Churchless Christian

RISK MANAGEMENT
This week I went to a churches Risk Management seminar sponsored by EIG-Ansvar (a great insurance company). It was a good seminar, covering areas of risk such as
- buildings - insurance, replacement, alarms, alarm monitoring, fire protection, fire evacuation plans etc
- equipment - how to stop your flash sound system & projector getting stolen, insurance etc
- public liability insurance
- how to stop child molesters getting access to the children in the childrens program, police screening, 6 month delay before new members work in the children or youth programs etc etc
These are all valid concerns for a normal church ... but as I was listening to this wise advice, it suddenly clicked .... we don;t have to worry about any of these things ....
With a small church meeting in homes, we don't have these problems ..... with no church building, no church equipment, no childrens program etc .... we don;t need risk management seminars, or to spend $ ,000's on buildings, equipment, alarms, insurance etc. A simple church is definitely much simpler .....

ORGANIC CHURCH by Neil Cole
I've just finished reading this new book - it was great. I took a bunch of notes/quotes of things that stood out to me .....you might find them interesting ... (get the book & read it ....)

The Growth of Neils network of organic churches

Yr 1 2000 18 churches planted
Yr 2 2001 52 " " " "
3 106 " " " "
4 200 " " " "
5 400 " " " "
6 800+ " " " "

“We want to lower the bar of how church is done and raise the bar or what it means to be a disciple” If church is simple enough that everyone can do it and is made up of people who take up their cross and follow Jesus at any cost, the result will be churches that empower the common Christian to do the uncommon works of God. Churches will become healthy, fertile and reproductive.

The conventional church has become so complicated and difficult to pull off that only a rare person who is a professional can do it every week. Many people feel that to lower the bar of how church is done is close to blasphemous because the Church is Jesus’ expression of the Kingdom on earth. Because church is not a once-a-week service but the people of God’s family, what they have actually done is the opposite of their intention. When church is so complicated, its function is taken out of the hands of the common Christian and placed in the hands of a few talented professionals. This results in a passive church whose members come and act more like spectators than empowered agents of god’s kingdom.’

‘The gospel says ‘Go’, but our church buildings say ‘stay’. The gospel says ‘seek the lost’, but our churches say ‘let the lost seek the church’. Quoting Howard Snyder (The Problem of Wineskins)

'Someone once said that we shape our buildings and then they shape us. It is not just a fact that buildings hold back growth; they also hold back our understanding of the Kingdom of God. Our minds can be held captive behind four walls as easily as our actions are.'

'The church is much more than a one-hour service held one day a week. The only time worship and service are put together in Scripture has nothing to do with sound systems, pews, sermons or worship bands. It is a 24/7 expression of Christ’s life in us. In Romans 12:1-2 Paul writes that we are to present our own bodies to be His temple. …… When you imagine the amount of resources, energy and time invested in a service held only one day a week, it is remarkable. With all the importance placed on this event, you would expect there to be a lot of scriptural directives to make sure people get it right. But if you search all of the New Testament looking for commands or injunctions having to do with this important weekly event, you will find them sadly missing. Instead you will find verses, chapters and entire books that speak of how we are to live together as a spiritual family. You will find commands & injunctions to serve and worship, but not just one day a week.

'William Law was an 18th Century English writer and mystic who made a formative impression upon John Wesley and the Methodist church planting movement. He made this observation many years ago, which flew in the face of his contemporaries, just as it probably does today: “It is very observable that there is not one command in all the Gospel for public worship; and perhaps it is a duty that is least insisted upon in Scripture of any other. The frequent attendance at it is never so much as mentioned in all the New Testament, whereas that religion or devotion which is to govern the ordinary actions of our life is to be found in almost every verse of Scripture.”

"As passionate as I am about church planting, I found it perplexing that the Bible never instructs us to start churches. There is not a single command in all of the Bible to initiate churches. The reason is quite clear: we are not to start churches, but instead to make disciples who make disciples. That is actually the way churches are started, at least in the New Testament. Jesus gave us instruction that is on the molecular level of kingdom life, for a very good reason: it works. Trying to multiply large, highly complex organisms without multiplying on the micro level is impossible. Ladies, imagine if you had to give birth to full-grown adults ….."

