear and excitement), then we may have lost our taste for it.  Instead, we prefer to look at the lifestyles of those who have interpreted Jesus to us and do our best to emulate them or implement their understanding of the Jesus-lifestyle.  This is so much safer (seemingly) though the consequences may leave us far from the mark of a true disciple.

Terry Eagleton says:

“[Jesus] is presented [in the Gospels] as homeless, propertyless, peripatetic, socially marginal, disdainful of kinfolk, without a trade or occupation, a friend of outcasts and pariahs, averse to material possessions, without fear for his own safety, a thorn in the side of the Establishment and a scourge of the rich and powerful.” (Quote taken from Frost & Hirsch, ReJesus, p. 20)

My own life-as-a-disciple hinges on this question: Do I really want to listen to, today, and wrestle with, today, that Jesus (as he reveals himself in his own word) and make the decision, today, to fully be his follower.

This issue takes on even greater significance as we turn our attention to discipling others.  Why?  Because it takes a great deal of human effort and energy to “properly” disciple someone to follow Jesus and to understand all that needs to be explained and interpreted so that the new disciple can follow Jesus “properly” (according to whatever comes after the dot dot dot).  We commit ourselves (remarkably) to gargantuan efforts to make sure that new disciples are properly taught a Christian worldview (how to think), a Christian theology (what to believe), and a Christian culture (how to behave).  Yet in this massive knowledge-focused download, we often sidestep the central issue of discipleship: what is Jesus showing you (speaking to you, revealing to you by his word) today and how are you going to walk that out?

When discipleship becomes truly focused on following Jesus today, the new disciple can pick this up almost instantaneously when it is modeled by a practitioner (discipler who is also following daily).

This does not mean that there is no purpose in walking alongside of new disciples.  But it does mean that we shift the heavy lifting from the shoulders of the discipler (imparting all of the necessary knowledge and information about thoughts, beliefs, and behavior) to the shoulders of the Holy Spirit who actually is big enough to transform those who are choosing to listen and follow daily.  Furthermore, the activity of the Holy Spirit in this process is not primarily facilitated by the “gifted” efforts of the discipler, rather the Holy Spirit is engaged as the new disciple picks up the task of discovering God’s communication to her daily and then wrestling with how to apply it in her life.

We have made discipleship far too complicated (the need to impart massive amounts of information in transformative ways—as if we can do that) yet also too comfortable (not requiring the discipler and disciple to follow Jesus radically.  By turning this around, discipleship does become far more challenging in terms of our own followership, yet also far easier, simpler, more transferable and accessible as we simply invite others to learn how to do the same.

We could wrap up by looking at some tools for this, but sometimes we take tools and use them as shortcuts.  Perhaps we just need to focus, for now, on the basic issue of being a follower today.

Hearing the Voice of God

I have been enjoying this inspirational article on Hearing the Voice of God by Grantley Morris so I wanted to pass it along.

Knowing, hearing, and following Jesus... the heart of being a disciple.

Conferences

I am going to try to do better to inform you on conferences that might be of interest.  If y'all will keep me posted on these types of events, I will do my part to pass the word along.  Here are some that are coming up:

"Living The Mission Conference: The Journey of Simple Organic Church" is taking place in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota on June 18-20.  This looks like a wonderful line-up, and details can be found here.

I always enjoy and appreciate the National House2House conference on Labor Day weekend in Texas.  You can find the info on it here.

There is a Global House Church Movement Summit, facilitated in part by Victor Choudhrie, in Delhi, India on November 11-15.  More information is available here: Download Global House Church Movement Summit

Another conference that I attend regularly when possible is Neil Cole's (CMA) in Long Beach: Jan. 28-30, 2010.  I do not see any other details on that conference yet.

Discipling Viral Disciplers

I no longer try to start simple/house churches.  I think house churches are great.  They provide a place for people to experience participatory, everyone-matters church life.  They provide a way for people to really connect into authentic, one-another community.  They often provide a place for people to recover from some of the pains caused by institutional church life.  But house churches are no longer the end game for me.

