SimpleChurch Journal aka House Church Blog

“Simple/House Church Revolution” Book Available For Free

I will be publishing, on this blog, each chapter of the “Simple/House Church Revolution” book over the next several weeks.

In addition, the book can be downloaded in its entirety here: http://www.simplechurchrevolution.com/index.html.

Print copies are also available, at the above-mentioned website for a small donation.  This is a not-for-profit venture, so please respect the request I make regarding distribution.

Comments are more than welcome as I will be revising this first version soon.

Roger

"Simple/House Church Revolution:" Introduction

(This is the introduction to the book "Simple/House Church Revolution."  See www.simplechurchrevolution.com for more information.

Introduction: My Story

“Roger, you can’t go on. You must unplug from ministry and church for an extended period of time. You have no choice!”

I had never been so shocked or devastated as when I heard these words from Dale, a trusted friend who counsels pastors in the throes of clinical burnout. I was completely unprepared to accept his professional opinion even though, deep in my heart, I knew I was experiencing an emotional emptiness unlike anything I had previously known.

“How long do you mean?” I asked.

“At the minimum, six months,” he told me matter-of-factly. “But most probably, you need twelve to eighteen months to get back on your feet.”

I can’t begin to express the level of unbelief and anguish I experienced as he said this.

I was the founding pastor of a ten-year-old church that had been blessed with traditional success markers: consistent growth in numbers, new buildings, a well-developed and funded staff, and a vision for an even bigger future. We were on our way! Except for one thing: Something had happened to the lead pastor. I was literally unable to continue doing what I had been doing for years—leading and guiding our church forward toward that traditional definition of “success.”

As I walked through the agony of telling my Board what was happening to me, they were as surprised as I was. They already knew that I was undone in some way, but they were unfamiliar with the level of depression and burnout I was experiencing. After all, I had always been the epitome of strength, even during difficult times, vulnerable yet durable. They offered me a generous, long-term sabbatical. They cried for me and with me. They were as supportive as any group of people could be. Yet I could barely rally myself to get up in the morning, let alone continue to guide this church family.

Perhaps even more difficult was the deep sense I felt that I would never return to ministry the way I had known it. Perhaps I would never even return to this church that I loved so dearly. As it turned out, I was correct on both counts. But rather than cast me aside, God was about to use this dark time in my life as an awakening of sorts, a paradigm shift that would completely re-define my understanding of both “church” and “ministry.”

What Went Wrong?

I began to reflect on how ministry had turned out so differently from my expectations of years ago. I remembered reading the accounts of Jesus’ followers in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts when I was a new Christian at the age of 19. It was exciting to see Jesus calling His disciples to walk with Him while He ministered, healed, delivered, and poured love into the lives of countless people. It stirred me to read of the Holy Spirit poured out on new believers and how they were mobilized throughout the world, with God’s power, to bless and touch the lives of others.

Yet, after ten years as a senior pastor, my life and ministry seemed so distant from those New Testament stories:
• I was managing a growing business organization in order to manage the buildings, programs, and staff for what we call a “church” today.
• My weekly pulpit “performance” had become a key to the success of the church, thus the responsibility seemed enormous.
• I was carrying a large amount of responsibility, along with other leaders, for a very large number of relatively passive believers.
• I was tired and burned out on religious activities.

I remembered thinking about all of the sermons I preached over the years encouraging church-goers that they are all members of Christ’s Body with spiritual gifts that God intends to use. Yet, while they sat and listened to my sermon on Sunday morning, there were only two people’s gifts highlighted during that hour and a half: mine and that of the worship leader!

I Was Not Alone

As I began recovering, I soon learned that many others were struggling with or questioning church as we know it today. I discovered that:
• pastors are burning out and leaving the ministry in large numbers.
• church leaders are becoming hurt or frustrated by their church roles.
• church-goers are becoming disenchanted with church-as-usual.
• our communities, even those which contain mega-churches, are not being transformed for Christ.

Reggie McNeal, church consultant and author, says this about people who are no longer attending church: “A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith.”

Simple/House/Organic Churches

This book is about what I have learned on the journey out of traditional church forms into the freedom of organic, simple, house churches.

In Chapter One, we will look at the case for simple/house churches and the vision many are seeing of God’s glory filling the earth through reproducible gatherings of excited Christians.

In Chapter Two, the definition of “church” will be examined, and we will envision what can happen when the limitations of programmed, institutional Christianity are removed.

