Churchless Christian

Kim and I are having a night at www.waipunahotel.co.nz tonight while Dad and Mum look after the kids. This is our first night away in three years

Okay so this isn't about House Church, but it it sacrilege! The Herald is saying today that School kids under new health guidelines will only be allowed meat pies once a term! http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10431631 This is a travesty for N.Z's national food! I have lived my life on meat pies from the service station, and I would be half the person I am today if I had stopped having the old mince and cheese pie.
In fact the my local service station attendant complained that I was damaging his business when I stopped buying pies for a few months when I was going to the gym, forcing me to take up again the mighty pie for the the National economic interest.

Conservative Christians are marching against the Anti Smacking bill this week
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10431333 I am sitting it out being a Christian Socialist, but I'm ready to join in any planned marches about saving that Kiwi classic the Meat Pie.

Now here's a hot tip for the education bureaucrats in this country who set the curriculums for all our public schools: the Bible should be designated a textbook.
read the rest here http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=35&objectid=10431362
by Garth George

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.

I've just been reviewing the page hits on this blog and noticed that the article 13 Birth Pangs from two years ago has had the highest number of page views.

13 Birth Pangs

I believe that something significant is happening within the body of Christ in N.Z and around the world. Because it is so underground, organic and uncontrolled, it is very hard to understand the size and depth of what is happening, but something is happening. I do believe that there are clear birth pangs announcing the imminent arrival of new wine skins, new forms, renewed mindsets and a renewed church. I have believed for a long time (long before I even grasped the concepts of what we are doing now), that the church that I have grown up in, led, and expressed my faith in could not go on indefinitely, pretending that huge incongruities did not exist between what we declared and what we practiced.

A PERSONAL CONVICTION (could be wrong!)

Is that we are beginning to see believers in Christ truly becoming new wine, and because of this the old wine skins are being broken. After a time of chaos new wine skins that we cannot even comprehend will emerge. I believe we have already entered a time of massive upheaval in the church as we know it, and that God will use it to build his church and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

13 SIGNS OF CHANGE

1. A significant number of New Zealand Christians have stopped attending institutional churches but are continuing to follow Jesus Christ.

2. A significant number of New Zealand Christians are regularly moving their commitment from institutional church to institutional church (suggestions of over 70% of an average evangelical church a decade according to some surveys) on a regular basis without moving geographically.

3. A growing number of New Zealand Christians are attending and using the programs of more than one institutionalised church and yet do not identify with any one of the church’s they attend.

4. Significant numbers of Churched Christians that have been in church longer than five years have to some degree a level of frustration and concern in their relationship with their local church.

read the rest here http://everyhomeachurch.blog.co.uk/2005/05/04/13_birth_pangs

I just listened to a pod-cast on National Radio NZ about a cutting edge search engine designed in N.Z. It is a radically different approach to the concept of search engines.

Basically you design your own search bot and continue to feed it the information you want from the web. The more you work together, the more it understands exactly what you want. The bot continually trawls the web delivering a report, daily, weekly or monthly on its results. The more information you feed it and making sure you answer its questions the better the info. In the end it saves a huge amount of time sifting for info.

My bot is currently trawling for info on Simple Church / house church / emergent in the South Pacific and delivering a report every 24 hours.

It's experimental so it is glitchy. Over 35000 spy bots have been designed already. For more info go to http://www.searchbots.net

"It’s not a bad thing to take a break from Sunday Morning meetings. It’s important that people feel wide-open spaces, room for their faith to breathe. And there’s no deadline for going back to anything (i.e.; the organised church).”

“Realize that not everything about the organised church is wrong, but appreciate that everything is back on the table for discussion.”

“Organised religion is putting these definitions on what church is, but the Bible never said, ‘You have to go somewhere every Sunday.’ Instead, church was meant to be a fluid, interactive, ongoing lifestyle.”

“Find a spiritually mature person (of the same sex) and let them pastor you. The corporate and men’s group sub cultures already model this mentoring paradigm. Why can’t the body of Christ? (Jesus did!)”

