Churchless Christian

The church in all western countries including the US is losing the under-35 at an alarming rate, which has ominous implications for the future of the church as the boomer's retire from 2010 to 2030. While there is a growing spiritual hunger among the under -35 they are not beating the doors of the established church down to satisfy it. They don’t seem to be attracted to what we are offering. (Being 36, most of my friends have either now left Church or downsized Church or Church Commitment - Phil)

In many established churches you have to be 40 and male to be taken seriously. One of the reasons we are losing our under-35 is that they are not willing to hang around middle aged congregations until they are middle aged and their ideas are finally welcomed. The key issue we need to address is how to invite the young into ownership in our churches much earlier.
(Many Churches pretend that they are letting the young ones take leadership, but just because the young ones are up the front my experience tells me that the Old guys are still controlling in the back ground and only chose the young ones they are untheatened by - Phil)

I am very concerned that many Christians operate as though all the important theological questions have been asked and we got all the answers right... decades ago. I seriously question whether many of the answers we operate from are as biblically grounded as we assume they are... from our assumptions about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, be the church and do the mission of the church. I am convinced we need to spend much more time reflecting on “why we do what we do.”

poached and manipulated the original words from www.ginkworld.net

House Church Simple Church Emergent

The most common thing we are asked by people checking out our website, blog and discussion group is 'Is there a House Church in our area which we can check out or attend'. This is not surprising for three reasons.

1. The first is that people who are thinking through faith and church issues are often no longer connected with other believers and feel very isolated, which can be crippling at times. Naturally there desire is to belong to a community of like minded people which can help them in there journey, and stop the isolation they are experiencing.

2. When thinking about something new, the natural impulse is to ‘check it out’.

3. In Institutional Church we are conditioned to think that we make a change by changing church. Those who have recently left a normal church carry this thinking with them. There paradigm dictates to them that they leave the Organised congregational church they belong to and join an organised House Church down the road. It does not take long for most people to discover this does happen very often.

I think there are a couple of practical and spiritual issues why this happens.

a) The majority of people I know who are meeting in ‘House Churches’ would say that the first one they ever attended is the one they started with friends or family. Both David Allis (of www.edgenet.org.nz) and I both say that the first House church we ever attended was the one’s we started in our homes. It is very hard for a visitor to ‘check out’ a House Church in the same way they can with an Institutional Church. When a House Church is usually under 10 adults, having a complete stranger come and watch them and make a judgement on the group obviously can create a lot of awkwardness and a loss of intimacy and openness. Usually the only way to join or visit a House Church is if you already have developed friendships with a member or members of the group.

HOUSE CHURCHES USUALLY GROW BY RELATIONSHIP CONNECTION UNLIKE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCHES WHICH GROW BY CHURCHED CHRISTIAN VISITORS

read the rest of the article here

You too can purchase this lovely Jesus night light that will watch over you all night long. But wait! It's also 3-D so Jesus appears to be watching you wherever you are in the room.

But wait there's more! How about a Pastors night light, so he can watch over you and make you feel at peace that you are truly under covering

House church Simple church Emergent Church

A new poll has found only a minority of people support the concept of making New Zealand a Christian country.

58 per cent of people disagreed with making Christianity the official state religion. Those aged between 15 and 29 were most vehemently opposed, with more than 70 per cent against the idea. 63 per cent of men opposed the idea, compared with 54 per cent of women.

Two thirds of people support teaching schoolchildren about all the world's religions. read the rest of the article

Religion House Church Emergent Church

More Thoughts on Cooperative Gathering

* Imagine an expanding group of households around the Auckland region who have a common friendship with one another coming together to gather on a semi regular basis on a Sat night or Sunday.

* Imagine if each household made a commitment to host a gathering once every two months?

* Imagine if each household made a commitment to being part of this once a fortnight, so that they could continue meeting together with other Christians, or as a family, or just chilling out etc on the alternate Sunday etc.

* Imagine if enough households got involved so that even if people were coming fortnightly the co - op gathering could actually run every week as enough homes were available around the Auckland region for people to pray together, eat together have communion together and enjoy one another under Christ.

* Imagine giving it a try until December and reviewing it then (nothing goes for ever).

* Because people would be only hosting every two months and coming fortnightly a larger geographic region can be covered.