In Chapter Three, we will look at how the church can be unleashed by focusing on a going-loving-24/7 way of life rather than on the attendance of meetings or events.

In Chapters Four through Nine, we will look at the actual principles and practices that lead us into impactful Christ-centered living and simple, powerful gatherings.

In Chapter Ten, we discuss the heart of following Jesus: intimacy with God.

Finally, in Chapter Eleven, we will consider several common questions including: “What about money?” and, “What about children?”

Don’t Just Read About It

One final comment. This book outlines a way to do life that may be fundamentally different than the way we have learned to walk out our Christian life in the past. This is not something that can be read and then “thought through.” The only way to grasp what God is doing today is to jump in, at whatever level He is leading you to, and swim with today’s currents of the Spirit. My encouragement, above all, is to simply DO whatever He is leading you to do. Go for it! Walking on water only comes to those who get out of the boat.

Comfy Christianity

(I have been rather neglectful of this blog recently because of time spent writing a book.  It's not that I think another book is necessarily needed on simple/house churches.  Rather, we have found that when we travel overseas we often want to leave material behind.  By writing our own material we can print and distribute it inexpensively since there is no cut for the publisher.  The following article comes from one of the chapters of this book).

Comfy Christianity

Shane Claiborne writes: “Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus and deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life.”

In my former life as a pastor, I was a dispenser of comfortable Christianity. I took on the job of creating a “conducive environment” for worship. What this really meant was making a worship event cushy enough that people would want to come and then come back: comfortable seats, coffee, pleasing worship music, and a sermon that holds attention. Unfortunately, regularly attending a comfortable worship event has become the primary marker of what it means to be a Christian today.

In fact, we often replace the miraculous adventure of following Jesus with religious activity. Did I go to church this week? Check it off the list. Did I read my Bible? Check it. Did I pray? Check it. Done! I have completed my Christian activities and am, therefore, a “good Christian.” Religion itself becomes an easy replacement for a daring life lived in partnership with Jesus.

Ironically, Jesus drew a startling line in the sand in response to someone who wanted to follow him: "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head (Matthew 18:20).” Jesus was not a dispenser of comfortable Christianity. Quite the opposite. He taught that followers would live a lifestyle of stepping outside of comfort zones in order to join him in the adventure of extending the life of the kingdom.

Replacing “Come-Structures” with “Go-Structures”

Part of our comfy Christianity has been to focus most of our Christian activities within the four-walls where our friends and other Christians hang out. The result is that we reach out to others by inviting them to come join us where we are.

My fellow-blogger, Hamo, comments on this:

If Jesus were alive today and his mission was still to seek out and save the lost what might he do?
Would he hire a building, set up a sound system, develop a music team, drama team, and then do local letterbox drops advising people that they could come and be part of his church on Sunday?
Was it ever Jesus’ intention that non Christians should seek us and desire to attend our worship events? Or didn’t he say quite clearly that it was his calling, and now ours to seek out and save the lost; to go to their world and enculturate the gospel there. Little Bo Peep evangelism (leave ‘em alone and they’ll come home) is fast running out of steam…

Recapturing the “Going” Church

The church’s true nature is best seen by the life that Jesus modeled: he took the life of the kingdom everywhere that he went—out into the world that he was ministering to. In the process of going, he healed, loved, delivered, and shared good news.

God’s heart is missional at the core as he seeks to recover his children who are lost to him. Jesus came to “seek and to save the lost.” This is not a sidebar. God, because of his love, is a caring, reaching God.

The church is becoming unleashed as Christians are re-discover the daring adventure of “going” and taking the presence (love, life, and power) of God everywhere that they are going. Jesus called us to a lifestyle that would take us out of our comfort zone and into the adventure of miraculous living as we extend ourselves to extend his kingdom.

As Jim Rutz wrote, “The bleachers are beginning to empty as 707 million action-oriented Christians start to pour out onto the playing field and discover the joy and challenge of every-member ministry.”

But What About the Gathering?

In conferences and conversations all over the world about simple/house church, it seems that people usually want to learn first about “how to gather.” This is natural since we have thought about “church” as being mostly about events and gatherings. The problem is that though we can replace larger events and gatherings with smaller ones, our motivation may still be to hang out with our Christian friends and, again, seek to reach others by inviting them to join us.

By focusing first on the gathering we miss the point that Jesus’ focus was first on the going way of life. If gatherings develop that support a dynamic, outward, supernatural lifestyle, then the gatherings will be powerful and relevant. However, if gatherings become a replacement for the true adventure of Jesus-following (which can easily happen), then we will again regress into a comfortable Christianity with little life in it.

