Simple Church Writings

Good Answers to Simple Church Questions

2005-04-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

Here are some good answers to common simple church questions. As is common in simple church the answers are simple because simple church is simple.

http://www.house2house.tv/index.pl/faq2#1003

Missions in Simple Church

2005-04-26T01:10:00.000-07:00

What does missions look like in the simple church movement?

Jenni

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 00:40:37 +0200, Ross Rohde < rossrohde@oci.org>
wrote:
Dear Jen,

Here is the answer I gave to your question.

I think that this is an open subject and that we are in a state of flux right now. I do know of some examples of missions. Wolfgang Simson tells of people in Switzerland receiving prophecy to send specifically named people to a specific country which is in conflict right now and I won't mention specifically. They were given a strategy to go to a nearby country and wait until they received a word prophetically they did that. When certain geopolitical events happened they were given a prophetic green light and they entered the country and started a large house church network. This was done basically through apostolic teams. I know of others who send in apostolic teams to specific places and do house church planting. The Chinese house churches are doing the Back to Jerusalem Movement where they are training missionaries to listen to God and endure hardship and sending them out. I am not sure if they go out as individual church planters or teams. What we don't seem to see is institutional missions as we tend to know it now with a mission agency and long term or short term employees. It seems to be very non-institutional and supernatural.

Daddy

-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer Williams
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 2:45 AM
To: Ross Rohde
Subject: Re: Answer to your question

That still leaves me with a question. All of the examples that you gave require "extra" money. Where does that come from and how does the "gathering" of that look. Twila and I were talking about this because she sees current institutional missions support raising as begging which (no offense) it basically is. She and I both dislike the model but were wondering how the financial aspect has been/will be addressed. Love ya! JEN

On 4/18/05, Ross Rohde <rossrohde@oci.org> wrote:

Dear Jenny,
Did I answer this one? I thought a lot about it but I'm not sure if I answered it. I won't bore you with the same info twice, but if I didn'tanswer it I will share my thoughts.
Daddy

-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer Williams
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 7:50 PM
To: Ross Rohde
Subject: Re: Answer to your question
No, you never got back to me about my reply to you (below). I'd love to hear what you have to say. JENN

Dear Jen,
I just got off the phone about five minutes ago with Phil Ault. His dad is not expected to make it through the night. I don't know if you knew but he has lung cancer, obviously not from smoking, so this was not unexpected but still tough.

Now my answer. Since simple church does not need to spend money on the two things that are congregational churches two most pricy items, building and their maintenance, and salaries and benefits for clergy; if simple church people give approximately the same as congregational churches do, they have roughly 80+% more to give than a Christian going to a congregational church. What do they tend to spend it on? Well, some folks, did some research on a house church network in Texas, I suspect it was Tony Dale's, and found that they spent 80+% of all giving on two related items, missions and benevolent giving. Missions means sending out apostolic teams to plant new churches and networks, whether near home or far away. Benevolent giving means taking care of the people in the network who need help or helping people in the community.

What does this look like? Keep it simple. I personally believe tithing is an O.T. concept, but God loving a cheerful giver is a N.T. concept. We should ask Jesus what He wants us to do with His money, because everything belongs to Him and we are just stewards. Definition of stewardship: having the responsibility to administrate resources based on the values and benefit of the owner of those goods. God is the owner. So ask the owner what He wants done. Then just collect it, as a collection, you don't need a budget. Just collect the money and send it where Jesus tells you to send it. Keep it simple. This may mean just pulling out money and giving it to someone who needs it right then. It may mean loaning a car or going to pick someone up to take them to work. It could mean, helping at the rescue mission. I don't know what Jesus is going to tell you to do, but when He tells you to do it, do it! By the way, God wants you to take care of yourself as well; he is desperately in love with you. One way to be sure that it is God speaking is that it will be wise, loving and His godly objectives will be advanced. If you are anxious to follow His will, He will make it known to you. Now, aren't you anxious to learn more about prophecy and words of knowledge? That will be part of my next paper after the leadership one, so you will just have to wait.
Your Daddy Love you.
Daddy

From: Jennifer Williams
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 10:28 PM
To: Ross Rohde
Subject: Re: Answer to your question

Thank you. That was helpful. In the HC movement, is the concept of long-term missionaries (like you and mom) emerging or is it always a shorter apostolic idea? I guess I'm trying to think about what it would look like to help support long term missionaries. I know that the tent-making thing is re-emerging and I like the idea. But what about places where layman jobs are hard to find? I'm just curious.JENNI

Hi Sweetheart,
This is not a question that can be answered with a black and white, yes or no. There are people who are in full time ministry; Wolfgang Simson for example. I suspect they can function with conference fees and some support and in Wolfgang's case money coming in from his book. If God gives them the means, why not focus 100% of the time on ministry. Many are in the workaday world because they want contact with people outside the Christian bubble. The question is "What is God asking you to do?" not "What is everyone else doing?" Is he putting certain missionaries on your heart? Is there a conviction about what God wants you to do with your "tithe" (again, I don't actually see the 10% tithe in the N.T.)? Ask Jesus what to do.
Remember, we are in a transitional period for the Church. What you can and would do now may be different than what you will do twenty years from now. I would love to have the economic means to be a barrista at Starbucks, so I could just hang out with the young crowd and love them into the kingdom, at their pace and not violating their own will. Boy would that be fun, I would just plant fun house churches and drink coffee, and be wired (of course I am talking about WiFi, not caffeine). Jesus hasn't released me financially or organizationally...yet. I have to be faithful to what Jesus is asking me to do, not even what I want to do. If I go merely with my heart, I may and probably will act in the flesh. This would not be good. So, until I get a clean bill of spiritual health from Jesus, and clear direction, I will stay where I am; which means that I stay in an organization that I love, but which has a very different understanding of what it means to be a servant leader, and a far different level of commitment to the idea of being an organization instead of an spiritual organism, just as two examples.
Just as an aside, to be with the world wide leadership in Colorado this month was a bit of a bittersweet experience. I love those people, they have wonderful hearts and they really do love the Lord. However, every time they talked about "leadership" it was with a capital "L". It was LEADERS and followers. It might as well been CLERGY and laity. They are trying to change, but as far as they seem to be able to get is to rename committees as "task forces". Wonderful people, but they still don't get it, nor am I sure they ever will. They are still functioning with a two dimensional top/bottom view of leadership. They can't function without a hierarchy or even imagine leadership w/o a hierarchy. One member of the board said to me over lunch, "When you talk about organic structure, aren't you just talking about a flatter organizational structure?" When I told him no, and explained how it would work, his eyes seemed to glaze over and it seemed to me that he tried hard to stay engaged, but found it hard to step out of the world of business concepts and into a world where Jesus actually supernaturally leads. This was my perception, I may be wrong, but I do know that he never did make the conceptual leap out of industry, which is a non-supernatural world.

Jen, do you think it would be helpful putting this conversation in my blog?I don't want to do it without your permission. Let me know what you think.

Just remember this, never forget thisssss (said with Vincini's lisp)...Your Daddy loves you.
Daddy

Definition of House Church

2005-03-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

Dear Joe,

It is exciting to hear your story and see what God is choosing to do through you. I rejoice with you brother.

What an interesting question “What is a housechurch”? I think I want to tackle that one by getting all the confusing terms out on the table so we can discuss them. Do you have a minute? This may take some time.

Traditional Church
Bible study
Cell Church
Cell
Church in a house
Housechurch

Traditional church: This isn’t so difficult; it is what we grew up with. It has a Sunday morning “service” and may have several other types of meetings through the week like Wednesday evening prayer meeting, Sunday school both adult and children’s, maybe AWANA, Bible studies, sometimes in a home. Its leadership structure is in a classic pyramid with a pastor at the top and some elders or deacons or both underneath, then the regular people who come to the meetings. There are variations on this leadership theme but it is almost always in a pyramid with the fewest and most powerful at the top. This was an excellent structure for the Modern “Age of Reason”; it doesn’t work so well in our postmodern world.

Bible Study: This is what modern Christians do. Which is good; we need to study the Bible if we are to grow. The problem comes when we assume, as many modern Christians do, that Bible study is an end in itself. For many, a good modern Christian is one who knows all the doctrines, particularly the fine details. This is Gnosticism, the reverence for secret or arcane knowledge. Neither Jesus nor the apostolic writers told us that the mark of a good Christian was knowing all the details. The mark of the good Christian is the fruit of the Spirit, the evidence of a Spirit transformed life.

I am not against Bible study or Bible studies; I study the Scriptures daily myself. I just don’t want it to stop there. There is a danger in aiming for the wrong target, we might hit it. We need to be discipling people in how to let the Holy Spirit get to work in their lives. This is called Christian Spirituality. It involves Bible study. It involves strong discipleship. It involves prayer both individually and in groups. It involves learning to listen to God and follow His direction while still under accountability to other mature, wise Christians. It involves the spiritual direction of other mature believers which is an intense form of discipleship. It involves all of the spiritual disciplines and it needs to be done in the Body of Christ. It can’t be done alone. I think you would agree that most Bible Studies do not come close to what I am talking about in this paragraph. They tend to be much more like a classroom and much less like a godly family growing together.

Cell Church: This is a big subject. The basic structure of a cell church is one big meeting once a week in a dedicated building usually called a “church” and then other more intimate meetings during the week in “cells”. There are all sorts of models for this. There are “seeker sensitive churches” and “Gen-X” churches which are almost always in a cell church format and many more expressions as well. But they all have the “two wing” structure of a big weekly meeting in a building and small hopefully intimate groups. I like to think of cell churches as falling on a continuum. On one end of the continuum is a traditional church that wants to try the newest fad so they start cells. These cells are really old fashioned Bible studies and people are usually assigned to them. They usually fail after a year or so. Then the leadership says “We tried cell church and it doesn’t work”. On the other end of the continuum are something very close to house church networks (which I will explain later) that happen to meet together once a week in a building called a church. This is much more what people like Bill Beckham are talking about. There is however, a difference in how the small groups are structured together and how leadership is structured. I will talk about this later.

Cell: This is a small group that belongs to a cell church. It can be very much like a housechurch or it can be very much like a Bible study or it can be somewhere in between. Here is where we get confused. Some people can’t see the difference between cells and housechurches. The problem is that they think the issue is “house”. It is not. The issue is if they are structured to belong to a larger group of people who meet weekly (almost always weekly but there can be variations) in a dedicated building called a “church”. This is a pyramidal structure where all the cells belonging to the bigger whole called the church. Housechurches structure themselves differently which we will see in a minute. BUT… housechurches do on occasion meet in bigger meetings so don’t get hung up on that. The real issue is pyramidal structure or network structure.

Another issue is that much emphasis on the life of the church in a cell church is still put on the big meeting while much more life in a housechurch network goes on in the small structure. Both cell churches and house church networks have the big and small meetings but there tends to be a difference in what is emphasized. Housechurches rarely if ever have a building they call a church. A network of housechurches is much more persecution resistant than a bunch of cells from a cell church because they can function without the pyramidal leadership structure of a cell church. Finally, let’s talk about the leadership structure of a cell church. It is a structure that is still pyramidal with a senior pastor at the top and various layers of less and less powerful people until you have the regular Christians at the bottom. The bigger the cell church, the bigger the pyramid. House churches have a very different, much more horizontal leadership structure.