* Because people are averaging fortnightly, a co-op could be around 30 or 40 people I guess (I'm always guessing!)

* The reality is that we live a in fragmented society not a society like the NT. Some organizing is usually required. Spontaneity is less likely in a busy, geographically stretched group of people. A minimum of organization for a maximum of organism.

It's funny, but I have always felt guilty about loving God and gathering with my friends. I think this is from years of being told to get out there and evangelize strangers, or being told to split a cell group, or plant a church from an existing one etc etc. But God has given us our friends hasn't he? I want to hang out with my friends. We just click in the end. We can think different things, but our culture is very similar. This is because of years of interaction . Instead of despising this and stopping it, we should acknowledge and celebrate / flow with it.

It may be that we as living stones may interlink in the wall of faith. Jigsaw pieces that connected together, may create something special in Christ?
House Church Simple Church Organic Church Emergent Church

Always remember, just because something is labelled "orthodox" doesn't mean it's true. Heresy is often just the rejection of accepted error.

some wise words from the christian heretic

House Church Simple Church Emergent

We had a gathering today at our house. It was wet and windy outside, and we were a tad broke. All we had was some left over coffee and some wine biscuits. Also we had only contacted people the day before. Funnily enough God came through. We squeezed in 18 people, there was even chocolate biscuits left over! We all shared how we connect into God at the moment. it was staggering how different we all were. Some said a special chair where they sit, some said the novels by George McDonald. Others mentioned rereading the Narnia series, others mentioned particular pod casts or praying while they commute to work etc etc. We really are becoming living stones, not 'quiet time' bricks!

During this last week i wrote some notes about how I feel God is leading our family to gather. I call it 'cooperative church'. I wrote three pages of notes while I was at work (a bit naughty), and am going to write it up this week to see if any of our friends would be interested in getting involved with this co-op, and checking to see if the guy upstairs might be interested. As they say, watch this space!

House Church Simple church Organic Church Emergent Out of Church

Has God Connected us?

Relationships can be the most precious, fragile and defining things we can have in our lives. More then that though, I believe many of our relationships are Holy God created connections. Some may believe that coincidence plays a role in connecting people together but for me I believe that God actively tries to intervene in the formation of many of our relationships. “Relationships in the Kingdom, I believe, are not an accident; rather God has created very special people for us to 'be joined with', and he himself will chose them for us so that we can bond.”

Wolfgang Simson wrote once, “Recently a group of friends met in our living room to pray together into a very special question: “With whom shall we work together in the future”. Our group was not defined by membership in any common organization, so we did not come to pray for survival, direction or transformation of something that does exist. We were bound together by four things:

1. Common vision

2. Common values (not doctrines)

3. Proximity

4. Friendship.

We just prayed: “Jesus, please help us identify the ones we are created to work with in the harvest, and save us from working with people that just want to draw us into ´their thing´”.

So do you or I have these four things in common? Do you or I have these things in common with others? If so we need to cultivate it, pray for it and let God's Spirit breathe on it. Somewhere along the line a foot must be placed on the spade and a clod of earth turned over. Some effort is required for relationships such as this. All four things listed above are very general and quite practical, but very real. They can be left alone and grown wild but may do better cultivated and cared for.

“A minimum of organization for a maximum of organism.”

At the same time life does change and move on. Relationships, form, develop, mature and then move on. A lot of friendships go through a life cycle as our lives, beliefs, and activities and location change. Sometimes life is about letting things die / reseed / reflect and then starting again with new passion, new appreciation and a new world view of what God our Father is doing through us together..

In conclusion, I would sum up by saying seed some prayer into your relationships and some effort. Do not be careless with what God has gifted you (I speak to myself here!).

The quotes are from Wolfgang Simson's article With whom, then shall we work?