Stepping Out Makes Life Worth Living

Most of the truly defining moments of our lives take place because we are willing to step out and trust that God has more for us. Rarely do we find new life by holding back or retreating into our familiar, comfort zones. If this entire book accomplishes nothing else, I hope it will inspire someone to listen and follow a very adventurous God into some new horizons.

Pete Greig wrote:

Christ is not a passive Savior sitting in some cosmic comfy chair. Our God is dynamic; He is a creative force, the ultimate visionary, always on the move, and if we want to know Him and be with Him, we will have to follow Him wherever he is going next.

Beer and Baptism

When we baptize new believers we have taken Neil Cole’s advice which is, “baptize people as soon as possible and as publicly as possible.”  In short, we throw a party.  Not for the already-churched, but for the families and friends of the person being baptized.  In fact, when we have baptized people recently we have many more guests present than people that we already know.

Our last baptism was a prime example, with a twist.  John is a twenty-something who has come out of a background of gangs, prison, and drugs.  He wanted to be baptized.  We told him our standard line: “Great!  Let’s throw a party and invite all of your friends and family to come.  You can share what God has done in your life and we will have a bbq, baptize you, and enjoy the company.”

“Okay,” he said accepting that this must be the way it’s done.  “There is only one problem though.”

“What’s that?”

“If there is no beer, then I am not sure any of my family and friends will come.”

“No problem,” we told him, “bring the beer.”

So he did.  And his family and friends came.  Perhaps 20 or 30 of them.  Nobody got drunk or out of control.  It was a “baptism” after all.  Everyone had a great time.  John shared his story of how God had worked in his life and many new relationships were built with those who came.

While this may unsettle some who read this, if you think it through you may just realize that baptism was, indeed, meant to be a public affair and not something that Christians do behind closed doors.  Furthermore, if the public is invited to participate, then the public can be expected to do… well… whatever the public does.

For me, personally, it was by far one of the best baptisms I have ever attended!

(By the way, his mother-in-law and father-in-law baptized him who are also, currently, his spiritual parents).

H2H National Conference

My wife and I have not missed a House2House conference since the first one we attended five years ago.  We have always found the camaraderie, sharing of stories, and encouragement to be invaluable.

I, honestly, do not know how we would have weathered our transition from traditional-type church to a more organic one without the connections and input we have received from H2H and these conferences.

This year it is in Dallas over Labor Day Weekend.

You can get all of the information here.

Love 'Em and Bless 'Em

One of the unintended consequences of conventional churches and their focus to grow is the subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, message that unreached people are targets that need to be “reached” and “brought in.”

I heard the atheist, Matt Caspar (Jim and Caspar Go to Church), speak at a conference and describe how he asked his new Christian friend, “Am I your friend or your project?”  His question reflects the way Christians have gone about relating to the world around them and the perception that unChristians have as a result.

On the one hand, there is the reality that the Father’s heart is broken for children who are separated from Him.  This is central to a Biblical worldview in which Jesus, who came to seek and save the lost, invites us to join Him in the missional adventure of taking His good news and compassion to a broken, truly-lost world.  God is not simply a God on a mission, He is a missional God at His very loving core.

However, when this message is coupled with an organized church’s “vision to grow”, it is so easy for our passion to love and bless people to take on a religious, weighty sense of performance that comes more out of “earning points” by counting conversions, baptisms, and pew sitters than simply desiring to see people (from a place of love) truly blessed and transformed.

I realize this may seem like splitting hairs, but I think the implications are enormous.  The fact is, Christians do want to love and bless people… genuinely.  There is something in all of us that enjoys the prospect of simply being people who care, love, give, help, bless, assist, and really make a difference in the lives of people around us.  We do not relish the idea of helping people for the sake of manipulating them or trying to get them to do something so that we can feel good about ourselves religiously.  We really do want to love and bless people!

I share this because, for me, moving out of an institutional mindset into more of an organic one has freed me to fully enjoy the missional adventure of loving people.  I am not feeling the pressure of “results” or feeling that institutional “shadow” lurking within me asking about specific, tangible outcomes.  I am finding great joy in seeking and discovering ways to just encourage and love people—no strings attached.