Church in a house: This is a traditional church that happens to meet in a house. Often they even line up chairs in rows, sing hymns and have a sermon followed by an offering and announcements. They might even have a bulletin but most wouldn’t have the resources for that. They often try to have something like Sunday School. They tend to grow to the point where they outgrow the house and they are usually longing for the day when they can get a real building. The paradox of this is that their growth tends to slow down or stop the second they get a building. Then they long for the good old days when they met in a house. This is not a house church.

O.K. so what is a housechurch?

Housechurch: It is a small group of people who meet in a house, restaurant, park, under a tree, or at the work place. It is usually a house but that is not the issue. It is not a Bible study because their goal is Christian spirituality not just Bible knowledge (see the end of the section on Bible Study). They eat together because they are sharing life together. When they grow too big for the place where they are meeting, they multiply. If they happened to meet in a place big enough to have a big group (like a park) they would still multiply at about 12 to 15 people. Why? Because if they didn’t they would lose a certain sense of intimacy and community that is vital in a housechurch network.

They have a leadership structure. It is not a pyramid. It is a relational structure based on friendship and giftedness. Housechurches have leaders called elders. These are often the person who founded the group or someone who was groomed to be an elder of a group that multiplied into two groups. So that is the first level of leadership. Each housechurch has at least one elder. And since housechurches tend to form in networks the elders of the housechurches in the network tend to know each other, trust each other and work together to solve common problems.

There is a second kind of leadership. This is often called the “five fold ministry” based on Eph 4:11-12,

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.

Let’s not get hung up on whether or not apostles and prophets are for today or not. I think the issue is what most housechurch networks mean by these terms. I look at the five fold ministry as people whom God has gifted to take care of the health of the network of house churches. Notice I said network, not each housechurch. A housechurch has at least one elder. House church networks have five fold ministry teams. That is because those in five fold ministry tend to work together in teams.

Apostles take care of the strategic health of the network. They start networks and they make sure they are working well strategically so that they keep growing and have the structures necessary for continued health. Apostles are people who God has gifted to be strategic thinkers and doers. If one wants to use the terms apostle only for a small group of people who lived 2000 years ago that is fine with me. But God still designs people to be strategic thinkers and doers; it would be pretty hard to deny that.

Prophets take care of the spiritual health of the network by being gifted by God to see the issues that need to be addressed. Again some would say that this gift ended. However, there are clearly people who are designed by God to have clear insight and speak up about it. Some would say that what we saw Chris Daza do at the conference does not exist today, others would. I’m not going to argue about it. I would ask if God’s work is getting done or not? Is there evidence of deep spirituality or not? Is Jesus being pointed to or is the man? Personally, I have more problems with many senior pastors and mission leaders with their tendency to emphasize themselves, their power, their authority and their position than I do with what I saw Chris do. That is a personal opinion, for what it is worth.

Evangelists take care of the reproductive health of the network. Eph. 4:12 says…for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. All of these five gifts are for that function. Evangelists aren’t necessarily the people who stand on the street corner and preach. They are the people who are gifted by God to know how to win people to Christ. Then they show other Christians how to win their family and friends. We tend to get stuck in the mold of the modern age and think of evangelism as proclaiming the doctrines of salvation to friends and strangers. Evangelism is just knowing how to introduce your friends and family to the very real person of Jesus Christ. It is not as much about people knowing about the doctrines of salvation as it is about them beginning to have Jesus work in their lives. Do they need to learn about the doctrines of salvation? Sure. But we need to make sure we don’t end in Gnosticism again.

Pastors take care of the relational and emotional health of the network. God designs some people to be the warm fuzzies. They migrate to the broken, the hurting and the needy. I am talking about broken, hurting, needy people and broken, hurting and needy relationships. The fuel of a housechurch network is the Holy Spirit expressing his love. If love is not flowing, the housechurch network is not growing. Pastors are the people gifted by God to know how to make sure the love is flowing.

Teachers take care of the doctrinal health of the network. Doctrine is important! Bad doctrine kills Christian souls, housechurches, and housechurch networks. That is why the apostolic writers put such a huge emphasis on it. Heresy will break out. It can’t be avoided in vibrant growing church. To try to avoid it is to make the church so cautious and rigid that we starch the life out of it. BUT… heresy needs to be dealt with and dealt with lovingly and firmly.

That is what we see in the New Testament. We see a vibrant, growing Church. We see heresy breaking out, and we see the apostolic teams (read five fold ministry) dealing with it. It might look something like this. The prophet sees the problem and speaks. The teacher knows where to find the right doctrinal solution in the Bible. The Apostle, with his relational and spiritual authority strategically deals with the issue. And the pastor goes around and loves everybody and every relationship that is damaged by the demonic heresy that had broken out, but is now being dealt with.

I believe that is godly leadership. But it is not set up in a pyramid of power. Nor is one person expected to be so gifted that he or she can completely run a church or church network. It is a relational network based on friendship and God given giftedness. It is God’s mighty power being expressed through weak people. How do people end up in five fold ministry teams? Do they work there way up through the structure until the have enough seniority to be recognized? No, apostles know how to spot and train apostles. Prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers know how to do the same with people God has gifted with these particular gifts. These people are gifts to the Church. God chooses them; and then God allows us to recognize them and facilitate the stirring up of their gifts.

So, that is the difference between cells and housechurches. It is a difference of structure. It can be a difference of outlook (spirituality vs. knowledge). And it is a difference of leadership style. I personally think a housechurch network is better structured to allow the supernatural power of God to be evident and much less structured to see the power of men to be evident. Frankly, if God isn’t in it, a housechurch structure won’t work well. This is because it is designed to follow God’s lead. You can’t just name someone a teacher; they have to be designed by God to be one. That is one of the problems with seminaries; they just train one style of leader. Leaders can be stimulated to grow in their giftedness, but if the gift isn’t there, they won’t do well. The same can be said of every gift.

God is the one who is choosing people for different ministries, not men. And they are just different ministries, not more important or powerful or spiritual people. That is what the apostle Paul was saying with the analogy of the body. Not everybody is an eye, but a body without eyes is in tough shape.

The problem with pyramidal power structures is that they can go along just fine without God. That makes them dangerous. I am not saying that God can’t use a pyramidal structure; I’m just saying they are inherently dangerous. And the people who get hurt most by them are the people at the very top and the people at the very bottom. The people at the top because they can start thinking they are important and indispensable and right. And the people at the bottom because people who think they are important, indispensable and right abuse power. That is why we need humble servant leaders, not “strong” leaders.

Well Joe, you got a very long answer to a very short question. I hope I didn’t talk your ear off, my friend. And I hope that I didn’t sound ungracious to those who are lead by God to do something other than housechurches. I don’t feel that they are less or weaker of not as good. I am pro housechurch but I am not against the other forms of the body of Christ. If I have come across that way then please forgive me and chock it up to my trying to explain complex things as briefly as possible and my own human weakness.

Your Brother in Christ,

Ross Rohde

Evangelism by Invitation

2005-03-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

By Ross Rohde
February 2003©

Evangelism has always been a difficult business. As we move from the modern age into the postmodern world, it seems to have become even more complex. How does one “do” evangelism in the postmodern world? Are there any principles that help us to understand evangelism in this new context? Should we just give up? Should we just try harder? Should we simply continue to evangelize using the same methods we have used for the last half century? I would like to try to answer some of these questions from what I have been learning by experience, study and observation of effective ministry in postmodern Europe.

Contrary to its fame as the “graveyard of missions,” I hold out much hope for Europe. Despite what many say, there are actually many exciting things happening. The problem is that they do not have the appearance of traditional evangelical practices and are, therefore, easily dismissed. In fact, much of what I believe God is doing is so contrary to traditional, evangelical practices, that it seems to actually anger some of our sisters and brothers. But, whether it makes us angry or not, God is at work in Europe. So what are some of these principles and how can we participate?

We Need to Be Invited to the Party

Evangelism is a supernatural process. In reality, it is God who brings people to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. It has never been our cleverness, our techniques, our booklets or our persuasiveness. Even Jesus waited for the Father to invite him into ministry.

In the forth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus has an interesting conversation with a Samaritan woman. What starts out as a simple conversation about a drink of water ends up as a town revival meeting. This is a story that most Christians are familiar with, but I would like to make a few observations.

Jesus starts his conversation with the Samaritan woman by making a common request. “Give me a drink.” She immediately brings religion into the picture. “You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” Since she wants to talk and she has brought up the subject, Jesus throws out a big hook to see if she will bite. “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman and Jesus continue in this spiritual conversation even though she has a tendency to go down rabbit trails. Yet Jesus skillfully keeps pointing her back to himself, and his offer of eternal life. Jesus then demonstrates his credibility through prophecy. She responds by inviting the townspeople to the revival meeting and salvation comes to a Samaritan village.

So where was the invitation from God? It comes when we find ourselves in a divinely ripe situation. Jesus seems to test the waters in the first part of his conversation with the Samaritan woman to see if he is in such a situation. What would have happened if the Samaritan woman had responded to his request for a drink of water by giving him a cup and grunting “Here!” My guess is that Jesus would have taken a drink, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, said thanks and waited for the disciples to return. But God had something else in mind. This woman brought up spiritual issues. Jesus, noting that God may be up to something, keeps investigating in that vein. Jesus waited until he saw that the Father was at work and then joined him in that work.

In the next chapter of the Gospel of John we have another demonstration of the same principle. Jesus is in Jerusalem. We pick up the story in John 5:6. Jesus notices a man who has been crippled for many years. He talks to the man about his condition. Jesus asks if he would like to be healed and when the man positively responds, he heals him. Note the progression. Jesus strikes up a conversation. The person responds. Jesus offers to demonstrate spiritual power. Again the person responds. Jesus joins the Father and God’s work gets done. This is a similar pattern to Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well. But in the John 5 passage the local spirituality police decide that Jesus isn’t working according to their ideas of spiritual correctness. After a thorough investigation they complain about his apparent infraction, to which Jesus responds.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and greater works than these will He show Him, that you may marvel. (John 5: 19-20)

There was something in these interactions that Jesus saw as the Father’s doing. So what was the Father doing? What did Jesus notice? Where was the invitation?[1] Well, there certainly wasn’t any audible voice from the sky, at least not in this instance. Jesus did however seem to be highly sensitive to God coloring normal every day situations with the supernatural. When he noticed, he assumed that God might be giving him an invitation to move forward. When people respond to conversation about the supernatural or spirituality or, in fact, bring up the subject, we need to move forward trying to discern if God is giving us an invitation to participate with what he is doing.

Jesus moved into these situations in natural ways watching for a response. He didn’t force his way with a one size fits all gospel presentation. He certainly didn’t preach to people when they didn’t want to listen. But he did preach. He was not passive. He did end up in all sorts of conversations about spiritual things. He was on the lookout for opportunities opened up by the Father. Jesus didn’t minister unless he felt the Father was already at work. He did what the Father was doing “in like manner”. He felt that being invited into ministry was an expression of the Father’s love for Him. He felt that the Father had to show Him what the Father was doing. And to participate in the Father’s work was marvelous.