"Jaded believers have been boxed in, and they’re searching for the freedom God intended all along. The institution has squelched a lot of great things God has built into his people.”

“It’s okay to ask risky questions; it’s okay to disagree with a pastor sometimes. We have to give people the ability to think, ‘maybe what I think is right for a change, and the pastor is wrong.’”

“The institution makes people afraid of possibly stepping into heresy, without the covering of a church or a pastor, but being in an institutional church can actually make you more susceptible to heresy because your taking what other people - or one man / women – says is the truth, hook, line, and sinker.”

“Parents, instead of abdicating the spiritual teaching of their children to Sunday school, may find themselves stepping up to the plate.”

Taken from Jaded by AJ Kiesling (Baker Books, U.S.A, 2004) pg 100

(“For years I’ve tried to put my finger on it – the reasons why I left the professional pastorate. And you know, more than anything, I think it’s this: I left my first love.The reality is that much of what we call ministry today is really administration. It’s about adding things – programmes, strategies, and rules. In my 22 years as a pastor, I often administered more than I ministered, if that makes sense. I’ve come to see that I was an add-minister more than a minister…Nevertheless, it seems I’m a pastor again. My friend mat and his wife, Krista, are pastors as well. And so are my wife and my five year old son, Alden. Yup, we’re all pastors at church.No really. That’s what it’s called: Church. Not first Presbyterian. Not Solomon’s porch or Scum of the earth or some other cool post-modern name. It’s just called church – and it meets, well, when eve we want it to meet…We’re breaking pretty much every conventional church planting rule, I know. Why? Because we want to be of service, not just a service… But I would be lying if I said it was easy to let go of the programme: it’s not… I’ve worried about my children. What will happen to them without the safety of an administered Sunday school programme? And yet, time and time again, they’re wowing me with their grasp of the gospel and their ability to understand the heart and soul of Jesus. Will they miss flannel graphs? Maybe. Only time will tell. I guess.” (Spencer Burke, founder of www.theooze.com )
house church simple church emergent

Must be time for some Simple Church Spirituality this coming Easter. My stomach spirit is yearning for a get together!

I have set up a poll at Out of Church Christians to see what the most popular name for "Out of Church" Gatherings could be. Feel free to vote.

Take the Quiz below by clicking on 'Sword Drill' and leave a comment on how well you have done. It's easy if I can get 100% after reading only Ecclesiastes for 2 years (it's the only book that makes sense at the moment!)

Quiz was written by http://www.steeplesandpeople.com/blog/

Some sociological theory's suggest that what we most fear is what helps explain us. http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2153 looks at the fears of Evangelicals and Liberals and then looks at the fear of the Emerging Church. I have pasted a snippet below because I think it sums up the fears of Organic Church perfectly.

So, what is the emerging movement House Church Movement afraid of? This might surprise you, but I think I’ve got this one nailed. What will surprise you is that it is not theology — Liberal or Evangelical. The emerging movement House Church, no matter how many times I say this it doesn’t seem to convince many, is not a movement rooted in a set of doctrines. It is theological, but not the way either Liberalism or Evangelicalism are. It’s biggest fear is centralization of power and authority... No, what the emerging movement House Church Movement fears is institutions, bureaucracy, control, and centralizing authority in a local pastor, a local presbytery, or a denomination.

Have you ever joined the gym? Have you ever tried to follow a certain diet? Like you, my answer is a resounding yes many times over! The media is constantly reminding us that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic and that the solution is to basically lose weight. For those like myself who fit into the 'big' category, the most obvious way to go about shedding those excess kilograms is to join a gym and follow a diet formula like the Atkins diet or weight watchers etc. The media constantly presents us with success stories of people who are transforming their lives by following a certain diet or going to a certain gym.