One might ask if that means I have lost my missional intentionality.  I would have to say, that insofar as mission is about truly loving someone and wanting what is best for them, then the answer is “no.”  I might even suggest that, by moving into the realm of real relationships (love, care, a desire to bless) I might even be more “effective” if one is looking at some kind of external indicator.   But that, again, misses the point.  More significant is the joy of being set free to naturally care about people and allowing God to work within that relationship super-naturally as He wills.

The bottom line is that one of the most significant aspects of simple/house church is a generation of believers who can step outside the walls and into the world with the mission of love on their hearts 24/7.

A Lifestyle of Spirit-Led Leadership

The following is from Kent Smith (emailed to me some time back by Mike Steele) on "A Lifestyle of Spirit-Led Leadership."  Kent is a missions professor at Abilene Christian University and has been involved in training leaders of simple churches:

The great soccer player Pele was quoted saying, "I have just three moves . . . but I do them very, very well."
 
That brought to mind one of my favorite quotes from Peter Drucker: "Effective people focus on a few areas where outstanding performance will produce outstanding results."
 
We want to be an expert at:
                        1) Loving, hearing and obeying Jesus.
                        2) Leading others to love, hear and obey Jesus.
                        3) Leading the leaders of others to love hear and obey Jesus.
 
If we do these things well, we believe we will fulfill the Lord's purpose for our relational family and the peoples and cities God calls us to bless and encourage around the world.
 
In light of this . . .
 
We don't assume that the challenge and task we face is first and foremost church planting. We assume rather that the focus must be to find those who are open to God's life and to train them to center their lives in Jesus.
 
We believe that both of these points of ministry will produce something that may be called a church—but only the second will produce a vibrant family of Jesus, that is to say, a healthy community where Jesus is actually embodied in a particular setting.
 
We further assume that mature apostles/missionaries will understand that their work will only be healthy and enduring if it:

1. is centered and built upon the foundation that is Jesus Christ. At a practical level this means the people involved are listening to Jesus and doing what he says.
2. embraces and calls forth the full spectrum of healthy functioning in the body, not merely, for example, the reproductive function. For a body to be healthy and mature all the parts must be free to do their work, including those with other equipping gifts.

The work of mature apostles/missionaries therefore is first and foremost a work of "eduction", of calling forth the latent grace of God in each person and community God calls them to serve.
 
This is a work of profound humility that steadily discovers and submits to the new thing Christ is doing in each person and place as he builds his Church.
 

The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community

Hugh Halter and Matt Smay have written an interesting book on "Creating Incarnational Community."  It's a good read.  Following is not a book review, rather just some notes (and quotes) that I wrote after reading it:

Author Hugh Halter tells this story:

As I’m sitting at a Starbucks in the final week of editing this book, I just took a break to talk to a guy named Don.  Don grew up in a non-practicing Catholic home, watched his father convert to a Seventh-Day Adventist tradition, but only remembers the types of meat he couldn’t eat.  His wife hates the idea of God, and Don’s already expressed his disdain for organized church.  Since he seemed open to talk, I lobbed up this question: "If Christianity was only about finding a group of people to live life with, who shared openly their search for God and allowed anyone, regardless of behavior, to seek too, and who collectively lived by faith to make the world a little more like Heaven, would you be interested?”

“Hell yes!” was his reply.  He continued, “Are there churches like that?”

On belonging to those we are reaching:

In order for us to change the incorrect assumptions that people have about God and his followers… we’ve got to get to the point where they consider us one of them.

On becoming an advocate for people:

When your posture is correct, you’ll be perceived to be an advocate, a person who supports and speaks in favor of or pleads for another…  Instead of drawing a line in the sand and imploring them to ‘get right with God or get left behind,’ we step across from our religious side into their all-too real world and ask how we can help…  To be an advocate means that when people are in need, they know that we’ll be on their team, and that we’ll be there whenever they need us, for just about everything.

On inviting people to join you on your spiritual journey:

Share food… Share life… Listen to them… Share Scripture…

On intentionality around creating incarnational communities:

We put much emphasis on helping people create and participate in incarnational communities.  It’s not just an attempt to start a bunch of small groups all over the city.  We believe that unless people experience [this lifestyle]… and fight for this tangible Kingdom, they won’t grow as disciples of Christ, and Sojourners [the lost] won’t be moving toward God.

Church Planting Movements

David Watson presented a one-day web seminar on church planting movements.  Notes and links to this webinar are below.