To be effective in evangelism, we need to be invited to the party by the Father. I have come to believe that we should not initiate ministry unless God opens the door for us. If God hasn’t invited us to do ministry, why would we want to do it in the first place?

So what does an invitation from the Father look like? To be sure, there’s no formula but, like Jesus, we can look for what God is doing. Sometimes we are well into the process before we realize, “Wow, God is at work here.” Friends of mine, Bill and Jane, experienced this in a clear way. Their daughter wanted to have foreign exchange students in their home. The first student, a young man from the Basque country of Spain came to Christ and started to grow. His parents back in Spain were disturbed by the religious things they were hearing from their son. Their concern was so great that they made a transatlantic to visit this American family to see, first hand, if their son was being brainwashed. Their apprehension, however, soon turned to a sense of wonder. They were fascinated by the change they saw in their son and by the love that was shown in Bill and Jane’s home as well as in their church. These loving parents not only gave their blessing to what was happening, but soon Bill and Jane were getting requests from some of their relatives to host children. Out of the small step of taking in an exchange student has grown a ministry in which a number of young people have come to Christ. Still, Bill and Jane were well into the process before they could see what the Father was doing.

Sometimes the Father invites us to the party through prayer. A couple of years ago had a call into ministry though a strong conviction to pray about a specific ministry. At first I was not sure if I was hearing from God or from my own flesh. Did I want to do this because I wanted to be important and significant or was God really speaking to me? All I could do, in the absence of clear confirmation, was pray. Soon God began to confirm through circumstances. I had not told anyone about my prayer burden, yet people began to call me to talk about this particular type of ministry. They asked if they could be involved with me in this ministry though I had said nothing about it to them or to anyone else.

My prayer became: “God, bring five couples to be involved in this with me.” Although the first couple contacted me within a month, I still felt it could take years to find the remaining four couples. However, soon after and within a ten-day period, four more couples had contacted me, two of which I hade never even met. In ten days God had accomplished what I thought might take years. Before long, there were ten couples involved, each of whom initiated the contact. From this beginning, an ongoing church planting ministry has evolved. God confirmed through his answers to my prayer that the burden I felt was, indeed, an invitation to go through a door that he had opened. He continues to bless this ministry to this day. What would have happened had I simply plowed ahead on my own to initiate this ministry? Would the same supernatural confirmation and subsequent blessing have occurred? I don’t think so. God blesses what he is doing, not what we want him to do.

Sometimes the Father invites us to the party though prophecy. Though my own spiritual formation took place in a context where this type of event was not accepted, I have personally seen it happen. While at a conference in October, 2002 a man with a prophetic ministry gave a prophecy to a man named Ignacio. The prophecy had a few key elements. Ignacio’s name was ‘General’ which meant he was a strategist. He was to help strategically lead a house church movement just getting started in Spain. He was to get together with certain people (specifically named) already involved with this movement and develop a father/son relationship with them. He was to go through a brief but difficult desert period in his life in the near future but he wasn’t to despair because this period would end. The man who gave the prophecy did not know Ignacio. Actually very few people at the conference knew Ignacio; until this point, Ignacio had not said a word and had been rather reserved. He certainly wasn’t standing out as the big leader type.

At that point, I approached Ignacio, with whom I had only spoken to once by phone. I asked him how he was doing. He was quite emotional. Many of the prophecy’s specific points had some deep and significant meanings for him. I asked him if he would like to go outside and pray together. As we prayed and talked I became very impressed with Ignacio’s clear giftedness in ministry strategy and vision. I was surprised by his breadth of experience, for being such a relatively young man. Ignacio stated that he had come to the conference because he was convinced that there was something missing strategically in the way church was currently being done in Spain. He had been planting churches, based on various models; he had learned much but, as a Spaniard, he knew there was something missing. He came to the October conference hoping to find that missing strategic element. He felt that being at the conference was a divine appointment because he was finding what he was looking for.

As we spoke, I became convinced that this young man was clearly being divinely appointed to lead a Spanish house church movement. I told him that I felt that what he really needed to do was get in contact with the leaders of the house church movement in Switzerland and Germany. They could really help him in his divinely appointed task. I named some specific leaders by name. In fact, they were people who were present in the Spanish conference.

“Oh, I’m moving to Switzerland next week”, he told me.

“Where in Switzerland?”

“Schaffhausen, my wife is from there and since she is pregnant we decided to move up there so she could be with her family. I have just finished my responsibilities in the planting of a church in Extremadura. I have come to this conference and it is the last thing we need to do before we move.”

“Ignacio, Schaffhausen is just across the border from where that leader lives in Germany. There are house churches in Schaffhausen.” You need to talk to these people right away and set this up.

So I took him inside and personally introduced him to the people I had specifically named. They struck up a friendship and promised to meet in Switzerland or Germany.

The next time I saw Ignacio, after the October conference, was in Prague, The Czech Republic in November of 2002. After he had moved to Switzerland, I had invited him by e-mail to be a part of a leadership conference for people involved in the European House Church movement. Ignacio had driven to the conference with one of the men I had introduced him to in Spain. I asked him if they got together often.

“Sure, we live less than ten kilometers from each other.” I see him often and since then he has taken me to Holland to see how to train house church planters.”

Since then, I have seen Ignacio one more time face to face. We met during one of his visits to Spain. Over dinner, he outlined how he had spent the last few months. He explained how much he was learning. He shared how he and his wife had planted a house church in Switzerland. He told me of the various merits of different training models he had experienced first hand. We talked of how one on one discipleship and quality Bible study could be accomplished in a Spanish house church context. I was amazed at how much he had learned. I was stunned by his insights and I was thrilled by his critical and insightful analysis of what house churches should look like in the Spanish context.

“Ignacio, how has life been for you personally?”

“It has been really difficult, one of the most difficult times of my life.”

“Why?” I was thinking to myself that this would have been one of the most fulfilling experiences of his life, considering how much he had learned and his ministerial development.

“Did you know that in Switzerland they have police that come into your house to check how many radios you have, to make sure you are paying your radio tax? Did you know that if you happen to throw your garbage away in the wrong place they have garbage police who will go through the garbage to look for clues so they can hunt you down and fine you? Did you know that you can’t use a mobile phone on a bus? It is against the law, it might bother someone. I had an old lady yell at me the other day for talking on the bus. I don’t think Switzerland is a good place for a Spaniard, you don’t have any personal freedoms.”

“Do you think these hardships have anything to do with your prophecy about the brief difficulties you were about to experience?”

“Oh sure, this has been a partial fulfilling of prophecy, although there are other things that have added to this desert experience. But I am going to be back in Spain in June.”

I have certainly not exhausted the ways that God invites us to the party, nor could I. I’m not sure I know all the ways that God invites us into ministry. He is sovereign and knows how to communicate with us. There is, however, another invitation that is vital if we are to be effective in evangelism in the postmodern world. This is the invitation from the person with whom we desire to share Christ.

Getting a Party Invitation from our Postmodern Friends

I Peter 3: 13-15 gives us good insight in how to witness in a seemingly hostile postmodern environment.

And who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.

Think about what this is saying about sharing our faith in a potentially hostile environment. Peter says, “When someone asks us to give an account.” Hold on!

· You mean that, in most cases, they should ask first?
· You mean they should have a reason to ask?
· You mean there has to be something in my life, something that they see first before I share my faith?

Let me also make a couple of statements about what I Peter 3 is not saying. It is not saying we need to bone up on apologetics so we can prove we are right through a recitation of the facts. It is not saying that we should fight about every controversial public issue that seems to pop up in the newspaper. It is not saying that having convincing scientific facts will sway our audience. This is about life. It is the about the powerful testimony of a life where Christ is sanctified as the Lord of the heart. Facts are not bad or wrong, but they are not nearly as convincing as a Spirit filled character.

Postmodern people do not want to have someone share their point of view about controversial issues, without that person first being invited to do so. This is particularly true of religious convictions. In fact, most postmoderns wouldn’t be so kind as to use such a gentle word as “share”. They would say something like “Who asked you to jam your religion down my throat?” Postmoderns have been accused of having no moral absolutes. This is not true. They just have different moral absolutes, one of which is that you don’t try to convert someone without an invitation. How offended are you when someone violates your moral absolutes? Are you even more offended when you are somehow involved in the process against your will? Now you know why postmoderns get so emotional when we witness to them without an invitation.

What is worse, the harder we insist the more powerful their negative reaction. Let me try to illustrate this with the concept of a semi-permeable membrane in a cell. In biology, a semi-permeable membrane is one which allows certain substances through while blocking others. Once a substance is permitted through a membrane, it can do what it was designed to do within the cell. Substances which can not pass through the membrane, never affect the inner workings of the cell. In the same way, someone who is on the outside of the “social membrane” of postmoderns should not speak about spiritual things. They will be rejected and may lose whatever potential for relationship existed to that point. However, those who have passed through the membrane may quite possibly be welcomed to talk about spiritual things.

The analogy of the semi-permeable membrane has many implications and applications. First, think of the membrane as a tautly stretched piece of latex rubber; like that used to make surgical gloves. Now, imagine trying to push a marble through that latex. It will not pass through, the harder you push the stronger the resistance. Eventually, the resistance will be such that the marble is flung away, similar to shooting a marble out of a slingshot. The harder the push the farther the marble will sail away. In the same manner, the harder we press in with preaching the gospel to postmoderns, those who have not invited us into the conversation, the stronger will be their rejection. I personally believe we do more damage to the cause of Christ than good to the cause of Christ by this type of evangelism, no matter how noble our intentions.

How does one share the gospel with a postmodern if they are so resistant to spiritual things? Actually, they aren’t resistant to spiritual things; they are resistant to pushiness and violation of their moral absolutes. In fact, postmoderns are often very open to conversations about spirituality and are often quite open to a relationship with Christ. But, they are only open to spiritual conversations with people who are on the other side of their membrane. Penetration comes through invitation, and invitation comes through special relationship. To witness to a postmodern from whom you have no invitation, based on a special relationship, is an exercise in rejection. They decide when, how and with whom they will invite someone “through their membrane.” To initiate this process from the outside is to invite rejection. To force this process is to invite a forceful rejection.

Ministry in the life of the postmodern comes on the basis of the quality of our relationships and the quality of our living. All of our life should be viewed through this lens. In every relationship we possess an opportunity to minister the life of Jesus to others; both with Christians and non-Christians. At the beginning of this article, I asked the question: how does one do evangelism in the postmodern world? The answer: we don’t “do” evangelism, we don’t “do” ministry. We live the supernatural life of Jesus. All of life is ministry. We can not and should not dichotomize our lives into ministry and non ministry. Thus the onus (and privilege) is on us to be the fragrance of Christ (II Cor. 2: 15, 16) in the power of the Spirit, at all times and in all situations. This means that all of life is permeated with the supernatural. This means we are dependant on God to produce his fruit in and though us. We can not rely on our own efforts and acts of our will to accomplish Kingdom work. That is just religious activity. Authentic fruit is that which Christ develops in our lives, and we don’t get to determine what that will look like. Jesus simply promised that if we abide in him, we will bear much fruit.