Of course there are some home truths that the health industry does not present. The first is that it is very easy for people to lose weight. The second is that over 90% of people rapidly put the weight back on. The third and most under reported fact is that fluctuating weight puts enormous stress on the human body and is one of the most effective methods of reducing one's life span, right up there with obesity in fact! Several weeks ago, there was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the results of a long term study on that very rare group of people who successfully lost and then kept off their weight permanently. The researchers made a surprising discovery in their observation of those who had 'succeeded in maintaining their weight loss.The researchers found that only 14% of those who had succeeded had followed a diet / exercise program or method such as Atkins, weight watchers etc etc. On the other hand 86% joined no gym or followed no weight loss program. The key to permanent weight loss was not the right plan, or knowledge of nutrition and exercise, but being self motivated. Self motivation overcame all obstacles and ignorance. Self motivation often came from an event that shook the person out of the status quo they were living in and motivated them forward.

Like the health business, we Christians are obsessed with finding successful program's and systems to see more people come to be followers of Jesus Christ read the rest of the article here
http://everyhomeachurch.blog.co.uk/2005/09/28/weight_loss_is_like_salvation~205047

Just found this sweet honey of a reflection about Tithing by a Kiwi (is a Chatham Islander a Kiwi?) One of the best things I've read on the topic (and Ive read heaps!) Click on the link below
http://drmarkk.blogspot.com/2007/02/should-christians-tithe.html

Daylight Saving finished on the weekend, and an icy wind arrived from the Antarctic. Time to say good bye to BBQ's and salads and say hullo to soups and curries for House Church gatherings.

We attend school, but we do not attend a hospital. I don’t believe we attend work either. We do not attend a pub or a bar but we attend a music concert. We also attend a movie premier. We attend a hockey game, but if I play hockey, I can not say I’m attending the hockey game – nor do I attend the arena.

Jesus said that He had sheep of other folds (John 10:16). He also repeatedly told Peter to “Feed my lambs”. “Take care of my sheep”. “Feed my sheep”. (John 21:15-17). So the question begs to be asked: Why does the church have a roof over her head while there are people left out in the cold of a spiritual wilderness?

The above comment was left at http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=1619 . I first saw it from David A at www.edgenet.org.nz

One of the biggest changes I have noticed since leaving the institutional church, is the openness amongst Simple Church believers to question and review their original belief and practice. Becoming an organic Christian usually starts with the individual weighing up all their beliefs and practices against what the New Testament expresses, and also against what they see as the reality they have experienced and live in. Below I have written 13 basic doctrines and customs that I hear most Kiwi organic believers begin to question, in regards to the institutional church customs they have lived and acted within: REMEMBER ASKING QUESTIONS IS HEALTHY.

13 QUESTIONS CHRISTIANS ARE ASKING 

1. The emphasis on the church gathered instead of scattered (bringing people to church instead of going into the entire world).

2. The use of religious buildings versus meeting in the open air and house to house.

3. The phenomenal cost in time, effort, planning, finance and peoples lives, to simply keep a group of believers together (in an institutional setting).      

4. The doctrine of ‘covering’ and ‘accountability’ versus the principle of mutual submission.

5. The effort and cost required (and the fruitfulness) of spiritual programs in helping people become followers of the way.

6. The existence of denominations and organizations within the body of Christ.

7. The existence of professionals and hierarchal leadership in the Institutional church.

8. The ‘marketing’ of the Good News – directly working towards making a profit through the selling of materials and personal services(e.g. preaching).

9. The effectiveness and fruitfulness of alter calls and large evangelistic rallies to extend the Kingdom of God and the church.

10. The custom of the ‘sinner’s prayer’ being counted as salvation.

11. The custom of ‘accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative’ and the quasi doctrine of ‘Triumphalisim’.

12. In action putting organization and structure ahead of people. 

13. The doctrines of tithing 10% and of financial prosperity through giving versus the principle of giving all that you have.

And lot’s more! I have heard these questions and others raised on a weekly basis by faithful fruitful, non bitter believers. There answers vary, but the questions remain remarkably similar. I have not gone into detail with each question, as each one would require an e letter on their own. But if you have been asking questions such as these, be encouraged, you are not bitter, out of submission or alone. Thousands of others around the world are seeking and finding the answers to these questions. But be warned the answers may have unforeseen actions on your circumstances!