"George Patterson, an experienced missionary & father to current thinking about spontaneous multiplication of movements suggests that what he calls obedience-orientated education is necessary to see spontaneous reproduction. He lists 7 NT commands that all disciples must obey as the starting point of following Christ.

Repent, believe & receive the HS
Be baptized
Love God & neighbour
Celebrate the Lord’s supper
Pray
Give
Disciple others

By Wolfgang Simson (Friday Fax)

Almost exactly two years ago, I attended a seminar about the prophetic
and apostolic in Toronto, Canada. It was held in the Toronto Airport
Christian Fellowship, the internationally renowned ex-Vineyard church
led by John and Carol Arnott. Starting in 1994, millions of people
gathered there to experience "the Toronto blessing". Up to 5,000 people
attended the almost daily evening services. Observers spoke of one of
the longest-lasting revivals in history, and when I wrote a Friday Fax
report in 1999, they had just celebrated the 3 millionth visitor.

On this November evening in 2003, I sat in the empty hall, waiting for
the seminar to begin in one of the upper rooms. (The seminar was only
held there for logistical reasons.) A question started to nag at me as I
watched the church's musicians routinely setting up their instruments
for the evening service, to which only 20 people showed up, lost in the
large hall. Where did all those millions of people go? And where did God
go? So I asked him. "How do you see what happened here, God, and why it
stopped? What does the church scene look like from your perspective?"
Over the next few minutes, I experienced that which
prophetically-inclined people would call an 'open vision': not only did
I see a film in my Spirit, but felt myself a participant, in the midst
of the film. For many, this may be an astonishing new perspective on how
God is moving right now:

The three booths
I saw a long line of newly-saved people entering the Kingdom of God.
Everything was new for them, so there were three booths set up for them
to pass through. At the first booth, they would sign up for God's army
and pledge total loyalty to God. From then on, they were under orders,
no longer their own, and were given a uniform and boots. At the second
booth, they were given a sword, and at the third, a scythe - a
harvesting tool. Astonishingly, only around one in a thousand of the new
arrivals even went to the first booth; almost everyone went to the
second stand, and almost everyone also ignored the third stand. Almost
nobody went to all three stands, as God explicitly intended.

The Irregulars
Everyone hurried directly to a huge plain full of people and activity.
Under an enormous dust cloud thrown up by the many feet, small groups
quickly formed and were joined by the new arrivals. These countless
groups made themselves banners, flags and uniforms decorated with very
creative logos and emblems. It was an incredible colourful confusion of
thousands of small militia. In other words, an irregular army. The chaos
was complete; some blew for attack, others for retreat. Some acted out
bizarre rituals, others sat around the camp fire laughing. Some
practised sword fighting, others gathered their weapons and spoke of
peace. Some of the groups even attacked each other. It was a scene of
hectic activity, but without any recognisable order. Generals cooked,
cooks were pilots, pilots dug trenches. I was horrified, and saw clearly
that this army would never win any battle. Everyone was terribly busy,
but all the zealous action came to nothing in the long term.

The Angels
Suddenly someone shouted "The Angels of God are coming!" They were
right: some way off, I could make out a huge number of God's white
warriors; powerful, almost larger-than-life angels. The people broke out
in an ear-shattering shout and cheer, "Hallelujah, the angels are
coming. At last, it's about to begin!" The cheering was indescribable.
But the excitement slowly faded, and the shouts of 'hallelujah' died
out. Finally, silence descended. Then I looked at the angels more
carefully. Standing close together, they looked like a police cordon in
front of a crowd of hooligans, with set, sad faces. Step by step the
white phalanx slowly approached the motley crowd. Consternation spread,
and some of the banners began to retreat. Pale-faced, the people
stumbled backwards, shocked and unable to comprehend what was happening.
In their shock, some even lost their swords and pennants. The mass of
people were driven back into a large valley without exits as the rows of
angels slowly but deliberately advanced. The people were finally trapped
in the valley like sheep. Some began to cry, others called out to God
for mercy, yet others called for help. Most were simply silent.