This does not mean we have to be secretive about Jesus, who is the focal point of our very existence. He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is our life, the captivator of our every thought. He is the supernatural presence that fills our souls with his love, peace and joy. We are in love with him, and he with us. If this is how we live it will be evident. Then, the subject of Jesus will come up at the right time; and it will be natural and winsome rather than artificial and forced.

We can take heart, the membrane is semi-permeable. One can get through and, when one does, sharing our faith becomes a joy to both the hearer and the one who is telling of the power of Jesus. As stated above, penetration comes through invitation, and invitation comes through special relationship. So, what kind of special relationships? There are really only two: family relationships and deep friendships. In terms of family relationships, unless one is born into the family, the only remaining avenue is through adoption. And, in terms of deep friendships, no amount of insisting will create them. They only grow over time and through free, mutual assent. But there are a number of ways one can be invited through the membrane.

My friends Bill and Jane found a membrane penetration principal when God initiated their ministry to Basque exchange students. This happened when they went to Spain to spend time with the families of the students who had stayed in their home. They soon learned that they were welcomed into these homes as family members. In fact, they found out that the parents were well aware of the discussions about spiritual things with their sons and daughters. Not only did they not prohibit such conversations, they welcomed this type of input in their children’s lives. This is an ethnic group that is historically and notoriously suspicious of outsiders. Yet, Bill and Jane had passed through the membrane. With this penetration came the invitation and opportunity to speak freely about spiritual things.

But how did they get there? They were informally “adopted” by these families. Why? Bill believes he and Jane were adopted because they had, first of all, adopted those students into their own home and family. Because they had loved those students, they were loved and invited into the family. Bill and Jane are still very careful with the freedom they now have. They are aware of how precious it is. But, at the same time, they are bold in talking about spiritual things. I have been with them as they boldly shared their faith. Had I, as an outsider, tried to say the exact same things, the conversation would have ended rather abruptly or created relationally devastating tensions.

It is not merely the quality of the conversational content that is important to the postmodern hearer. Rather, it is the quality of the relationship in which the conversation takes place that gives or denies the right to speak. This is one significant difference between evangelism from the old “modern” viewpoint and that which occurs in the newer, postmodern world. In the rational, modern worldview, one could often prove through rational argument the validity of one’s position. The idea was to make the gospel simple, clear and convincing. In point of fact, we sometimes confused evangelism with a type of indoctrination in which we made sure someone understood and agreed with the right “doctrines”. Evangelism, on the other hand, is helping someone encounter the supernatural life and salvation of Jesus. Postmoderns may agree that you are rationally right and still deny you the access necessary to change their heart. What postmoderns really want is to see that they are loved in a way that is natural, appropriate for the situation, and not forced.

Many years ago, I had a summer job on a wheat ranch in Eastern Oregon living in a bunkhouse with another college student. With great interest I had been reading Josh McDowell’s book Evidence That Demands a Verdict. One evening, while washing up after a long day of work, we got into a spiritual conversation. Boy did I think I was ready. I blew him out of the water with facts, figures and statistics. He was impressed with what I was saying but not convinced. He asked to read the book, which he did over the following week. He read every word. At the end he came to me and said “I’ve read your book. I can’t argue with the facts. But I don’t believe.” I was witnessing to a postmodern, I just didn’t know it. It wasn’t the quality of the argument that denied access to his soul. Rather, it was the absence of a quality relationship with him, one in which I could have shown with my own life that Jesus was worth having. Access denied.

Another way to penetrate the membrane is to become accepted as a close friend. How do such friendships happen? They happen like they have always happened, through time together and mutual interest. Tim, a friend of mine in Portugal, joined a group of motorcycle enthusiasts. He wasn’t shy about admitting he was a Christian but he also wasn’t invading people’s space. Over time, as the relationships developed, spiritual conversations started taking place. Recently, several couples in the group have asked him if he could do a “Protestant Mass” for them. Notice ––they asked him. He didn’t come up with the idea and suggest it to them. He probably never would have thought of this particular ministry model. But, they had come to the point that they wanted to initiate a spiritual element into their relationship. Tim had somehow passed through the membrane, at least for some of the members of the motorcycle club. If Tim is obnoxious with his new found freedom, he can lose it. But I have every confidence that God will give him wisdom and more opportunities.

A few years ago my wife, Margi, started to attend a local Tai Chi class to exercise and to make contacts in our Spanish community. Before she did this, we had long discussions about the potential dangers of the spiritual roots of Tai Chi. She attended the first few weeks with trepidation, hoping that the class was not actually a front for New Age spirituality. What she found was that this particular school of Tai Chi mainly emphasized the physical benefits, rather than presenting it as a spiritual exercise. Through prayer, we decided that she should continue in class and that our daughters could join. This class became a source of many friendships for Margi and the girls. Margi started praying for her friends as she exercised. She also found herself playing the role of the “bridge person” for the newcomers in the class whom the old timers tended to shun.

Two years later, her Tai Chi instructor asked her for a private meeting. In that meeting, he told her that he noticed something special in her character. He didn’t know quite what it was, but he did notice that people were attracted to her. This was particularly interesting since she and our daughters were the only non-Spaniards in the class. The Tai Chi instructor asked her if she would be willing to become an instructor herself. Again, after much prayer, we felt that God was opening doors and that we should proceed.

Even though her school emphasized the physical benefits of Tai Chi, Margi found that many people came looking for something spiritual. Margi has not publicly emphasized her Christian faith, nor had she denied it. But, what she has found is that many of her friends now openly talk to her about spiritual things. They initiate these discussions; when they do, Margi talks about Jesus and her relationship with him.

Recently, Mari Carmen and Marisol went out to coffee with Margi after class. Mari Carmen wanted to talk about chakras, a Hindu concept. Marisol told Margi that she believed in auras and entered into a long description of the meaning of the different colors of auras. She then admitted that even though she has been studying auras for several years, she has never really seen one. That is, until she watched Margi do Tai Chi. She said, “Margi, I can actually see your aura. It is bright white.” Margi asked what that color meant. “White is the color of purity.” From this Margi got an opportunity to explain that what she was probably seeing was the presence of Jesus. Margi talked of who Jesus was and why he was important in her life. Had Margi felt duty bound to discredit Mari Carmen’s and Marisol’s false beliefs concerning Eastern mysticism, she would have never had a chance to talk about Jesus. In fact, the relationship probably would have ended at that point. Instead, she took every opportunity to build the friendship until she was invited through the membrane. Now, she has even more opportunity to talk about Jesus.

Cleaning up false beliefs should come after conversion, when the Holy Spirit is present in someone’s life and can lead them into all the truth. Sometimes, however, we get this process backwards. We feel we have to help people clean up their lives so they are, somehow, acceptable to Jesus. This, of course, is nonsense. Were we actually to think about it, we would realize this is not biblical nor how Jesus himself acted. He entered freely into the lives of sinners and, in turn, was very welcome among sinners. The only people offended by him were the religious types, because he didn’t try to fit into the norms of their religious sub-culture.

Another story from the Gospels that most Christians are familiar with is that of Zaccheus, the tax collector, and his interaction with Jesus. We are usually most familiar with how Zaccheus, who was short in stature, climbed a tree to be able to see the Lord. Yet, Jesus called him by name to come out of the tree; then invited himself to dinner at Zaccheus’ house. I’ll pick up the story there.

“And when they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:8-10)

How different the story would have been if Jesus had said. “Zaccheus, charging more taxes than the Roman government requires is fraud. You, a descendent of Abraham, are harming his other children. I know what a dishonest scoundrel you are. When you show me that you are willing to shape up and act right we will have ourselves a little talk. I do want to commend you for your willingness to seek me, demonstrated by climbing the tree. Now, just keep up the good work and go that extra mile and some day salvation can be yours.”

Evidently, the crowd was waiting for a nice little religious speech like that. Jesus didn’t give it and they began to doubt his credentials. Jesus didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the grumblers. He was too busy listening to Zaccheus spill his heart on the way to his house. But, the striking thing for me, in this passage, is Jesus’ statement ‘Today salvation has come to this house.’ How did Jesus know that? There had been no gospel presentation. There had been no decision, no apologetics, no convincing of any kind. There was just Zaccheus, wearing his heart on his sleeve, expressing his desire to make things right. For Jesus, that was enough. There was already evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in the tax collector’s life. Apparently, for Jesus, life controlled by the Holy Spirit is the same as salvation.

One day I went into a bar in Spain for a cup of coffee with a very “religious” Christian. We saw a man playing the slot machine in the back of the bar. My religious friend felt duty-bound to “tease” the man about his gambling. Unfortunately, the gambler didn’t see the humor. I’m also certain he didn’t feel my religious friend was a spiritual guide who could lead him to the truth. He probably just thought my friend was offensive. Even now as I write, I realize I feel the need to justify my presence in a bar for certain Christians, particularly in the United States, who would find a Christian’s presence in a bar offensive. Jesus went to where the sinners were. They liked that about him. He also walked in holiness. If you believe that holiness can be sullied by entering a bar or by taking a Tai Chi class, perhaps you need to study again the meaning of holiness.

We do not need to help people become more holy. The Holy Spirit is the only One capable of that. When he does it, it is a wonderful, powerful and supernatural process. When we try to do it, it is obnoxious. Many of us long for the days when average Europeans and North Americans were good church goers and when the morals of society were better. I don’t long for those days. Although I am sorry for the people who are wounded by sin, the fact remains that light shines brightest in the darkness. I do not long for the days when it was difficult to tell the sheep from the goats. Marisol knew there was something very sheep like about Margi. No one needed to tell here. She could see the light shining in the darkness. She just thought it was an aura.

I also have no interest in changing people’s drinking habits or bringing about some other kind of moral change. My interest is in introducing people to Jesus. He will help those who have a drinking problem. I know because he helped me in a supernaturally-powerful way. It was not a matter of having a newer and better set of Christian morals. Jesus helped me with my drinking problem before I knew that North American Christians didn’t approve of strong drink. I was 15 years-old at the time. I didn’t know any other Christians. It wasn’t until two years later that I started to attend a Bible believing church. All I knew was that, as a new Christian, I no longer wanted or needed to get drunk. I just wanted to please Jesus.

There is one final way through the semi-permeable membrane that I would like to discuss. This is the concept of the “man of peace”. In Luke 10, Jesus is giving ministry instructions to seventy people. Among other things, Jesus told them:

And whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ And if a man of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him; but if not, it will return to you. And stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not keep moving from house to house. (Luke 10: 5-7)

Many around the world are seeing strategic significance in the concept of the “man of peace” (verse six). For many, the man of peace is the strategic door opener, the person who opens the way for the gospel to enter a group or segment of society. The man of peace is found through prayer or prophecy, not necessarily through strategic insight or ministry technique. Three biblical examples of this would be Cornelius the Roman centurion in Acts chapter 10, the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8, and Lydia the Philippian seller of purple in Acts 16. God supernaturally arranged for believers, who were infected with the gospel, to meet others who were ready to experience it; one through an angel (the Ethiopian eunuch) another through a prophetic dream (Cornelius) and the third by divine encounter down by the riverside (Lydia).