I have been writing this blog for nearly two years now, targeting an obscure niche market of dissatisfied Christians. I am not that clued up on Blogging and techno stuff. A couple of weeks ago, I spent a couple of hours reading up on line about ways you can improve the page views on your blog. Well to be honest a lot of the suggestions were too complicated for me to understand. As you can see from this blog I don't even know how to work the design features on this site!

BUT! Even with all my limitations, spelling mistakes, and ignorance of technical speak I have managed to double and triple my page views and have in fact started now and then hitting the number one position on www.blog.co.uk . This may just mean that this hosting site is rubbish

The Four changes I have made so far are

1.I joined www.technorati.com which is the largest blog listing site on the web. I linked up this blog to my new account and every time I write something I go over to technorati and make sure it pings my blog.

2.I have started using only 1 (possibly 2) tags per guff I write. And I make sure it's relevant to what I did write about.

3.Using Technorati as a search tool, I am now actively looking for other blogs similar to my own, reading them and posting comments on them. This helps link others back to my blog who are interested in similar things.

4.I try and write lists and title them as such like '7 reasons I ...' or 10 things I did' . Google seems to pick up on these really well and also people seem more drawn to numbered lists. Nearly every time I post a list, my numbers shoot up over the next couple of days.

Reading around the web I have picked up another couple of ideas to improve one's blog but I still need to get my head around them. Have you got any idea's or suggestions? Now don't get smart and say something about my grammar.

I'm sure Kim would like me to make an apology for my cruddy spelling on this blog. Ever since I crossed over to www.openoffice.org instead of Microsoft Office I have had real troubles with my spell check. I knew I should'nt of wagged English class at School!

The following article is the follow up to 3 Reasons why we converted to Simple Church (And how those reasons stack up 3 years later) which I wrote in Feburary (read it here http://everyhomeachurch.blog.co.uk/2007/02/22/3_reasons_part1~1783246 ). The article below may not make sense without reading the first article.

1. Our Community
One of our family's aims this year is to live out our Christian values and witness through the Autisim Community in our city by establishing a support group and support systems where those have been lacking. A lot of this activity will be on the weekends. We feel we would not have the time to do this if we were fully commited to normal church. New Zealand statistics support the statement that the larger the church one is committed to, the less community involvement one has.

2. Our Kids
a) Our kids love doing Simple Church and get annoyed when we don't have it. b) We believe that the Bible is clear that the Parent has responsibility in raising there child in spiritual things. We feel that we are finally getting some good authentic traction with our kids in this area and don't want to break the flow. c) One of our children is autistic. A large room with lot's of noise and strangers would be unbearable for him not counting the expectation that he would have to sit still for an hour or so.

3. Our Weekend
Okay so this may be pure lazziness. I love sleeping in, I love hanging out with my wife and kids not doing any chores or tasks on Sunday. Having to get up earlier and get the family into there Sunday best and rush off to a service does not hold alot of attraction to us at this time. Simple church seems to click in so well with our Sabbath day.

4. Our Resources
Simple church in the end takes a minimum of two very precious resources; time and money! This enables one to use the rest of there time and money if one wants on other kingdom activity. We are not prepared to committ lot's of time and money into things that are in the end self serving (over 80% of all money and time given to normal church is used for buildings and salaries not counting other organisational costs involved).

5. Our Bibleness (I made that word up!)
I believe (others will disagree) that when a gathering of believers meets together in a home and prays for one another, eats together, worships together, has communion together, learns together and supoorts each other, this is incrediably close to the expression of church in the New Testement. I believe doing Church this way is light years closer to what is talked about and modeled in the New Testement then the way I used to do church. I acknowlege this is not the be all and end all of church as I once thought but it is still important to me to try and get back some of the original pattern.