House Church simple church organic church Emergent church

Christianity (in New Zealand) is not under threat from other religions as much as from itself. The biggest change in the Census was in those professing no belief, many of whom might well have had a Christian upbringing or at least exposure to the various churches. How the mainstream, niche and Pentecostal Christian churches exhibit their faith and the teachings of their founder in an increasingly secular, as much as pluralistic, society is the greater challenge.
read the rest of the NZ Herald Editorial here

Recently a group of friends met in our living room to pray together into a very special question: “With whom shall we work together in the future”. Our group was not defined by membership in any common organisation, so we did not come to pray for survival, direction or transformation of something that does exist. We were bound together by four things: a common vision, common values (not doctrines), proximity and friendship. We just prayed: “Jesus, please help us identify the ones we are created to work with in the harvest, and save us from working with people that just want to draw us into ´their thing´”. read the rest here

by Wolfgang Simson

Queens Birthday Weekend is always a stress as we have two kids birthdays on it. One on the 2nd of June and the other on the 3rd of June. Typically the birthdays are for the yongest and the oldest child, so they don't exactly have the same interests. Luckily this year we all agreed to go to Rainbows End (theme park)and seemed top keep all the Birthday boys happy.

Eve found herself between two men. One was simply her husband, a person who exercised natural authority. But the other was obviously a wise spiritual leader (“the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field”). He was obviously a spiritual authority. Why shouldn't’t Eve listen to the Serpent? He talked with impressive wisdom and authority, and her husband was obviously spiritually inferior. The serpent spoke as though he knew what God wanted and intended. Perhaps her husband was jealous and just wanted to hold her back.

Eve became dissatisfied with Adam’s leadership and lost respect for him when someone else injected himself into the family as a spiritual authority. The new spiritual authority implied that Adam’s leadership kept Eve from becoming like God. Adam was limiting her spiritual development. Adam was clearly holding her back. Therefore, when the Serpent promised to fulfill her spiritual aspirations, she promptly spiritually divorced her husband and took the headship of the Serpent. When Eve accepted the spiritual authority of the Serpent, she divorced herself from the spiritual authority of God and the natural authority of her husband.

Just like Eve, many women are unsatisfied with their husbands. They see their husbands for the natural authority they have that God gave them, and they want them to be spiritual authorities like their pastors. For most men, this will never be the case. Nor was it meant to be. Most pastors inadvertently take the position of the Serpent by superseding the natural authority of the man and assuming the spiritual authority meant for God.

Like Eve, most wives have pastors who seem wiser and more spiritual than their husbands. Most wives regard their pastors in much the same way Eve did the Serpent. And, like Eve, they lose respect for their husbands because of their pastors. Even knowing the esteem and admiration that women have for them, most pastors have little concern that many women have replaced them as their “head.” Most pastors enjoy it. This unholy union is nothing short of spiritual adultery.

What should women do? First, eliminate your husband’s competition. Your husband is to be your only natural authority, and God is to be your only spiritual authority. Men know that they cannot compete with pastors, so they don’t try. They give up as they see you embrace another. Stop going to an institutional church where your husband is replaced as your head. Find a home group or start one of your own where your family can grow and where your husband can be the head of your family as he is meant to be.

The Serpent enticed Eve by promising that if she listened to him instead of her husband she would become godlike. This is a common event in most churches. Women perceive spiritual growth from submitting to their pastors. They conclude that their husbands are not spiritual and do not know God – at least not like their pastor. This eventually causes them to complain to their pastor about their husbands, which causes yet further division. Instead of being directed back to the headship of their husband they are consoled. The damage done here affects not only their husbands but God as well. When a woman submits to the authority of a pastor, she breaks free of both the authority of her husband and of God. It is comparable to weeds growing in a garden sucking the nutrients from the vegetables. As you and your pastor grow together, you steal from your husband that which he needs to grow: his leadership. You essentially sacrifice his spiritual life for your own. Women who do this live off the spiritual life of the pastor, not the Holy Spirit. Their spiritual growth takes place when they are around him and other spiritual leaders they have selected to follow. Eve was looking for the fast track to her spiritual development and understood that this is what the Serpent offered. She truly believed that she had the answer. So “she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her.” As a result, they both died. You may believe that you have the answer for your family’s spiritual development, but if it is submitting to the spiritual authority of a man, thereby sacrificing the leadership of your husband or his spiritual development, you are as deceived as Eve. Healthy spiritual development never divides the family.

These snippets are taken from an e-letter by http://members.triton.net/kmsrjs/thoughts.htm The website does not to appear ro be working so you can email them at kmsrjs@triton.net for a full transcript

Plans are afoot to abolish the prayer prayed before Parliament each day. The cartoon below jokes about it while referring to a power company which cut off the power to a women on Life support, killing her.