Does this happen today? Is that really an application of what Jesus was teaching in Luke chapter 10? To the first question the answer is clearly “Yes,” This is happening today. Should we wait for God supernaturally to put us in contact with a strategic door opener? To answer this, let me simply state that, when people ask God to put them in contact with a man or woman of peace, it is not uncommon for God to answer, often in unusual and powerful ways.

Phil and Becca were new missionaries in Spain. Like many new missionaries, they were finding it hard to make significant contact with their Spanish neighbors. After hearing of the concept of the “man of peace,” they began to ask God to bring one to them. Soon after they began to pray, they received a phone call from a young man named Frank, someone they had never met. Frank had recently moved to Spain and had gotten my friends’ names from mutual acquaintances in North Carolina. Frank had met a young Spanish woman, Mercedes, in a bar. Mercedes noticed something special in Frank’s life, and to make a long story short, Mercedes became a Christian. At that point, Frank felt that he needed some help. How was he going to disciple Mercedes? Where were there good churches in Madrid? Whom could he call for help? Then he remembered that he had Phil and Becca’s names through contacts. Soon they all got together; and Mercedes became a “person of peace” for the house church that is being planted.

This is a relatively mild “person of peace” story. I know of many others who have been found through prophecy, still others who are being found through prayer and divine appointment. I’m sure “people of peace” are being found through dreams. In fact, I believe a fascinating book could be written just compiling person of peace stories which are happening all over the world. God clearly seems to be at work.[2]

People of peace get the gospel through the semi-permeable membrane that stretches between people who have the gospel and people who need the gospel. Some people of peace only bring the gospel through the membrane; others bring their gospel bearing friends through as well. By this, I mean that we don’t always become friends with all the person of peace’s friends. They may not introduce the gospel-bearer to their friends, just the gospel itself. On other occasions, the person of peace may be the doorway for friendship with a whole new network of people.

The important thing is that Jesus and his gospel gets through to a new network of people; and that the gospel becomes a lovely contagion there. Of course, there are significant, strategic issues involved as the gospel crosses a semi-permeable membrane. How will discipleship be carried out? How will churches be formed? How will leadership be developed? These are important questions, and the same Jesus who introduced us to the person of peace will give us the wisdom and the resources to answer the strategic questions as they come up.

The man of peace, the adoption principal, and significant friendships are all illustrations of God opening the doors of relationship. In all of these instances, the non-Christians also initiated the passage through the semi-permeable membrane. It would be very easy to relegate this to a technique.

· All I have to do is make some friends and do friendship evangelism.
· Maybe we should all just pray to find the man of peace.
· If I would just have exchange students maybe I would get adopted into their family.
· I guess we will all just have to go out and buy a motorcycle like Tim.

That is more like magical thinking than sound ministry practice. It is putting faith in the technique, not in a supernaturally powerful God. Techniques do not have power, Jesus has power. Jesus needs to lead us into ministry. Jesus needs to open doors. That Jesus wants to do this for us has never been in question. The hard part is praying, listening, waiting and following. For far too long we have been putting our faith in techniques and methods, and far too little faith in God. We need to watch and pray. We need to wait for God to invite us to the party, and then we need to be patient until God initiates a way through the semi-permeable membranes that separate us from people who need Jesus. We need to stop forcing and start following. Actually I think Solomon says it best.

Trust the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths. (Prov. 3:5-6)

[1] I am using the metaphor of divine invitation. The Apostle Paul, referring to the same phenomena, uses the metaphor of an open door in 1 Cor. 16:9 and 2 Cor. 2:12.
[2] For a current day man of peace story that happened to Baptist missionaries go to www.ethnicharvest.org/links/articles/bridges_man_of_peace.htm.

Institutional Church or Organic Church

2005-03-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

Why are we doing this to ourselves?

Ross Rohde © November 2003

Now, after more than three centuries, we can, if we will, change gears again. Our opportunity for a big step lies in opening the ministry to the ordinary Christian in much the same manner that our ancestors opened Bible reading to the ordinary Christian. To do this means, in one sense, the inauguration of new Reformation while in another it means the logical completion of the earlier Reformation in which the implications of the position taken were neither fully understood nor loyally followed.[1]

Even the most unsophisticated review of the Book of Acts and the Epistles will lead the reader to the conclusion that the Church of the 21st Century and the Church of the 1st Century were conducted in very different ways. Obviously there are historical and cultural differences of context; yet these distinctions don’t begin to scratch the surface of profound changes that have shaped church practice in the last twenty centuries. Are these changes good or bad? Is the way we “do” church now an advantage or are we missing powerful dynamics that the early church understood? How did we get to the place we find ourselves today?

The purpose of this paper is to try to investigate these questions in depth, particularly the first two. However, I want to declare myself from the very beginning; I think the profound differences in the way we express our faith, as compared to the early Church, have profound effects in how effective we are in accomplishing our goals. Are the changes we see good or bad? Like most complex realities it is difficult to say something is completely good or completely bad. However, if we take an honest look at the Church we see in the New Testament and the Church as it experience it today I think we will notice that the New Testament Church had a dynamic, spiritual spark that is largely missing today.

The author further recognizes the inability of stating everything in a balanced way. For the sake of comparison or explanation statements will be made that are not completely balanced, fair or complete. No one group of people or expression of church is exactly one way or another. Simplification is done for the sake of clarity and comparison, not because the author has an ax to grind.

I do not want to say that the New Testament Church was perfect or anywhere close to it. The New Testament Church was rife with heresy, struggled with personal disagreements, and was decidedly unpolished and earthy. Yet it exploded out of Jerusalem with incredible spiritual power. It found success within its Jewish genesis point, in the Greek world and in Rome itself. Both Church tradition and history tell us that in that first generation the Church had already moved out of the Roman sphere of influence and was making headway in a number of exotic cultures. All of this was done in the face of official and unofficial persecution.

Nor is this to say that the Church as we express it nowadays is bad. The vast majority of my Christian growth was facilitated within the traditional evangelical church. I was discipled there, I experience fellowship and love there, and I ministered and was ministered to there. I know loving servant leaders in the traditional church. I have experienced a love and respect for Jesus Christ and His Word there. I know deeply spiritual people who feel very comfortable there. However, nothing occurs in a vacuum. The way we are expressing our church life today affects how we experience spiritual growth, how we express leadership, how we plant churches, how we disciple one another, how we deal with finances, even how we experience God. I believe certain aspects of the way we express our faith creates problems and exacerbates problems.

This paper will intentionally focus on what I believe is the most significant difference between the Church in the 1st century and the Church we find in the 21st century. This difference profoundly influences how we think about church, what we experience, and how effective we are in accomplishing the very goals that Jesus himself laid out for us. This difference is actually quite simple, yet it is having a powerful and negative impact on our church life and experience. The difference is the way we are organized.

The 1st century Church was organized organically, much like an organism. It had life, it reproduced naturally and all of its parts were seamlessly connected to the others in a holistic way, much like the way all the organ systems of the body are interconnected. The cardiovascular system won’t function without the nervous system. The nervous system needs the endocrine system. The endocrine system won’t function without the cardiovascular system. In the 1st century church discipleship led naturally to church planting, leadership development, evangelism and spiritual growth.

The 21st century Church is organized like an organization. It is programmed; its reproduction is seldom natural or spontaneous. In fact, often its reproduction is practically nonexistent and almost always clumsy. Although its parts are easily diagramed on an organizational chart, they are often in conflict with one another. How many times have we seen budget fights about how much money is allocated to which program? Many 21st century leaders have never thought much about how discipleship relates to church planting. Organic churches and organizational churches are both organized, they are just organized in very different ways and those differences affect the outcome of what we experience.

I believe that Church was designed by God himself to be organic. The analogies that New Testament uses for the Church are usually organic. The Church is a body with Christ as its head. The Church is a bride with Christ as the bridegroom. In fact, the only non-organic analogy we have is that the Church is a building with Christ as its cornerstone. Peter in I Peter 2:5 reminds us that the stones used to make this building are organic living stones.

When the Church organized itself in organizational/institutional ways it lost the dynamics it was created to have. It had to program what before was happening naturally. It had to institutionalize and work hard to achieve what before just seemed to happened. Take leadership development. There is no indication in the New Testament that leaders were scarce or that the Church was worried about having enough leaders. In fact, in 2 Tim 2:2 we see Paul training Timothy who trains faithful men who can train others also. There are four progressively growing generations of leaders. Leadership was multiplying, and it was happening in a relational, non-institutional way. Yet nowadays, with our plethora of seminaries, we still have trouble staffing churches. Take for example a pastoral job description taken from a website:

Church X seeks a new Senior Pastor with excellent skills in Bible teaching/preaching, the leadership skills to grow a large organization to greater effectiveness and impact for the Lord, a deep walk with the Lord, humility coupled with self-confidence, transparency and authenticity, and a conservative evangelical stance that emphasizes grace. Such a person could already be a Senior Pastor at a church of 1,000+ or could have been on a pastoral staff of a much larger church and now prepared to be a Senior Pastor.

In I Timothy Chapter 3 we have what could be called a job description for a pastor/elder/bishop, but it sure doesn’t look like that, nor was it advertised in an international Christian magazine. Further, one certainly doesn’t get the idea that elders were hard to find. There is not one mention of a seminary, preaching is not a must nor is self-confidence and since is it doubtful that any local church in the 1st century was ever over a couple of dozen people, such ideas as Senior Pastor at a church of 1,000+ is a bit ludicrous. Where did the idea of “Senior Pastor” come from anyway?

That is a question I would like to answer historically. In the year 313 A.D. the Edict of Milan was proclaimed by the Emperor Constantine. Basically it was a law that decreed Christianity legal and further mandated that persecution was to stop. All religions were to be tolerated but their toleration was due to the toleration extended to Christians. In fact, Christianity is the only religion named. Over night Christianity had become the first among equals. This first among equal status had a profound affect on Roman society. Official Roman paganism was a religion of spiritless ritual. Most Romans were pagans because they were Roman. If Christianity was the first among equals then they might as well be Christian.

Christians had been meeting, up to that time, in homes or hidden places. They also met in large groups sporadically, when they could. After all, they were a persecuted religion. Now huge numbers of people wanted to be “Christian”. Where were they going to meet? Since Christianity had a semi-official status with the Roman government they applied to use official Roman government buildings. In most towns there was a building called a basilica. The word has come to mean a church building, but at that time the basilica was a cross between a courthouse and a civic center. Christians began to meet in large groups in the basilica.

These changes ended up having profound affects on the Christian faith. Up until this time the meeting of Christians had been predominantly done in small intimate spiritual communities. Larger gatherings were actually a conglomeration of the smaller communities. These smaller groups were called churches. So were the bigger groups. One was the church that met is so and so’s house. The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. (I Cor. 16:19). The other was usually the whole set of small communities in a given city. Paul, Silas and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you. (I Thes. 1:1).