6. Our Questions
four years ago, the Southern Baptists radiacly retrainned Kim and I in the way we read the Bible. They challanged us to forget everything we had been taught or assumed before; and read the book of Acts again looking for the themes throughout the book. When we found the themes we were meant install those same themes into our lives and calling and life would never be the same again. But I just could'nt stop at the book of Acts i have tried to read every book of the Bible in the same way and have arrived at alot of questions about my original beliefs and world view which i am still processing and working through. Normal church needs conformity to function effectively. I feel Simple / emerging church gives more understanding for people like me to wrestle with, ask and debate the biq questions.

7. Our Enjoyment
Since the day I was born I have disliked going to church. The only time I liked going to church was if I was speaking! Even as a pastor I would not like going to church when i was on holiday. Like many men, I find church very disconnecting (dare I say it feminine) from the way we sing and worship (as Pentecostals) to the words we use and the passiveness of sitting and listening. After half an hour I'm bored out of my tree no matter how flash the preacher or the sound system or the building. I loved two things the notices (bizare I know!) and the cup of tea at the end! Conversely I love getting together in Simple Church. In fact I look forward to it, and miss it when we don't do it (which is where are currently). I love relating and living with other believers even when it sometimes goes for five hours and through two meals!

Water tanks filling at last, about $150.00 worth at current prices.

An old Pastor once said to me that it is so easy today for Westerners to hop on a plane and pop overseas for a couple of weeks, or a couple of months that it just amounts to Christian Tourisim. The Stats I mentioned yesterday do appear to bare this out I think. If one researched closer the phenomenon of Christian Tourisim you would find the two largest groups in this are:

1. Young people 17 - 25. This group are really living out the overseas dream through a Christian World View.

2. Mature Couples 50 - 65. This group are financially comfortable, established, with the kids off there hands. They are now in a place where they can fulfill a personal dream of 'Doing Something for God'.

There is nothing wrong with this (except for the 8 Billion dollors spent on airfares!)but is it really Missions? Is the Kingdom of God being extended because hundreds of thousands of wealthy white people descend on other countries each year? Are they bringing people to Christ and planting churches (which of course they were doing in there home country!). Or are they making little difference except to feel good about themselves while seeing the world?

One has to admit that a fair bit of the Money raised by the church for Christian Missions is sent to support the worlds airlines!.

$250 million annually is spent by Western Christians on these 38 countries and 1.6 billion people that are considered unreached.

$8 billion a year is spent by Christians worldwide travelling to over 500 conferences to talk about missions.

www.edgenet.org.nz/ideasfromedge/thechurchhashaditsday.htm

Me and my mate on the Pipi beds at Whangateau

1. the total cost of Christian outreach averages $330,000 for each and every newly baptised person.

2. New immigrants are creating an artificial impression that the Church is not declining in New Zealand

3. Many denominations have a huge backdoor. NZ Baptist churches, for example, are baptising the equivalent of nearly 10% of adult church members each year, yet there is little overall growth in the denomination.

4. The local church of 70 adults 10 years ago is still the local church of about 70 adults. In 10 years of hard work, prayer, programmes, and planning there has been little overall change.

5. the rate of pre-marital and extra-marital sex is about the same in Christians and Non Christians

6. Historically, the Church has taken the lead in areas such as the value of human life, education, and the abolition of slavery. Now we are behind in other important areas we should be leading, such as gender equality, ecology and the “green” movement, world justice and the elimination of poverty.

7. Church has some theology, values, structures and practices that don’t reflect New Testament priorities.

8. Western Christians and churches control trillions of dollars in assets and income, while 850 million people, including 200 million Christians, are currently starving.

9. If Western Christians gave just 5% of their income towards this, it would solve the problem totally.

10. the combined personal income of church members is $15 trillion a year while each member spends on average $7.80 a year on foreign missions or about one one-thousandth of their income.

11. Preaching in the Bible is always in the context of evangelism, whereas we typically preach to the converted (week after week for the rest of their lives).

12. The Church is often focused on building itself, rather than building the Kingdom.

Snippets taken from David Allis's article "The Church has had its day" at www.edgenet.org.nz/ideasfromedge/thechurchhashaditsday.htm