Jesus invited us to join him, organically, in the reproduction of life.  His church is a living, thriving, reproducing organism (Mark 4) that allows life-in-the-Spirit to spread virally from one disciple to the next.  His church is alive as illustrated by a seed (Mark 4) that brings forth 30, 60, or 100-fold reproduction.  That is the life of the kingdom.  His life in me is passed on to the life of another (2-fold) which is passed to the life of another (4-fold) which is passed to the life of another (8-fold), etc.  That is the way of organic/viral life and this is what the kingdom IS.  This is ultimately what Jesus invited us to become part of: discipling viral disciplers.

Kingdom life is viral, organic, and, by nature, a movement.

When I have made house churches the end game, I have discovered that they do not naturally reproduce nor become movements.  In fact, house churches have a shelf life.  They may serve a purpose for a season, but when that season ends (and it will) the “movement” is over.  The influence of a house church is temporary.

This explains why Jesus did not ask us to go and “make gatherings or churches.”  He did not ask us to go and “make house churches.”  He said, “go and make disciples.”  This shift from starting gatherings to making disciples (who go and make disciples) goes to the very heart of the matter.  Discipling viral disciplers is the end game.  This places us squarely in the midst of reproductive life that the kingdom is intrinsically about.  We become movement-starters not church-starters.  We release disciples who will influence the world throughout their lifetime and beyond as those they disciple disciple still others.

Now, not to confuse the issue, but often in the work of discipling viral disciplers I will be gathering people together in a manner that looks an awful lot like a simple/house church.  Absolutely!  But the underlying DNA makes all the difference.  When I reach and disciple a viral discipler, that person is going to gather with other viral disciplers for encouragement, and then, as each of them reaches others, still more gatherings will take place.  So, along the way, house churches are started.  But, but rather than being the end game, they become a means to support the life that is being reproduced from one disciple to the next.  The house church gatherings themselves will shift, change, morph, end, and re-establish themselves in new forms but the movement of disciples who are reproducing disciples will continue.

Sustainable kingdom-life does not take place just because of the way we gather.  But it does take place when we step into the role Jesus called us to: making disciples who know how to make disciples.

As mentioned, starting house churches and discipling viral disciplers (who gather in house churches) might look very similar on the outside.  But the process is very different!  When we start house churches, our focus tends to be on the gathering—what to do, how to do it, what it looks like, etc.  We say to ourselves that we are learning to “be” the church 24/7 (and we may even go do missional things), but often our priority remains on developing the structure/form of simple house church gatherings.  When following Jesus and inviting others to follow him becomes our focus (discipling viral disciples), we will have to shift from the “gathering” mentality to the “lifestyle-going” mentality.  This shift changes the processes we walk out from top to bottom.  And, this shift will propel us from being church-starters to movement starters (where churches spring up along the way).

There is much more to share about the process of discipling viral disciplers, but suffice it to say that it does ask us to examine our own “followership” as a starting point.  Jesus, the adventurous, undomesticated, on-the-move God invites us to join him daily where He is working.  What does that look like for me today?  What does it really mean for me, today, to be the church (Jesus’ follower) in the world?  From that starting point, we can begin to look at and grasp a process that will “infect” others who will then “infect” others to fully follow Jesus.  Ah… a movement!

More to come!

Church Planting Movement Keys

I wrote a short article (and listed some resources) on Church Planting Movement Keys at our ministry blog.

You can read it here if you are interested.

The Outdoor Church

I love hearing the stories that come out of this creative journey into simple/organic church-without-walls (or whatever else one wants to call it).  One of the keys to what God is doing is that we are all unique and there is no cookie-cutter way to gather, grow, and reach out.  We will miss it if we seek to copy what someone else is doing.  Nevertheless, hearing each others stories can help us break out of own boxes and allow our imaginations to be engaged with God in a greater way.