Taken at Wederholm about 20 minutes away. The bird is a Tui, I had a crappy zoom on the camera.

Yesterday my two oldest sons gave me a lesson in discipleship. If you have read this weeks blog entry you will see that some of our community banded together to build us a vegetable garden on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning the boys ran inside to excitedly announce that they too had started a garden and wanted to use their4 pocket money to buy some plants. They took me down the overgrown bank and showed me four small holes the size of bread and butter plates. “Look at the garden we’re building” they said excitedly. I made enthusiastic noises, and then suggested that they use an old bath near by as their garden. I told them how to fill it with good soil and move it to a place with good sunlight. It was then their turn to make enthusiastic noises at me. After that they completely ignored my coaching and cheerfully continued to dig out little holes sporadically in the bank. Getting Mum involved they raced off to the Garden Centre where they purchased a random selection of flowers, some aquarium stones and their biggest purchase of all, a garden gnome! Not being able to cope with what appeared to be wonton destruction of the outdoors I avoided going outdoors for the rest of the day. When I did finally go and have a look I was taken aback. The boys had put one flower in each of the random holes. Around each hole they had placed the aquarium stones. And of course to crown it all off, there sat the gnome to greet the onlookers! It was a garden that was unique, beautiful, and completely owned by a very satisfied 7 and 10 year old.

Of course I realised the analogies to our Christian lives are enormous in this event and I won’t bore you with them all. The big thing that I felt reminded of is that each one of us is a new creation in Christ. We are a new design unlike any other believer. In the spiritual realm many of us have been turned into a classic rectangular garden with nice lines of plants but that is not unique. God called us not to be bricks in the wall but living stones perfectly fit together through Jesus Christ.

We are made by God to be like Designer garments, one off creations, not something yanked off the rack at the Warehouse where it sits with many other exactly the same garments.

God has called us not to make clones of what we think a believer should be and look like, but to take our hands off and release those around us to become the unique new creation they were called to be before the beginning of creation. We may not understand or recognise the living stone they have become as it is so different to our own but hopefully when we stand before the throne that simple step of letting those around us go and be who they are called to be will be credited to us as righteousness.

I am off now to water the lovely square garden with nice rows of vegetables made by adults (the bricks!), and the designer garden made by kids (living stones).

Have a Great Weekend

NEWSPAPER GARDEN
I came home this evening to discover a vegetable garden had appeared complete with soil and plants out of no where from when I had left home this morning. Two ladies (one a neighbor and one up in the Kaipara harbour 30 minutes away)we are connected through by going house 2 house as Christian believers decided to put in a vegetable garden for us. They turned up with kids this morning and worked hard out all day to put in a garden where weeds and lumps of concrete were early this morning. Now we have growing Tomatos, two types of bean, lettuces, cucumber, courgettes etc.
THis is real community, where a group of people giving some of there time can really impact others. Its the power of 2 or 3 gathered. What an incrediable blessing. I wondered around the house just now to see that they had barked our other gardens as well, and the property is looking top notch. Thank you God for true community

This pic was taken when I was 11kgs heavier

There is a young couple who lived in the Northland region of New Zealand. This area is one of the poorest regions in New Zealand and has a high Maori population. This couple who were in their late 20’s, are called Ray and Stephanie. Ray worked in the bush and together with Stephanie had no understanding of God and lived pretty wild lives. One day Stephanie went out to the garden shed while Ray was at work. As she was in the shed a box fell off one of the shelves. Out of the box fell a Bible. For some reason Stephanie picked up the Bible and began to read it. As she sat in the shed reading, something happened, and without fully understanding what she was doing she committed herself to becoming a follower of Jesus. As she was wondering what to do next, she felt challenged to read the same passages of the Bible she had been reading to Ray when he arrived home from the bush. Stephanie felt scared as she was afraid of Ray, who would often come home drunk from work. Ray arrived home and instantly realised that something had happened. “What’s happened to you?” he asked. Stephanie, despite her fear, began to read the passages from the Bible to Ray. At first Ray got very angry but as she started to read, there was an immediate softening in Ray’s appearance. After some time Ray said,” I really feel like I should get baptised now like those guys in the Bible.” Stephanie agreed. Not knowing what else to do, they drove down to the closest beach and baptised each other. As they were baptised the Holy Spirit came upon them in power, and broke the addictions of Drugs, Alcoholism and Nicotine instantly from over their lives. Within a year of that power encounter with God they have seen their lives turned around and over ten friends and family become disciples of Jesus Christ.