Many feel, as I do, that the movement toward simple/house churches has the potential of paving the way for the rapid multiplication of churches, by the hand of God, often referred to as church planting movements.  This wonderful move of God has been referred to as “the spontaneous expansion of the Church…  It asks for no elaborate organization, no large finances, no great numbers of paid missionaries (Roland Allen).”  Yet such a move has the potential of seeing regions and nations transformed.

David Garrison, in his groundbreaking book on church planting movements, offers this hope for such a move of God in North America: “A surprising number of [North American] Christian leaders are adopting a radical new vision that looks surprisingly like other [church planting] movements that we’ve witnessed around the world.”  Garrison closes his book with this encouragement:

It can’t happen here.  This is what they said in Vietnam until they saw it in Cambodia.  It’s what they said in Cambodia before they saw it in China.  It’s what they said in Central America before they saw it in Bogota.  It’s what they said in Sudan before they saw it in Ethiopia.  Perhaps it’s what they are saying where you live.

Some Key Points from David Watson’s Webinar on Church Planting Movements

“Focus on the few to reach the many,” and “Go slow to go fast.”  David’s experience on the mission field caused his organization to question his methods because, in his first few years on the field, he was not producing the numerical growth of other missionaries.  However, David was systematically reaching and discipling a handful of believers who then began to reproduce themselves.  Several years later the result was thousands of churches and reproducing disciples.

“Find the fight people to invest your life into.”  David’s criterion in working with someone is whether or not they are going to invest in others.

“Let the lost lead Bible studies,” and “It’s about discovery not preaching or teaching.”  David has experienced a great deal of success at showing pre-Christians how to do a discovery Bible study that lead them into a process of discipleship.  “Disciple to conversion” rather than “convert to make disciples.”

“Buildings kill church planting.”  Though David is not negative on the overall usefulness of “brick and mortar” churches, he merely reflects on the reality that when God is moving in reproducing disciples among a people group, nothing will slow this process down like building-type churches rather than simple-organic ones.

These sessions are filled with nuggets that are worthy of reflection:

Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4

Who's In Your House Church?

J.D. Payne has done a study of house churches, specifically those that he calls “missional house churches.”  Many interesting tidbits are found in this study.  For example…

Payne identifies four types of people who are typically involved in house churches.  I think looking at these categories of people can be very informative and provoke some excellent conversations about our own simple/house churches.

1. Anti-Establishment Christians
Payne describes this type of believer as having separatist attitudes whose primary identity comes from being “not” like the others.  He quotes Andrew Jones who describes a house church he visited: “A group of disgruntles whose happiness came from the fact they met on Thursday and not Sunday.  In a living room and not a sanctuary.  On a sofa and not a pew…  And yet in all their freedom they managed only to move the church service from a building to a house.”

Payne predicts that the number of anti-established church believers (those whose primary identity comes from this) will continue to grow.  He questions whether this group will have any actual positive impact on the kingdom of God.

2. New-Experience Christians
This group is typical of the consumerism that pervades our culture as they are simply seeking out “the latest and greatest spiritual experience.”  Of course, when the next promise of spiritual experience comes along, they will move along to the next better thing.  “Many of these people will remain involved in house church life only until another novel experience captures their attention.”

3. Hurting Christians
“Many believers who have had significant involvement in traditional church life have been wounded psychologically, sexually, emotionally, spiritually, or physically, and many times a combination of these areas.  Many have been hurt by other Christians and have ‘given up’ on the established church.  Some see house churches as the answer to their problems, and many house churches see themselves primarily as a place for such hurting believers.  As many believers turn to house churches for therapeutic reasons, house churches will continue to increase.”

My own long-term experience with these type of church communities (traditional and non-traditional) is that it can be very difficult for them to avoid taking on enabling roles and provide a too-comfortable place for hurting Christians to continue to hurt.

4. Missional Christians and New Believers
Payne’s final category fits into the purpose of his book: to encourage house churches to be missional.  His hope is that house churches will tap into their incredible potential to be salt and light throughout the world.  He says Christians who fall into this category “are not satisfied with and… do not desire transfer growth.  Not only do they know the commands of the Lord, but they also go to the fields that are ripe for the harvest…  They will be on mission for Christ in their Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the earth.”

Payne envisions these types of churches reaching new believers who follow the same pattern, paving the way for movements of reproducing Christians and house churches.

These categories may not be so clear cut.  Obviously hurting Christians can, even while walking through healing, have a wonderful missional impact on others.  New-experience Christians can “grow up” and find a new level of mature living for Christ in the world.  Nevertheless, I think it can be instructive to evaluate where our groups or gatherings are at and where we would like to see them.