It has been now a year and a half since we as a family changed from attending Institutional Church to attempting to live our lives as the Church. Reflecting back on the last 18 months I have written down the 13 things I have loved most from becoming the Church and going House to House.

1. Sunday has become a day of rest instead of a day of busyness. This was perhaps accentuated for me, being a minister in my former life. Being able to sleep in on a Sunday morning, read the paper and have a leisurely breakfast is pure bliss. It has become a day of resting, eating and spending quality time with other believers.

2. Having the time and flexibility to make a difference in my community and build real relationships with those who are not yet believers. I have so much more time now that I am not involved with church programming.

3. Being freed from the costliness of running Institutionalised Church. It has been awesome to see others (and experience ourselves) the power of being able to pour our giving into things such as the poor amongst us, our community and missions instead of structures and salaries. To realise that being the church costs nothing.

4. Being able to lose the separation of the sacred (church world) and the secular (work and school world) that I once had. My religious behaviours are no longer such a big a block to being a testimony to Christ as it once was.

5. Being able to meet more people both believers and non believers from diverse backgrounds as I now belong to a church without walls instead of before where I was surrounded by walls of my own making that defined who belonged and who did not.

6. Seeing the Priesthood of Believers in action for the first time in my Christian walk. No one being paid to lead but every member sharing, ministering and making decisions.

7. Learning to rest and trust in God like Mary. Starting to learn to do nothing and wait. Letting go and letting God. It’s made me realise that to function in Institutional church I was a real Martha (and you needed to be to make it work). No striving just thriving.

8. The New testament becoming more relevant (especially the Epistles) as a guide to life and church practice. As someone said to me once, the Epistles are written with the assumption that you were meeting as a small intimate number so it is far more relevant and un-needing of interpretation if you are gathering as a small group.

9. Spending more time with my wife and children instead of always being out at meetings, music practices and cell groups. Learning to go on a spiritual journey together in God as a family.

10. Seeing how different those who have become believers are in this way of being the church compared to those we saw come to Christ in the Institutionalised way. It’s hard to explain but they are different. They have grown faster and more confidently. They know the Bible, they are not reliant on others or programs to flourish. It is common for them to quickly start contributing to the life of the group, to be taking the good news out into there relationship connections. In a sentence they go to God when in need instead of a person.

11. Being able to see how the five fold ministry can and does work in this organic setting, when it never could or would in the institutionalised settings of the traditional paradigm. This has been incredibly liberating for me who always felt that I was a square peg in a round hole in the old days.

12. Being able to enter different homes and experience the ups and downs of others lives as we have gone house to house. Getting beyond the masks which people wear.

13. Seeing the birthing of a ministry of food. Constantly having people gather around our table (my wife is a wonderful cook). Constantly gathering to eat in other peoples homes. Eating, partying, and drinking all different kinds of wine from around New Zealand and the world. Seeing more and more people installing spa pools for me to relax in, Praise the lord!

LET GO AND LET GOD