With that in mind, I want to share Craig's story of "The Outdoor Church."

While still in full time traditional-church ministry, Craig recalls reading an article by Ted Stump called “Entertainment Evangelism:  The Spinning Act."  He realized that his high-octane efforts among youth were not producing spiritual growth in the young people and was surely leading him into a major burnout.

After several years of transition and recovery, he began to see the possibilities of incorporating "outdoors" into ministry:

During this time [of recovery], we bought a canoe when we moved to WV.  We spent a lot of time together canoeing and recovering from the hurts and pains of ministry.  We started talking about maybe starting a canoe livery or better yet a canoe ministry or a church using canoes as a main part of their outreach.  Then the seed started to grow, a church that uses the outdoors for outreach. 

During the recovery years, I continued to hear from God and see that while cell-based churches are good, house churches really are better.  House churches are closer to NT churches than either cell-based or program based, and God kept speaking to me about a church using the outdoors to reach the lost.

In 2007, we met a couple who had a lot of the same interests as we do and the more we got talking, we realized that we all were called to do an outdoor ministry. So in the summer of 2008 we started meeting unofficially.

The premise behind ODC [Outdoor Church] is that we will operate as a House Church and we meet on Sunday Evenings at 5:30pm 3 times a month.  On the fourth week, we call that Adventure Week.  We will go hiking, fishing, canoeing, camping or some other outdoor event.  My goal is that as we collect offerings, that we will have enough money to buy 10 canoes, and with these canoes we can offer free canoe trips.  We are hoping this will open the doors to meeting and building relationships with the people who hate a traditional church but love the outdoors.

Our normal house church meeting includes a  relaxed atmosphere with relational connecting, an opening crowdbreaker question, worship, biblical group discussion, personal ministry time, more relational connecting with food.

The Outdoor Church was started with the belief that people in our area of West Virginia love to hunt, fish, hike, camp, etc. but they may not like church.  Our goal is to speak their language, the outdoors, and hopefully be able to build a relationship with them in the outdoors and show them God’s love, and maybe they will want to be a part of what God is doing in our county.  We live in a rather rural area, maybe 20,000 in the entire county, so our target area is the entire county.  I’m hoping and praying, that as our church grows, we can start a house church network of The Outdoor Church. Multiple house churches throughout our county.

You can see the Outdoor Church website here.

Is Easter Still an Opportunity?

(I really need/want your creative input on this post so PLEASE comment as God inspires.)

In the "ole days" of church life, Easter was an opportunity to invite family and friends to the Easter event or special service.  The numbers would swell on that Sunday morning causing all of us to feel good about the "impact" we were having.  Those visitors would not return until the following Easter, and the next week's attendance returned to what it was before, nevertheless we would approach every Easter as another opportunity to "reach people."

So here is my question: Is Easter still an opportunity?  Rather than invite people to an event or to some thing, is it an opportunity to invite someone or some people into our life?

Bear with me while I process this thought.

For several years, our house churches tended to shy away from anything that looked like an event.  Therefore, we tended to hole up on Easter and celebrate the day among our own communities and friends.  This was comfortable, different, and enjoyable in many ways though it did feel a bit cloister-like.

Last year we changed things up and did a bit of a throwback to the ole days: we threw an event as a group.  We held an outdoor Easter party in a beautiful setting and invited friends who were not "churching" anywhere.  Again, it was a mixed blessing.  The event was fun, people had a good time, but I am not sure that any meaningful connections resulted.  This may have been our own fault in regressing back into an event-mentality: throw the event, make it good, then go home.

So, I ask the real question one more time: Is Easter an opportunity to invite someone or some people into our life?  In other words, perhaps the Easter opportunity, if there is one, is not so much about them as it is about us.  Is this an opportunity to get out of our comfortable boxes and remind ourselves once again that God has involved us, through our everyday lives, with people whom we can choose to receive more fully into our lives?  Is this an opportunity for us, one more time, to think incarnationally: live among, build relationship, invite into our life.

