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!