As a young pastor in his late 20’s I thought my ministry was ‘out there’ and different. One of the hallmarks of my ministry was being a pioneer in new technologies and cutting edge programs. I would sometimes think how different my ministry was compared to my Fathers or Grandfathers had been. In 1998 soon after I had just planted a church, my Grandfather died. He had a long and distinguished ministry starting at the age of 20 and finishing well into his 70’s. My Grandfather had been a Minister in the Presbyterian and congregational churches in England, Wales and New Zealand and seen distinguished service in the 2nd World War in the RAF. While attending the funeral I had the chance to read through some of his papers. I came across a series of typed monthly letters he had written to his congregation members in the late 1950’s. I began to read the first letter and you could have knocked me over with a feather. The content of the letter was virtually the same in content as an email I had sent previously to my church members. The exhortation to press forward was the same; the discussion of programs and the need for volunteers the same. The overriding theme in both his letter and my email was the subtle emphasis on sacrificing now for a vision of tomorrow. As I looked through the rest of his typed monthly letters to his congregation I realised that for all the changes and innovations I had undertaken in my church basically nothing had changed compared to my Grandfathers churches (and that was with me being in a Pentecostal church, compared to a traditional mainline church). The cake was exactly the same only the icing had changed. The reason this bothered me is that if I continue to do what my forefathers have done, I will continue to get the same as what they got. Being honest The Kingdom of God has not been growing in New Zealand since 1950 and is likely decreasing. If I don’t change what I am doing (and I mean more than programs or music in church or changing denominational structures), why should things be any different for my generation? My cry is to see the Kingdom of God to advance in a significant way such as was seen in the book of Acts. To have even a chance of seeing that, I need to make a change.

I remembered a remark by Lewis, who drew a distinction between communicating with a society that hears the gospel for the first time and one that has embraced and then largely rejected it.

A person must court a virgin differently than a divorcée, said Lewis. One welcomes the charming words; the other needs a demonstration of love to overcome inbuilt skepticism.

I thought, too, how tempting it can be—and how distracting from our primary mission—to devote so many efforts to rehabilitating society at large, especially when these efforts demonize the opposition. (After all, neither Jesus nor Paul showed much concern about cleaning up the degenerate Roman Empire.) As history has proven, especially in times when church and state closely mingle, it is possible for the church to gain a nation and in the process lose the kingdom.

One of the hardest habits (or addictions?) it seems for an organic believer is to break free of our liturgical behaviour when we gather together. As soon as we get together we automatically assume there must be some praise and worship songs sung. We often expect that we should open in prayer, have a time of prayer. The big part of our liturgy is that a ‘special’ person chosen for the day shares ‘the word of God’. We quickly compartmentalise everything and expect it to be over in less than two hours. When we are so used to doing ‘church’ we quickly behave and do what we did in our home group / cell group settings. The fact is many organic believers and churches once again slip into institutional church behaviour except now its being done on a smaller less effective scale!

Wolfgang Simson points out that the liturgy of the church service hardly differs between denominations, whether Pentecostal, Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical etc. He also points out that it is not based remotely on the New Testament but on what they did in the Synagogue which was an invention of man not God (remember there is not one single prophecy or mention by God for the Jews to establish synagogues in the Old testament). And as Wolfgang who is Jewish points out if you go into a synagogue today you will see basically the same liturgy.

