Starting a House Church

It was about 5 weeks ago I finished a new copy of my local library's book of Starting a House Church by Larry Kreider and Floyd McClung. A few years ago I read Kreider's book called House Church Networks: A Church for a New Generation and I remember that he gave a great balanced approach to Mega-church, community church and simple/home church. I felt like he wasn't attacking traditional forms of church but offering a new approach to church to compliment others. Since I had a good experience with him, I wanted to read this recent book since we have ventured out to start a home church.



For a couple of years in ministry I had been searching for the 'golden goose egg' in ministry that will solve all our problems. I would think, "If we just have this new technique, strategy, formula then we'll be an explosive, life changing ministry." What I realized about 2 years ago is there isn't a golden goose egg of ministry, other than what God desires to do through Christians; hearing and following the will of God. If you do take a look at New Testament Movements they were all pretty simple. Run by normal, unschooled men and women. They were bold, courageous, believed in a real Jesus, God and Holy Spirit that spoke, answered prayers and moved mountains. They didn't have church growth seminars or massive discipleship programs. They loved people and talked about the love of Jesus that changed lives. They brought Jesus to the streets and encouraged people to bring Jesus farther into their homes, business and yes, even bars.



After reading this book I was encouraged and reminded again how simple doing church is. We have made it pretty complicated. Normally today, in order to get more of Jesus, we need seminary trained teachers, buildings organized in way that maximizes the church experience, big amps and big bands, videos, youth and child-care centers and massive parking lots; all this to allow us to worship God who is a personal, communal, intimate God that is known through the Holy Spirit, His Word, and fellowship of 2 or more believers.



This is what we want to be about. Making Jesus known in homes, streets, workplaces, parks and bars. As Neil Cole says, "lowering the bar on church and raising the bar on discipleship." Let's teach people to follow Jesus and then they'll see how simple church is. Yes, I still believe church is a tool that God is using to make himself known to the world. Yes, church is Biblical. My thought is that the way we have known church the last 20, 200, and 2000 years is changing, morphing and adapting to meet those that want to know an unchanging, unmorphing powerful, intimate God. There are many forms of church and church is ecclesia, meaning "called out ones." Isn't church just the gathering of 2 or more believers, regardless of the structure, setting and education level of those leading?



I appreciate the vision, passion and heart of Kreider and McClung. They have been part of some pretty radical churches, big and small, traditional and non-traditional, throughout the years. They encourage the 'chosen people, royal priesthood, holy nation a people belonging to God' to just go out and be church, not just attend one. Yes, they have an apologetic, how to's and questions you may have as to why simple/home church is uniquely platformed to reach this new generation of not-yet-Christians. But why is that all that bad? New forms, new wine skins to go out and love a lost and hurting world with the message of Jesus. I think the dream of many today is that we'll look across this planet and see many types of churches, some with huge steeples, others small and with a run down look and others you can't visibly see because they're hanging out gathering in homes and stores.



Here are some quotes:

• Could it be that God wants to change everything about how we view the church? He has created the church to be a dynamic, growing, changing movement, not a static doctrine. The Spirit of God calls each generation to re-imagine church for its own context and culture. The Holy Spirit invites every generation into the struggle to discover answers and approaches for themselves about church--answers that bring them into fresh partnership whith God and fresh contact with their culture. p. 17



• We believe that simple, small, non-building oriented, non-professional led, family based communities are some of the keys for re-evangelizing our nation. p. 30



• House church networks reproduce churches rapidly because the micro church model lends itself to more authentic relational connections, deeper and more natural discipleship accountability, quick reproduction of leaders and every member involvment. p. 33



• Rich Joyner says, "Pastors sometimes don't like having young stallions in their church. They seem to cause too many problems. But only young stallions can reproduce. Resist the temptation to 'fix' them so they cannot reproduce." p. 83



• The goal of leadership is to facilitate, release and encourage. p. 95

Go start and be the church!

Categories: God, Movements, Leadership, Books, SimpleChurch

A New Beginning

We believe God is stirring a new movement of His Spirit that will provide a church in every community that transforms people, relationships and neighborhoods with the love and grace of God.

Wow! It has almost been one year since we came home from Mexico City. We are so grateful to God, our leadership and you for giving us this past year to rest, restore, recover, wait on the Lord and now hear from God as He is calling us forward, a new beginning.


After much prayer, counseling, meeting and processing with our leaders, pastors and good friends we have decided to transition off Campus Crusade for Christ staff and join full-time with another ministry called Global Service Associates (GSA). GSA’s purpose is to help launch us as leaders, care for us as followers of Jesus and encourage us to fulfill our mission and calling.