After the Edict of Milan the large gathering predominated over the small. This in turn had profound effects on the Christian community. When a group of 8 or 10 or 14 people meets there is a very intimate dynamic of community that develops. One’s testimony is known. There are few secrets. Pretensions drop away and your leaders are your friends. When hundreds meet this dynamic is impossible. The shared intimacy and deep spirituality that the Church was accustomed to was being diminished at the same moment when they had an incredible influx of new believers and new people who were becoming “Christians” for social rather than spiritual reasons. This in turn had a profound affect on leadership.

Up until the changes wrought by the Edict, leaders were merely people recognized for the depth of their spiritual life. We can see what kind of people these were by looking through the list of traits found in I Tim. 3. These people had a number of names, pastors, elders, and bishops. These titles were recognition of the role they played in both the small and large expression of the Church. One’s elder was the friend they saw almost daily. They were probably also the one who was personally discipling you. They were the people who you trusted because you saw the power of Jesus in their life. You knew their story, you knew their strengths, you knew their weaknesses, and you knew how they dealt with their weaknesses.

If a church didn’t trust an elder he was no longer an elder because elder wasn’t a positional title in a hierarchical power structure. It was recognition of role and of spiritual life. If personal character didn’t match the role, the role ceased to exist. There were other types of recognized leaders in this mix. We can see their titles in Eph. 4: 11, 12. It was he (Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…Again these leaders were recognized for their spiritual giftedness and life, this was not a power hierarchy. It was recognized that Christ appointed these people through the giftedness that he had given them.

The Edict played havoc with this intimate dynamic of leadership. Within a very short time the group that met is Erastus’ house was now meeting with hundreds of others down at the basilica. Who became the leader of this large group? One of the leaders of the small groups became leader; one who was known and trusted for their spiritual walk. But everyone didn’t know this person.

Another dynamic came into play. Since you had many leaders of small groups now meeting predominantly in the big group the leadership started arranging itself into hierarchical power structures. The most obvious model for this was the Roman governmental structure. To be fair, this process had already started before the Edict of Milan, because it was a powerful cultural model. But the Edict heightened and finalized the process.

Finally, Christianity’s semi-official governmental status became more and more official. Leaders eventually became governmental functionaries. Authority became something based on position rather than spirituality. This also had the powerful backing of the government. Within a relatively short time, leadership was merely something that went along with title. Spirituality had very little to do with it. Within one hundred years monastic movements started. The roots of their origins have basis in the fact that true Christians had lost faith in their hierarchically appointed leadership and looked to the desert fathers, deeply spiritual men, for spiritual leadership.

What does this have to do with Christianity seventeen centuries later? We are still meeting at the basilica. In fact, most church buildings retain the basic layout of a Roman basilica. There is seating in two blocks with a central isle. The pulpit is where the judges sat. Seventeen hundred years later we are still closely reflecting even the physical layout of a “church/basilica” building. Amazing isn’t it? The big expression of church, called the congregation, with its inability to provide intimate community still dominates our view of how church is expressed. We are also still using the hierarchical power structures we inherited from the Roman government. We are still vesting our leaders with titles and positions and allowing leaders to lead from positional authority as much as or even more so than spiritual authority. Leadership is often viewed as a job with job descriptions, titles and vested power.

I think these historical encrustations have made it nearly impossible to experience the spiritual dynamic and power that the 1st century church enjoyed. Let’s compare and contrast the institutional church with the organic model of the 1st century.

The institutional church is first of all complex and institutional in its structure. In the 4th century the institutional model of choice was the Roman government. It still is in the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches. In most evangelical churches the model of choice is modern business. After all, the business model is as strong of cultural model in today’s society as the Empire’s structure was in Rome. Ministries are viewed as departments of the business. Most ministries have some sort of appointed leadership and often committees to oversee it much like a board of directors. One ministry does not necessarily have much to do with the other unless it is budget time. Then the various ministries may have to fight for allocation of funds. The leadership of the church is set up like a corporation or at least a small business, depending on the size of the church. The pastor is something like the president, the elder board (where did this concept come from?) is like the board of directors, and ministry leaders are like department heads. This can all be laid out in an organizational diagram.

Evangelism, church planting, and missions are viewed as programs to be developed by the given committees or departments. These departments need to maneuver for allocation of funds in order to develop their given projects. Projects are often rejected or set on the back burner based on the availability of funds. In missions the Church Growth paradigm predominates. The missional function of the church is viewed from a sociological, business and marketing perspective.

Particularly since the Enlightenment of the 18th century, spirituality within the institutional church has been viewed as having correct or approved doctrine. Modernism in the form of the Renaissance divided the Western Church into Catholic and Protestant camps. The Enlightenment shattered the Protestant church into hundreds of denominations and even independent congregations. These divisions were based on doctrinal issues as well as issues of ritual and practice.

The general practice of the modern institutional church has been to dichotomize. It divides one ministry from another. It separates one denomination from another. It views congregations as separate entities unrelated to other congregations in its geographical proximity. It tends to separate leadership from the very community it is supposed to lead. It can even separate doctrine from spiritual life.

Much of this has roots in the fact that we organize ourselves as an institution. The organizational principal of the institution allows us to think of discipleship with its department, budget line item and committee as separate from evangelism with its department, budget line item and committee. The way we are organized causes us to see the distinctions not the connections. Perhaps the president of the corporation, often called the pastor, sees the connections. Perhaps even the pastor doesn’t see them. We have taken our organizational structure from the world and it is harming the living organism called the Church.

Christian Schwarz calls the thinking described above technocratic thinking. Because we are, perhaps subconsciously, using business as our model it should come as no surprise that we do ministry like a business develops a new product or a factory builds a car. In short, the technocratic approach to ministry can be described like this: a minister develops a program or model and then encounters and applies the resources necessary to accomplish the desired outcome. Technocratic thinkers are always looking for a tip a trick or a technique. When they see a ministry that is bearing fruit they want to copy the model, as if the power was in the model, not in the Holy Spirit who lead someone to develop the model. Institutional thinking and institutional organization often lead to sterile, institutionalized, technocratic ministry.

It is easy to be critical. It doesn’t take much to notice that what we are doing in the postmodern world isn’t working too well. Unfortunately, the answer that many of us come up with is to try to do the same sorts of things twice as hard. But since most of us have never seen anything else, it is hard to imagine what it could look like and how one would go about ministry.

The polar opposite to the institutionalized church is the organic church. It is most certainly church in every biblical respect; it just doesn’t look like an institution because it isn’t one. It is a spiritually living organism. It is simple, it is relational, it grows by itself, it assumes that God will lead it into ministry, it is holistic and it is biotic.

First of all it is simple. It does not try to be fancy; it does not try to develop programs. It avoids committees, hierarchical structures, titles, and budgets. It doesn’t get overly excited about developing long term plans. It keeps things simple. The purest expression of these simple churches is commonly called house church. I actually prefer to call house churches simple churches because house isn’t the issue, simple is. In fact, what we find in the New Testament are networks of simple house churches. Yet everything the Bible says about church was said to and about these simple churches.

These simple churches are organic in their structure. Christian Schwarz talks about the “all by itself principle”. These churches tend to reproduce all of their elements all by themselves. For example, simple churches tend to multiply themselves, all by themselves without outside help, a program, funds from a denominational structure and a budget. Local leadership reproduces other local leaders all by themselves. Apostles develop apostles, teachers reproduce teachers, evangelists train other evangelists. Simple church networks tend to hive off other simple church networks. Christians learn to help their friends become Christians.

They are organic in another way. Just like an organ systems of an organism are interconnected and nurture one another all the elements of “churchness” are connected in such a way that it is really impossible to talk about the mission’s department or the evangelism program. What does this look like?

A maturing Christian has a relationship with her non-Christian friend. Jesus told her to make disciples so she starts to disciple her friend. Discipleship here is defined as continually helping someone take one step closer to Jesus. This works as well with non-Christians as Christians. Her friend starts to move towards Jesus. She starts to grow.

Somewhere in the process of being discipled she not only comes to Christ but is encouraged to invite some of her friends to discuss what God is doing in her life. A group forms at the new Christian’s house. The more mature Christian that is discipling the new Christian suggests that she begin to disciple her friends. A church is born. New Christians are born and discipled. They in turn start churches in their own circles of influence.

In the mean time, recognized leaders called apostles, prophets, evangelists and teachers come among this growing network to help the training and discipleship process. Where did these people come from? They were recognized as being gifted people in the original simple church network of the first maturing Christian mentioned. Each of these leaders provides leadership from their own areas of giftedness. They observe who is showing significant spiritual growth among these new Christians and make sure they are encouraged and trained through life on life discipleship in how to be elders. As the network matures people with apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, teaching and pastoral gifts will be noted and they will be trained by similarly gifted people. Eventually apostolic teams of people with the Ephesians 4:11 gifts will be formed in this new network and when they sense a prompting from the Spirit of God they will go out and start new house church networks. This may even be in another city, country or ethnic group. In the mean time, more evangelism, discipleship, and church planting are going on in the original network. All of this started with a friendship of a Christian with a non-Christian.

Discipleship in this model can’t be separated out from evangelism or church planting or leadership development or network growth. Missions is connected to leadership development. The prayer and Bible study involved in the discipleship process can’t be separated from evangelism or just plain friendship. Where does the money come from? They give as they see need. They are discipled to love one another and take care of one another and the people around them. They lay money at the apostle’s feet so that new networks can be planted and the needy in their network and community can be cared for. The care for the needy in their neighborhood ends up leading to evangelism. These things form an integral whole. To separate them and give them all line items in the budget is ludicrous.

The best analogy I have found for this is the mobius strip. The mobius strip is the only three dimensional object with one side. If you take a simple strip of paper and form a loop with it, it will have two sides, the inside of the loop and the outside of the loop. However, if you give the strip a half twist before you connect them into a loop you have formed a mobius strip. If you take a pencil and draw along the strip the line it writes will join itself even though the pencil is never lifted from the paper. That is because there is only one side of a mobius strip. A mobius strip can’t be dichotomized. There is only one side. In a simple church network there is only one side. Evangelism is on the same side as leadership development, ministry to the poor, giving, discipleship, prayer and teaching. They are whole and the whole organism reproduces itself. This is further all directed by the Head of the Body, Jesus Christ Himself. Organisms have minds. The mind of the Church is the Holy Spirit.

This is all based on the biotic principal. Part of the biotic principal, as Schwarz points out, is that life produces life all by itself. I think another part of the logic of the biotic principal is a mindset, one could even call it faith. A simple biotic church or network believes that under the direction and in the power of the Holy Spirit they can minister into the lives of each other as they are gifted by Him. When they do this, the Spirit will guide them as a community into further ministry. This ministry will deepen them as Christians, draw them closer to their Lord and cause the reproduction of Christians, churches and networks. This happens all by itself, or actually in the power and under the direction of the Holy Spirit. This sounds very idealistic, but is it really happening? Yes, all over the world. A more mature example would be the sixty year old house church movement in China. It is working in almost every country in Europe. It is happening in Africa, Asia, Australia, Latin America and North America. It tends to contextualize all by itself.