So what should you do when you gather together? Well you need to work that out for your selves. I suggest you read 1st Corinthians and see if the themes in that book are being reflected in your own groups. I ask this of myself as I write these words.

1. Are people coming ready to share a prophecy, a song, a testimony, a revelation from the word of God.

5. The great thing with attempting to model your gatherings on the New Testament is that you can use the NT as a manual in guiding what you do. The Bible with the hand of Jesus Christ is your final authority not men’s ideas.

It would be good to process our thoughts, feelings, insights and hopes for what we experienced at Papamoa. Some of the questions I heard were "When is the next meeting? Where do we go for more? It seems we have only just begun to "till the soil". The potential for connecting people who have a heart for unity and building up the Body of Christ seems to be waiting for those who "hear the call" to put their hand to the plough.

From these very ranks of those who (it would seem) are unwanted by the church, God, I believe, will raise up shepherds after his own heart and in a touch of divine irony, turn these rejects into a mighty army...just like he did with the outcasts he drew to King David (who "became greater than those who marched with Saul"). Called not to fight King Saul but the powers of darkness that troubled Israel which the armies of Saul had failed to engage, contend with, and defeat in battle.

As hard as it may be for people to believe, many of God's people are held captive (by church programmes) within the church, rather than Sunday, the Lord's Day
being a day when God's people come to rest together before the Lord and worship him. A day of refreshing and encouragement, a day of celebrating together the good things God has done, a day of liberty where everyone can speak, share, testify or bring a song before launching again into the work of building the Kingdom of God.

Malachi paints a beautiful picture of this day of release (Mal 4:2) 'But for you who revere my name, the Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in his wings and you will go out and LEAP like calves released from the stall'. God builds churches with no walls, so that we might build his kingdom and become His Body. Follow THIS JESUS with the desire to "lift HIM up" above all else and his promise to us is FOLLOW ME AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN.

If you are already living your faith in Christ outside the normal paradigm, I am sure the question of whose covering you are under, or who you are accountable to has already been discussed. I am not going to tackle this issue today (I will tackle it in another letter) but will briefly point out that I question the Biblical validity of the question, and would like to point out that these concepts have not been particularly effective in keeping Christians, churches or denominations ‘safe’.

So how do we who are outside organised Christianity stay 100% safe? Well, the fact is that we can’t. If the Kingdom of God is expanding and fruit is being borne, problems will most likely occur. We just have to look at the New Testament to see the proof of that. Jesus had not left earth long before wrong doctrines and behaviours had started creeping in amongst the churches. Jesus said that weeds would grow with the wheat. One of the negatives of how we have done church is that we have been obsessed with eliminating all risks (e.g. moral and heretical), and have sacrificed forward momentum as a result. A classic example of this is how many churches deal with new believers. Most churches do not allow new Christians any responsibilities until they are considered ‘safe’, even though Western statistics tell us that a Christian bears more fruit in the first six months of their walk than in the rest of their Christian life. The New Testament shows new believers being given responsibilities quickly. When we did CPM training with the Southern Baptists, they called this ‘safety’ issue the ‘Clean Stable Syndrome’. Their point was that if you are going to have livestock in the stable, there is going to be some unpleasant stuff on the floor. If you want a nice clean stable you cannot fill it with life. The stable cannot be used for the purpose it was created for, if it has to stay squeaky clean! It is the same with the Kingdom of God. Where God’s life abounds, the devil will lurk!

Having said that, I would like to list five things we encourage our groups to do, to help maintain a healthy and life-giving faith, and Church.