This concept is really not about Easter but about every day and every week of our lives.  Nevertheless, it might be fun to brainstorm and share ideas/experiences on how Easter might still be an opportunity if it can be used to invite people into our life.

For example:

• An Easter party of some kind that is done from the heart and freed up from an event-mentality
• Inviting one person/couple to share Easter with you and your family in your home around brunch.
• Taking someone an Easter gift; let them know ahead of time that you are coming.
• Or, or, or?

I am not trying to come up with strategies for "targeting" people; rather, I just want to spark our imaginations a bit, move us outside of old ways of thinking, and help us engage our own creative processes in living into the world around us with love and care.  Perhaps this is the real opportunity.

With that in mind, please do share any/all thoughts you have on this...

Into Africa

My wife and I will be in Africa for the next few weeks.  We surely appreciate your prayers.  We will be working with some leaders from the Congo in what we call "level one training" and some leaders in Kenya in what we call "level three training."

For information on our strategies there, you can read this article if you are interested.

In Case Your Bookshelf is Getting Empty (ReJesus and Bones)

I have been reading (not yet finished) two books that I thought were worth mentioning:

ReJesus: a Wild Messiah for a Missional Church by Frost & Hirsch

"Following Jesus involves more than simply accepting him as your Savior via some prayer of commitment, no matter how sincere that prayer might be.  In order to follow Jesus you must also emulate him, using his life as a pattern for your own.  We call this emulation becoming a little Jesus."

Hirsch and Frost challenge their readers to put Jesus and the personal following of this "wild Messiah" back into the center of their life.  As Blaise Pascal says, "Jesus is the center of all, the object of all, whoever does not know him, knows nothing aright, either of the world or of himself."

The authors assert that putting Jesus in the center of our life will cause us to wrestle with the nature of a  missional God, one who "sends himself to us rather than waiting for us to come to him."  This will also stir us to view the church as the "sent people of God.  A church is not a building or an organization.  It is an organic collection of believers, centered on Jesus and sent out into the world to serve others in his name."

This final quote captures the essence of this book for me: "Therefore we propose that church should be recalibrated around its founder, Jesus.  But what would that look like?  Jesus didn't found any churches.  He unleashed an army of little Jesuses who went forth and founded faith-communities across the known world."

You See Bones, I See an Army by Floyd McClung

"The best way, in fact the only way, to renew the church is for a fresh imagination to be unleashed in the church."

McClung breathes some imagination of his own into the conversation around simple, reproducible church.  Former missionary and mega-church pastor, he is now seeking to facilitate church planting movements, primarily in Africa, by training leaders in these principles.

"Interestingly, we have to train people from traditional and institutional church backgrounds out of the old way of doing church, and orient them to the new paradigm of simple church.  It is this way of doing church that makes it possible for Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus--and increasingly, postmodern Western youth--to experience church like we read about in the book of Acts."

McClung's writing displays both his love for the church as God's people and his passion for the "3.3 billion people who have never heard the name of Jesus one time."  He believes that there must be a fundamental change in the way we think about church and the world, or these people will never know the power of the Gospel.

McClung suggests the following paradigm shifts are essential:

1. Holistic versus dualistic spirituality
2. Apostolic versus hierarchical leadership
3. Incarnational vesus attractional mission
4. Simple versus complicated church
5. Inclusive versus exclusive membership

Perhaps it is because I spend so much time, myself, working with leaders in Africa that I resonate so much with McClung's writing.  I also appreciate the passion that he carries and challenges others to carry for God and for the world: "There is a spiritual battle raging for your passions... The way our culture influences us, you don't even have to choose to be worldly; just go with the flow.  Just be a person who merges with the crowd, and before long you will have nothing inside you to motivate you to live passionately for God."