In the last year and one half we have seen over 20 simple churches being born in Spain; at least these are the ones my friends and I know about as I write. By the time this gets published I am sure I will know of more. These simple churches are already reproducing all by themselves. A year and a half ago simple churches were unknown in Spain, at least by this author and his friends. We certainly know of no simple church in Spain or Portugal older than one and one half years, and our ears are to the rail trying to find these churches. I mention Portugal because the same thing is happening in Portugal. One of the known genesis points for this was a conference a year ago; one simple conference. Granted this is all messy. It is not under our control but life is messy and the Holy Spirit is clearly guiding this and it is under His control. Spiritual life is giving life to more spiritual life. People are coming to Christ, being discipled and churches as well as networks of churches are being formed. All this has happened in one and one half years.

I would like to compare and contrast simple organic churches with institutional churches. I would like to do this in a number of areas: organizational structure, authority, leadership, church planting/missions, discipleship, finances, view of spiritual gifting, spirituality and how meetings are conducted. When talking about organic churches these separations are artificial; I do so only to be able to compare and contrast them with the institutional model. But, because this is true, it is very difficult to talk about one area without bringing up others.

Organization

Besides the institutional vs. organic structure I have already mentioned there are a number of other distinctions that should be mentioned. Leadership in an institutional model is invariably arranged in a hierarchy of authority and power. Authority and power are vested in titles. People with titles are given certain responsibilities and job descriptions.

In the organic church each person is viewed as a leader because each person is gifted. Any gifted person can lead in their areas of spiritual gifts. Granted some people are quite immature in their giftedness and others more mature. Believer’s spiritual gifts are stirred up when they are allowed to use them and are coached by other similarly gifted but more mature individuals. Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit and recognized within the body by how the Holy Spirit works through and motivates a given individual. Ministry is directed by the Holy Spirit. He will bring the right people together at the right time with the right gifts, and the promptings He has placed in their hearts. Sometimes one group of gifted people will minister together, at another time it will be a different set of people. This is very hard to chart on an organizational diagram.

As mentioned before, the way these churches are organized characterized the way they view ministry. Those in an institutional church with a corporate or business model will tend to dichotomize ministry from ministry, doctrine from life, and one church or denomination from another. Those in the simple, organic model will tend to see the wholeness of ministry under the power and direction of the Holy Spirit and see the whole worldwide Church as the body of Christ, whether it is institutionalized, simple, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical, Charismatic or Pentecostal. A believer is a believer. A true believer is connected to Jesus so they are connected to us. We can’t separate the wheat from the tares that is a job of the angels.

Institutional churches tend to organize ministry based on programs, models, and techniques. It is assumed that one can look for and find contextualized techniques or models and apply them in a given context. The power is at least partially in the model itself. It is expected and hoped that the Holy Spirit will breathe power into these programs, models and techniques. Simple churches tend to believe in the biotic principal. The Holy Spirit will lead them into ministry.

Further the institutional church tends to be organized around the concept of the congregation. This concept is post-Constantinian. There are a number of formations of the congregational model, mostly based on forms of leadership structure or church government. There are also churches with cells and churches without cells. Cells are a half step toward simple church but in almost all cell churches the focus and power is still in the congregation and congregational leaders. Cell churches, at their best, are hybrids. They are organic units called cells, grafted to an inorganic structure called the “church”. The very fact that only the congregation is called the church is testimony to the actual inorganic nature of cell churches.

Simple churches are focused on the small simple church also called house church. These are churches that can survive on their own and reproduce by themselves. Everything that can happen in a congregational church can happen here. Simple churches do tend to form into networks. These networks have their own leadership structure based on the Eph. 4:11 gifted leaders. While the leader of a simple church is called an elder or pastor or spiritual father or mother; the leaders of networks are called apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors or teachers. Simple churches do all gather together on occasion for training, instruction, worship and celebration on a larger network scale. This is not a congregation and does not necessarily need to be expressed in a congregational format. It could be done just as easily as a conference, barbeque, festival, seminar or fair.

Authority

Authority and its sister leadership, are significant issues in churches, and they are also consistent and significant sources of conflict. The way authority is often expressed in the institutional church and in the organic church couldn’t be more different. The concept of authority is complex. We need to think clearly about the issue because there are really different types of authority.

When we are talking about church life there are at least three types of authority that come into play. The first is positional authority. This is the authority that comes from position, title or role. Because a person has this type of authority they are vested with certain responsibilities, privileges and power. Others respond to this type of authority because of the position held, not because of the person who holds it. The person being influenced says to themselves, I will do it because they have a title. This is called saluting the flag.

The second type of authority that comes into play in church settings is relational authority. This is authority that comes out of the friendship the person with authority has with the person being influenced. Because a person has a level of trust and relationship they are vested with a certain amount of influence in other people’s lives. Others respond to this type of authority because they trust the person. They have history with this person and this history inspires trust. The person being influenced say to themselves, I will do it because I trust them.

The third type of authority in church life is spiritual authority. This type of authority comes out of the evident spiritual life of the person with authority. Because of the evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives they are vested with influence in the lives of others. Others respond to this type of authority because they see Jesus in their life and that inspires trust. The person being influence says to themselves, they demonstrate spiritual maturity and wisdom; I will do it because I trust them.

Listen to the Apostle Paul appeal to the Corinthians to heed him in I Cor. 4: 14-16:

I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

This is an appeal both to relational authority and to spiritual authority. There is not one word about positional authority. Paul certainly reminds his readers that he is an apostle, but he never encourages someone to obey him because he has a title.

Parker J. Palmer in his book The Courage to Teach talks about the authority of a teacher.

External tools of power have occasional utility in teaching, but they are no substitute for authority, the authority that comes from the teacher’s inner life. The clue is in the word itself, which has author at its core. Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts. When teachers depend on the coercive powers of law or technique, they have no authority at all.[2]

Viewed from this perspective authority comes from inside the person, power comes from outside the person. Positional authority isn’t really authority at all, it is power. This is power that is vested in the person by the institution or organization.

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave– just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:25-27)

The very structure of the institutional church encourages saluting the flag. It is, after all, based on the Roman social structure which Jesus was referring to when he talked about the rulers of the Gentiles lording it over them. In fact, the parallel passage in Luke 22:25 uses the word “Benefactors” which was a title Roman civic leaders used about their role. The idea is that the leader is using his power and authority for the good of those underneath him. Jesus called this charade what it was. It was really lording power over others, no matter what verbal gymnastics are used. The structure of an institution encourages this type of thinking and this type of behavior. At its core it has the idea of some people having more power than others. It views some as those who are “above” and some who are “below”.

Does this mean that all leaders in institutional churches are abusing power? No, of course this is not true. Many are true godly leaders who, like Paul, appeal to their relational and spiritual authority. They allow authority to flow out of who they are, not what title they have. However, we would have to be blind to not see that many church leaders use the power of title and position to get their way. We would have to be deaf to not hear the groans that result from the wounding this causes among those who are “being led”. This is a major source of conflict in the church, and the conflict is built into the system. We have structured potential conflict in by following the world’s system instead of Jesus’ system of leadership.

Authority in the organic church comes out of recognized giftedness and relationship. Giftedness comes from the Lord and is an expression of spirituality. Every Christian in the organic church is a potential leader because everyone is gifted. They can lead when their gift is needed and they will be recognized by the level of spiritual maturity they possess. That recognition comes because the people leading in any given situation are in relationship with those being led. Leadership is recognized not vested by an organization or institution. Apostles are recognized by what kind of ministry the Holy Spirit leads them into. The kind of authority they have flows out of who they are and what God is doing in their life. The same can be true of the one recognized as having the gift of mercy. There is no institutional or organizational structure that requires the saluting of the flag. There is no flag. When flags are saluted, leadership failure has already occurred.

Does that mean that it is inconceivable that a leader in the organic church will try to lord it over others. This is just simple sinful human behavior. Of course it will happen. There is just no structure to back that type of person up in their power play. Such a person will probably just be ignored or might even be rebuked by people who have real spiritual authority.

Leadership

Leadership and authority are closely related issues. In discussing authority and influence we have also touched on key issues in leadership. However, there are a few other elements that should be contrasted in comparing the institutional model with the organic model.

Leadership, like authority, in the institutional model is vested not merely recognized. It is based on title not necessarily relationship. In fact if the relationship exists it is merely a corollary situation. In fact, one issue associated with leadership within the institutional church is that often leaders feel isolated from the very people they lead. It is this sense of the different quantity and quality of power and control that separates the leader from those they “lead”. Again the problem is built into the model.

To say that leadership doesn’t exist without relationship in the organic church would be overstating an ideal. Evangelists, for example, might very well be recognized by their reputation in ministry. They might be invited to come and train other in evangelism among churches where they do not have personal relationship. But they would come based on the authority of the recognition of giftedness and proven ministry they had demonstrated. They might come based on the recommendation of some other trusted individual like Paul’s recommendation of Timothy to the Corinthians. But though trust can be shared or imputed as a door opener, in the long run it must be earned to be maintained. Long term authority and therefore leadership is maintained through relationship and spirituality. If relationships and spirituality are abused, the authority will be lost. Most leadership though in an organic church setting is face to face, friend to friend.

Leadership in an institutional setting is often a paid position. There is a slot or position that carries with it requisite responsibility. As long as the responsibilities are fulfilled the functionary receives pay. The danger here is that ministry can just become a job instead of a Holy Spirit led passion.

In an organic setting there is seldom this type of pay for fulfilling of role mentality. Respected leaders may very well receive offerings for sacrificial service among Christians. Christians may raise offerings to send out apostolic teams or to support people who are dedicating themselves to the ministry. But it is just as likely that leaders will have non-ministry related jobs. This is a bit of a misnomer, since all of life is ministry and every relationship is a discipleship opportunity to take others one step closer to Jesus.

Church Planting/Missions

The first thing to be noted here is that church planting and missions in the institutional church is clumsy, inefficient and in many cases nearly non-existent. At best, church planting is a process of addition. Since church planting more than likely means buying property, constructing a building and paying staff it becomes incredibly expensive. The typical clergy mentality requires “experts” to be hired and trained for such work. These can be hard to find because the work is difficult and not particularly financially rewarding. You have to give these people credit; they are most likely working out of passion, because they could make more money selling shoes. This is not a life begetting life process. This is the technocratic model which requires a lot of hard, thankless work. Since this is so hard and so expensive there is a lot of effort put into trying to keep ailing and dying churches alive. The building alone required a lot of financial investment. Much time, effort and human suffering have gone into establishing and maintaining the ministry. An institutional church’s death is often viewed as a tragedy. There always seems to be a scent of failure associated with a church building being turned into a restaurant or museum.

Organic churches reproduce all by themselves. Where there is life more life comes into being. It is assumed that Jesus will lead into ministry. It is assumed that the Father will gift His children with the resources necessary to reproduce new Christians, new churches, new networks. This is a multiplication process. Every element in an organic church reproduces all by itself in the power and direction of the Holy Spirit. And just like in the natural world, things die. Churches die on occasion and Christians fall away. This happens in both the institutional model and in the organic model. There is just more vibrancy and life in the organic model. If there is enough life and reproduction going on we don’t have to try to hold on to every single church and try to make it survive. Organic churches have life cycles. They are born, they reproduce and in the process of multiplication they may give all of their life to other churches. The life is still there. Jesus is still ministering to His people, but any one particular church may cease to exist. This is not a tragedy; this is part of the life cycle.