1. MUTUAL SUBMISSION
Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. (Eph 5:21)
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. (1 Peter 5:5)

Though the Bible is silent on these concepts of ‘covering’ and ‘accountability’, it does tell us that we are to be mutually submitted to one another. This is difficult to maintain in a larger group, but easier in a small group like a church in the home. In covering and accountability the reality is you are placing yourself under somebody else, when we should be under Christ only. Mutual submission is that we humble ourselves before each other. When we love each other, we have an obligation to help each other get the most out of Christ and life. To illustrate this point,

STORY
Last year I made a decision to leave a certain organisation because of some behaviour I saw being exhibited. I shared what I was going to do with the friends we gather with. A couple of days later one of them turned up to help me fix some fences. While we were working he casually mentioned that he had found it interesting what I had said about the behaviours I had seen in this organisation I had decided to leave. He casually mentioned that he had seen those same behaviours expressed in my own life towards other people. As I was thinking and struggling with what he said, he also mentioned that perhaps before I left the organisation, I should go around and put things right with my own people in regards to those same behaviours”. This was said in love, by someone who in the past had invested in my life. Obviously I was convicted and did as he said or I would not have told this story, but that is a perfect example of brothers being submitted one to another.

2. GROUP DECISION MAKING
Following on from mutual submission, we encourage all decisions, all prophecy and all beliefs to be held up for examination by the group. When one person comes forward with a revelation or truth from Scripture, it is not automatically accepted by the group, but is discussed with our bibles open, and unless there is a conviction by the group the point is denied or left to the side for that time. This works fantastically, and is so scriptural. I have seen several times now where somebody comes and shares their ideas inspired from the scriptures, only for them to be shelved or ‘remoulded’, as the whole group opens their Bibles and uses their collective research to come up with another answer, or a more balanced perspective than the one individual ‘revelation’. In fact, this was my own experience with some ideas of mine a month ago! We are all equal in Christ, and as vulnerable and human as each other.

3. BECOMING A SELF – FEEDING CHRISTIAN
When you are in trouble, in difficulty, uncertain about the future, who do you go to? Is it the person who brought you to Christ, your cell leader, your Pastor? When we need help or guidance the first person we should turn to is Christ. We need to first talk to him personally and read his word, before relying on others for guidance and help. This is the foundation of the ‘self feeding Christian’. We need to learn how to personally open the word of God, and be able to take and apply truth to our daily lives. Often we automatically turn to other sources such as people or books, before we turn to God. Sometimes we do get to a place where others feed and refresh us, but we first need to know how to feed ourselves. A self – feeding follower is always safer than an ignorant needy follower, (regardless of the structure they are ‘under, or what forms they have signed!!)

4. TEACHING NEW DISCIPLES TO BECOME SELF – FEEDERS QUICKLY
We encourage believers to quickly disciple new believers to become self – feeders. In fact recently I observed a new believer become a self – feeder before they became a disciple! I believe that one of the barriers that are unspoken about in NZ towards people evangelising and effectively discipling new converts, is the idea that they will be responsible for the new believer for a long time, yet the NT does not demonstrate this. We do not want co-dependent relationships, we want Christ dependent relationships, and quickly! So how do we go about establishing these habits? Well there is no right or wrong way. We have a couple of things we sometimes do with new believers but here is not the place to go into it. A new disciple that is beginning to read the word of God for themselves to help illuminate their path will help reduce heretical behaviour.

5. LEARNING FROM OUR FOREFATHERS
This may sound like heresy itself but the Bible is not the ‘be all and end all’ of our faith. In fact most of what we consider to be the fundamentals of our faith have been handed down through the ages by our forefathers. A good example of this is the trinity. The trinity is not specifically mentioned in the New Testament but our forefathers in the faith declared this to be what the scriptures were saying and pointing to. In fact the orthodoxy of our faith is not defined by certain scriptures but by the creeds that our forefathers wrote down to clarify what were the foundational truths of the Christian faith, and what was apostasy. These creeds were nearly always written as a reaction to heresy in the church in what ever form. We too, by learning, memorising and understanding these ancient creeds such as the Apostles creed, Nicene Creed or even the 1644 London Confession of the Anna Baptists (which you can read at www.ntrf.org/confession.html) helps define for us what are the fundamentals of our faith. Both my 9 and 7 year old sons can say the Apostles creed by memory, and understand that anything they hear or read that opposes these declarations is on shaky ground. You have to admit that this is about as safe as you are going to get!