For 18 years (including our student years in college) we have seen God move, grow and challenge us and have enjoyed serving with Campus Crusade for Christ.


In this period of waiting and listening which has been so refreshing and also difficult we sense God leading us to help the local church impact our culture.


Imagine walking down your street and finding a church that felt more like an old friend than an old building. It is alive. It is real. The life of Jesus is bursting out beyond the church doors and into your community. The authenticity and love draws people to want to know this Jesus who changes lives.


A Christ-centered community that touches personally every home in Colorado, the U.S. and around the world.
Recently we began a home church and invited soccer friends and our neighbors. One neighbor, Rochelle shared her heart for her non-Christian coworkers. She wants to take them to church, yet they have no desire to go. After our time together sharing and praying she asked if this concept of home church was a safe place to invite her coworkers to hear about Jesus; a place where the life, love, and mercy of Jesus is felt.


We are burdened to follow God’s call on our hearts. We want to reach out to those hurting. Encourage those who have lost hope. Inspire Christians to follow Jesus and to be His hands and feet to our neighborhoods. Pray with us that God’s Spirit will move powerfully.
Categories: SimpleChurch, Family, Newsletters, Prayer, GSA, God

What to do in Simple Church?

I know from experience as I have tried to share God's vision for simple church so many questions about details have surfaced? What to do with kids? Who is going to lead worship or teach? I know that I haven't really experienced much of the answers or even have them in my brain, but I do know why I believe God is calling Christine and I to start a simple church; to reach those people who are yet to know Christ and His community. That is so much of our desire and prayers lately yet we're waiting for the Lord's word of 'yes, go now."

Today I came across a simple 20-25 minute video that answers much of the heart and details behind simple church. This may help you too in your journey of seeing how God is calling you to 'do' and 'be' the church.

Video: When you come together.

There is a great description in words at What do we mean by simple Church?

Categories: Church, SimpleChurch, ChurchPlanting, God

Disruptive Missiology: I like being disruptive

Sat down today and read through the Mission Frontiers Magazine, found online here. The last article in Further reflections called Disruptive Missiology Part 1: Definition by Greg Parsons has some good insights.

At times, to see that happen, we need a disruptive missiology. Something that looks at what is happening, what is not happening and dreams about what might happen. Something that hears the footsteps of the working of God in breakthrough and thinks, dreams, and works towards what might happen should God choose to move in peoples where we haven’t seen Him yet move.

I like dreaming with a healthy dissatissfaction of where we are at in reaching the lost. He ends with, "How might god use your giftings and creativity beyond what you have dreamed to disrupt something for good?"

Categories: Missions, Movements, Leadership, God, SimpleChurch

Missionalism will destroy you and others

I toss around the idea and dream of missional communities that impact a person's heart, life, relationships, community and city with the Gospel. Today I read an article by an author, pastor, speaker that I highly respect, Gordon MacDonald. Not because of his greatness but because in his brokenness he learned a ton about the grace and mercy of Christ.

Here he talks about something different than a missional church or community but the dangers of missionalism. Here are a few of his thoughts:

It's a leader's disease. Like a common cold that begins with a small cough, missionalism catches on in a leader's life and seems at first so inconsequential. But let this disease catch hold and you are likely to have bodies strewn all over the place, the leader's and some of the leader's followers.

Missionalism starts slowly and gains a foothold in the leader's attitude. Before long the mission controls almost everything: time, relationships, health, spiritual depth, ethics, and convictions.

Missionalism catches hold when an idea is bigger than a person and overwhelms the soul's ability to constrain it and direct it.

Missionalism—the passionate need to keep things growing and growing so that one proves his/her worth—can catch hold from various sources. For some of us, it came early in life when we discovered that we got a lot of love when we went forward to dedicate our lives to Christian service.

Comedian Robin Williams, who has lived his life rather frantically, checks into a rehab clinic (our modern version of a monastery) and when he comes out two months later, tells Diane Sawyer what he's learned.
"All any of us want is to be loved," he says. Could that be what's behind missionalism? A suspicion that if I build and build and build, doing all these good things, that people will love me? Do bigger accomplishments equate to more love?

Read the whole article and insights on how to protect your heart, mind and relationships from the dangers of Missionalism: click here.

Categories: God, Movements, Leadership, ChurchPlanting, SimpleChurch

No Perfect People Allowed

Well I'm sitting out on my deck, the wind is blowing my long brown hair in my eyes, the smoke from my cigar is far from making this weakling cough and I finished a good read by John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a COME AS YOU ARE culture in the church. For you spanish speakers and readers you can read it at No Se Admiten Personas Perfectas.