Discipleship

Discipleship in the institutional model can usually be compared to a classroom process. It is often a programmed curriculum designed to impart doctrinal knowledge. There are hundreds of these programmed curriculums one can buy off of the shelf. The discipler often takes the role of teacher. Sometimes the discipler isn’t even necessary. Homework can be assigned and the disciple can do independent study. The emphasis can end up being discipleship as a program, Christianity as doctrinal knowledge with a focus on behavior modification.

This is a proactive process. The discipler or the curriculum writer decides what subjects, issues and doctrines a good Christian needs to know about. These are systematically laid out and the knowledge is imparted. At its worst this process can end up producing cookie cutter Christians who all think the same way, have the same views and don’t have idea one what the Holy Spirit is doing in there life. Or even worse, they can become program or classroom attendees, people who view church as an event to attend. There are other forms of discipleship in the institutional church. Probably the most satisfying for both the disciple and the discipler are deep intentional spiritual friendships. There is nothing in the institutional model that prohibits this, but it is not particularly common. The classroom model seems to predominate. This is usually just called Sunday School.

Discipleship in the organic model takes on a much different flavor. It is relationship based. It has both small group and one on one aspects. When the church meets personal discipleship is happening. The individual Christian is being discipled by more mature Christians called spiritual fathers and mothers, elders, pastors, or just friends. Christians may be being discipled on a series of levels at the same time. When at a church meeting they are being discipled by the whole church. They are of course discipling their friends as well, because it is a mutual process. They could be in a one on one personal and intentional discipleship process with a more mature Christian. And they could be receiving training in the spiritual gifting they are demonstrating.

All of this tends to be more reactive than proactive. It reacts to what the Holy Spirit happens to be doing in the life of the individual at any given time. This means that it is both more personal and more spiritually focused. Mature Christians recognize what God is doing in a given life and participate with the Holy Spirit in ministry. It may tend to be reactive but it does not mean that it is unintentional. There is a high level of intentionality here. It can also be proactive at times as the Holy Spirit prompts someone to speak into the lives of others. This proactive ministry often has a prophetic edge to it.

Finances

Some research was done a few years ago to find out how finances were used in a house church network in Texas. About 80+% of the money was used in two areas: missions and benevolent giving. What did this look like? If a member of a particular church lost their job, people give them money. If they needed a car they loaned or gave them their second car. If their community needed some type of social ministry to the poor, money was raised for specific projects; usually this money was accompanied by personal participation in ministry to the poor. If a member of the church needs funds, envelopes with money are left in their Bibles or on the seat of their car. If there is a need in another house church an offering is raised and sent through the elder or an apostolic leader. This is benevolent giving. If apostolic teams were going out to plant new simple church networks, offerings are raised. This is missions. This type of giving is direct, immediate and personal or conversely impersonal if anonymity is called for.

This proportion of finance focused on direct ministry is impossible in the institutional church. In an institutional church the vast majority of money is focused on two areas: buildings along with their maintenance and salaries. Whatever is left over can be used for direct ministry. The crumbs that are left over after these two huge budget items tend to be the source of conflict. Once again the problems are built into the system.

Money is handled in an institutional way in the institutional church. It is planned for, it is budgeted, it is allocated, it is put into and taken out of accounts and it is receipted. Money and its distribution is a source of power. Withholding of money can be a form of manipulation. Giving and the distribution of money in the institutional setting is seldom spontaneous. The accounting of money is a huge drain of manpower and time. Money must be budgeted, administered, counted and accounted for then receipted.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught:

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matt. 6:3,4)

Spiritual Gifting

In most institutional churches spiritual gifting is either a non issue or it is proscribed. It becomes a non issue in most non Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. Since the church is an institution with a hierarchical power structure those in “ministry” fulfill roles. This rarely has anything to do with spiritual gifting. At least it doesn’t have to be based on spiritual gifting. To be honest, those in “ministry” often do end up expressing spiritual gifts. However, what about all those people who are not in “ministry”? Most don’t even have an idea what their gifts are. This certainly doesn’t have the scent of the Holy Spirit leading us into ministry based on the gifts he has given.

In a Charismatic or Pentecostal church there is a tendency for certain supernatural gifts to be appreciated. Those who express these gifts are spiritual. Those who don’t are immature. This is over stating the case, but there is little doubt that certain gifts are more appreciated than others.

In an organic simple church the Holy Spirit gifts. Everyone is gifted and everyone can lead in that area of ministry or giftedness. The issue is maturity. If one is more mature they express their giftedness and the subsequent ministry produced with greater effectiveness and deeper spirituality. The immature should be discipled by those who have more experience in this particular gift. There is clearly a sense of the Holy Spirit leading the Church into ministry based on the gifts He has given.

Meeting

Any time Christians get together they are in fellowship with one another and with Jesus. This is church. In an institutional setting much of church isn’t given the dignity of being what it is, church. Only certain meetings are dignified with the name. These meetings are often stiff, formalized affairs with an “order of service”. This is clearly post Constintinian and really rather boring. Why are only certain formal types of meetings respected and given dignity?

In an organic church when Christians get together it is the body of Christ at work and Christ is in the midst. Two Christians meet for lunch, it is church. When three families get together for dinner on Thursday night, it is church. When thirty house churches meet in one place, it is church. And Christ is in the midst.

For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst. (Matt. 18:20).

Organizational churches offer us meetings. Organic churches offer us “meatings” where friends gather around meals and discuss Christ because he is in their midst. In organizational churches you have clergy and laity. There are those who are paid to be spiritual and those who observe them being spiritual. It is obvious who is who by what kinds of activities they participate in. By doing this we teach the “laity” to be do nothing or do little Christians. I remember when I was in graduate school we were looking for a church. I asked if I could teach an adult Sunday school class. I was told that in this church only those who were teaching on a seminary level were allowed to teach adult Sunday school classes. In other words, I was being assigned a role; the role of spirituality observer. I could observe those who were more prestigious and therefore more spiritually mature than I was. There was no room for the Holy Spirit to work through me for the edification of the body. The structure and policy of the church was in the way of the Holy Spirit. The problem was built into the structure. In an organic church Christians express their gifts through ministry. They grow and mature in their giftedness and therefore in the ministry the Holy Spirit expresses through them.

In organizational church we have congregations. Most Christians don’t do much. In organic church we have community where we know each other and love one another. In organizational church we have ministry programs. In organic church we have the power, presence, purpose and relationship with Jesus. When I am in a congregational church service I always ask myself the question, what would happen if the Holy Spirit broke out here? In most cases the “clergy” wouldn’t know what to do or how to respond because the Holy Spirit would get in the way of the service, program or schedule.

In organic church the church waits to see what Jesus is doing, then they minister accordingly. What does this look like? In a house church setting the believers gather together and begin to talk about Jesus. A wise leader starts looking for themes that the Holy Spirit is bringing up. He then follows Jesus into that theme by asking questions or suggesting Scripture or ministering to someone who has expressed a spiritual need or the need for prayer. The whole church is really ministering to one another. It doesn’t need to wait for a leader to notice or lead. Sometimes it is not the leader who happens to notice what the Holy Spirit is doing, so someone else leads.

What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. (I Cor. 14:26)

This is what it looks like when the Holy Spirit leads a church into ministry through the gifting He has given. The Holy Spirit is expressing himself. They Holy Spirit is ministering thorough the body. And the Holy Spirit is accomplishing his results.

By organizing ourselves institutionally we have put obstacles in the way of the Holy Spirit doing what he intends to do and the Church being what the Church was designed to be. The Church was designed by God to be his living organism. To respond to him the way a body responds to the mind. The Church was designed to be a place of spiritual encounter where God’s people met him in community and individually. Its very design speaks of intimate, real spiritual encounter; of supernaturalism. The Church was designed to be a place where God’s people ministered to each other in the power and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, using the spiritual gifts they have been given to lead the body in specific areas of ministry; every Christian a leader, under the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit’s desire is for his people to experience him, to follow him, to respond to him, to obey him. We have put so many human obstacles in his way that we have made this difficult; human obstacles of hierarchical leadership structures, positions, bureaucracy, forms, protocols, systems, orders of service, schedules, meetings, formalities, goals, objectives and programs. We are so focused on these human things that we can miss the divine.

In the process we have designed in significant conflict. We have designed in potential abuse of power and leadership. We have designed in a clergy laity split. We have designed in a Christianity that encourages a few to do most of the work and the majority who really don’t express their faith at all; they become observers of faith and attendees of meetings and services. We have designed in financial problems and financial conflicts. We have designed in the vast majority of our recourses going to things that really aren’t necessary, buildings, their maintenance, and salaries of professional Christians, of which I am one. In the meantime evangelism, discipleship, and missions wither on the vine. We have designed in a significant amount of time being spent on bureaucratic administration rather than hands on ministry that help people conform to the image of Christ. The problem is in the design, it is structural not spiritual. The way we have organized ourselves has become our chief problem.

It is time for the Second Reformation of which Elton Trueblood spoke. This Second Reformation will not really be about doctrine, although we will recover the doctrine of the supernatural, but about ecclesiology. It will be about the way we “do” church, not about what we believe about God. It will be about experiencing him, not merely talking about him. We will recover what we have lost, the supernatural encounter of the Living God leading us into ministry. And we will do this through the reorganization of removing the obstacles that history has put in place.

I have been living this type of Christianity for the last couple of years. I find it infinitely more spiritually satisfying than what I have experienced in my organized, stylized congregationalized history. Would I go back to what I had before? I would certainly not do so willingly. I have been experiencing Jesus living his life through me. I have seen his power at work. I have been ministered to by my brethren and I have been able to see God working through me in their lives. I have had the joy of following the Holy Spirit into ministry instead of trying to do God a favor. I feel that I am experiencing Christianity as it was meant to be; powerful, supernatural, communal and fun. Church was never fun before, it was a spiritual duty. I am enjoying my experience with Jesus. I would be mad to want to give this up.

God is at work in history. He is using the sociological shift to postmodernity to wake up his Church. He is doing this just like he used the Renaissance to correct bad theology through the first Reformation. Now he is correcting bad ecclesiology through the Second Reformation. We need to embrace this change. Change is always uncomfortable. But we can go along with what the Holy Spirit is doing in history like our spiritual ancestors did in the Renaissance.

When God wakes up his Church at these sociological turning points he does not forget his people who fail to go along with what the Spirit is doing. God did not abandon the Catholic Church at the Reformation. He still loves believers who are within the Catholic Church and his Spirit still works though the Catholic Church. But he did pour the vast majority of his power and blessing into the new wineskin of the reformed and evangelical churches. I believe he will do this again as he is again making a new wineskin for his Church.

I believe that we should embrace the shift into the Second Reformation. We should pour our resources where the Holy Spirit is pouring his blessing. New wineskin churches are growing all over the world. They are really just about the only thing that is growing in much of the world. Certainly this is true in Europe. Europe in not dead to the gospel, it is dead to our old wineskins. We need to embrace the change and follow the Holy Spirit into what he is doing in history. We need to become early adopters of the Second Reformation.

[1] Elton Trueblood, Your Other Vocation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952), p.32.
[2] Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998) p. 33.