At first it felt like a "Look at our church; we are perfect and follow us" type book about Gateway Community Church in Austin, TX. But soon I let that first emotion go and saw the tremendous heart that John, his staff and congregation have for the lost, broken and messed up emerging generation. It really pokes and prods my heart and our current American churches on how we are structured, thinking, praying, reaching and responding to the hurting people around us.

I first read it because the title struck me and I was at Joel and Ana's wedding in Michigan and saw it in the hotel lobby sitting around. I read the first chapter and I thought, "Hmm, I not perfect and I feel messed up and like a failure this past year. This book is for me." I didn't realize that it was for those leading and wanting to reach these type of people. But all along the way I found my heart longing for a type of church, life and ministry that reaches people in my community like they have, even though I have issues with the traditional four walls church.

Chapter 10: Tribal Truth: Creating the Culture of Incarnational Truth was worth whatever price you pay for the book. I got my local library to buy it for me so I didn't pay anything but I would have paid the $12. If you're leading a church, pray for the lost, want to figure out how to get away from just caring and shepherding Christians then you ought to read this book.

Here are a few quotes to perk your interest and give you a feel for the John's heart and maybe this will challenge you in your thinking, life and ministry.

• "Are we raising up a generation of leaders ready to lay down their comfortable lives to dive into the muck of cultural America? Or are we just playing church-developing spiritual dependants who consume the goods off whatever church shelf will "feed me," or "puff me with more knowledge," or even "feel" postmodern?" p. 20
• "We can make people conform but not become. So the better path is to help people trust God, and that's a struggle for all of us! Even for religious leaders who often struggle trying to control people's behavior, because if feels like a reflection on us. We must all let go and trust God to lead and guide us into wholeness and healing." p.157
• "Sex is a psuedo-connection for hetero- or homosexual need for intimacy." p. 162
• "We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit." Pascal p. 167
• Truths: 1. Humble Truth 2. Practical Truth 3. Rational Truth 4. Incarnation Truth
• "Our Goal is not to get people to "convert" by repeating one prayer. The goal is to love God and people, living out of the fullness of life in God's kingdom, inviting all to come and enjoy the fruits of His life in us, because the door has been flung wide open through Christ." p. 175
• "[Most people] lead lives of quiet desperation." Thoreau p.205
• "Ours is a culture crying out for intimacy, but only able to conceive of accessing it through sex." Mike Starkey (God, Sex and Gen X) p. 223
• "...leaders can't afford to retreat into holy huddles, cursing the darkness. We must walk forward into it and turn on a light. Jesus said His words are truth that liberate--that bring life and freedom to every aspect of existence." p. 226
• Regarding the Samaritan Woman: "Jesus knew that until she had living water springing up in her soul, flowing out a right relationship with God, she would forever drink from muddy water." p. 227
• "Listen attentively to a person's story, then ask, "Which way forward from here? Help people move toward Christ regardless off their path." p. 228
• "True healing, however, often requires a lengthy process of righting the wrongs and uncovering the lies of the past. God can heal us immediately, but more often He takes us along a different path that forces us to continually depend on Him, because only in Him do we find true life. If he immediately healed us, we would immediately turn back to our independent, self-centered ways." p. 247
• "...sometimes pain can be a friend if it drives us to the end of ourselves and into the arms of God." p. 252
• "God has a plan to create a new family, a redemptive family--a family with the power to heal and restore what humanity lost by going its own way." p. 288
• "...one of the tasks of God's new family needs to be teaching each other how to enjoy life as God intended." p. 292

That's a good snippet. The book has some great personal evaluation questions after each chapter and some for your small group. I would suggest reading this with your church or small group leadership. It will open your eyes to the lost around us, what they are going through and unfortunately how the church is hurting them and missing their real needs.

John ends the book with a chapter for leaders and how we should think about our future church generations. What are we doing to raise up the next generation of church planters?

Enjoy the read!

Categories: Church, ChurchPlanting, SimpleChurch, Movements, Ministry, Leadership, Books

Quotes from Alan

This past summer I read a book The Shaping of Things to Come by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost. Marc Van der Woude just attended a conference where Alan spoke. Here are a few quotes that stuck out and reminded me how good this book is.

• The issue is not whether you believe in Jesus, but whether you follow Him. The lordship of Christ is often proclaimed (orthodoxy), but not often practiced (orthopraxy). Greek thinking is comprehending an idea, while Hebrew thinking is learning by incarnating truth. In other words: you only really know what you apply in real-life.
• Christology shapes missiology shapes ecclesiology. If we start with the church, we start on the wrong side of the spectrum.
• To really change society, we need to tell a different story. Stirring people's imagination is more important than transferring knowledge.

To read the whole thing visit: Quotes from the Fringes

Categories: Books, Missions, SimpleChurch, Movements, Evangelism