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May 2, 2014  

One Size Does Not Fit All: Why We Have Different Sizes of Meetings

CRH-2

Our spiritual family has been meeting as house churches for the last seven years. When we started our first house church here in Iowa, we had one size of meeting: the kind that would fit into my living room.  Now, this was more out of reaction than health.  We were scared of any meeting larger than that and didn’t value anything smaller than that. Along the way we learned that one size of meeting doesn’t meet every need and we began meeting in different ways to accomplish different things. 

 
What can happen in a group of two or three people that cannot happen in a group of fifteen? A lot, actually. And as we began to understand this, we started meeting in ways that better allowed life to flow in our churches.  These different types of meetings helped us to grow in depth as disciples, in numbers, and in the number of house churches that are part of our network.  Because there weren’t many resources* like this when I started, I thought it might be helpful to remind our network of why we meet in the sizes we do and pass along what we’ve learned to others just getting started in organic churches.
 
Two or Three
 
The Bible talks regularly about the power of two or three people gathered around a common purpose.  In fact Jesus is so explicit about His intent to meet people when two or three people gather that many have assumed that two or three people is all that is needed for a church to exist. Two or three people have greater authority for dealing with sin, can discern the voice of God, and more easily hold people accountable (Matthew 18:15-17, 2 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Timothy 5:19).  
 
As a result, we’ve taken to meeting in groups of two and three for bible reading, accountability, and mission.  We’ve largely copied our ideas about meeting together in this size from Neil Cole’s book Ordinary Hero.  Two or three people meet each week to discuss large portions of the Bible that they’ve read, ask each other accountability questions, and pray for lost friends they are hoping to reach.  When our two and three groups are healthy, the house church that the two and three is part of is always stronger. 
 
Ten to Fifteen
 
Ten to fifteen people is the top size of our house churches. We had always been meeting in this size of group, largely based out of our conviction that churches in the New Testament met in homes and were extensions of a believer’s relational network (1 Corinthians 16:19, Romans 16:3-5).  This allowed the churches to be simple and reproducible.  It also allowed us to practice many of the “one another” passages in scripture that meeting in a larger church setting made impractical. Oddly enough, modern psychology insists 15 is the highest number of people you can know intimately and we believe this has profound implications for discipleship and church.
 
Because we believe these things, we meet weekly as a church for what we call our “house church meeting.” Those who follow Jesus and come regularly we identify as our spiritual family.  This is where broader sharing, teaching, singing, functioning of the spiritual gifts, and working together towards mission happens.  Our goal is for a gathering that resembles what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 14:26-33.  This is important to mention because portions of the house church movement here in the United States do not see value in intentional meetings.  But Scripture calls us to regularly gather for the building up of other Christians in our relational network (Hebrews 10:23-25) in a way that (I believe) reflects 1 Corinthians 14:26-33.  
 
Twenty or More
 
When we talk about twenty or more people gathering together, we are typically talking about more than one house church gathering in a place. I see meetings of this size several times throughout the book of Acts: (Acts 14:26-28, Acts 20:7-12, Acts 21:4-6). Paul and the resurrected Christ would often ask letters to be read to churches the encompassed entire cities that obviously would not fit in individual homes (Colossians 4:16, Revelation 2:1, 2:8, 2:12, 2:18, etc.).
 
Because we see this principle in the Bible, we regularly meet as a family of house churches. When we were smaller, this could still happen in one of the larger houses of those that met with us.  But as our house churches have grown, we’ve had to move out of homes and rent a dedicated space to contain the activity.  We call this meeting our All House Church Meeting and invite the house churches that are part of our extended family to join us. From my understanding of scripture, this type of meeting was less focused on teaching and intimacy, but more focused on imparting vision and revelation that the Lord had given apostolic and prophetic individuals for the benefit of the larger body.  This “big picture vision” informs, strengthens, and supports the more day to day work that is ongoing in the lives of the individual house churches.  
 
One specific thing I want to note about this meeting is that we have it once a month or less.  The reason I’m so specific about that is I want to protect us from our natural American tendency to value bigger things over smaller.  Because church as we knew it met regularly, there is a natural temptation to want these big meetings to be the center of our Christian experience where our teaching, community, intimacy, and even identity can be found.  The way we regularly fight this is by keeping these meetings out of our weekly routine.
 
Spontaneity
 
You could be tempted to take away from all of this that our house church network is artificially crafted and not organic at all.  Quite the contrary.  At the basis of all of this is a life lived among dedicated brothers and sisters whose lives intersect in a multitude of ways day in and day out. We call each other, the wives watch each others’ kids during the week, the men gather to talk about Jesus and mission or volunteer for projects outside of the church.  The kids get together and play.  Sometimes our kids’ birthday parties become unofficial all house church meetings. The point is, the life of Jesus that flows through us isn’t limited to our meetings.  If all of the meetings where shut down, much of this life and the encouragement and brotherhood would continue.
 
I remember meeting with a group of folks from an outlying area once who were interested in house churches.  We briefly gave them a description of life similar to what you’ve read, but as we began to talk our conversation shifted from meetings to Jesus, life on life discipleship, and living on mission.  We pointed out to our new friends that these things were the essence of what God was calling us to an I would say the same thing to you.  These meetings I’ve described above facilitate that life and help it grow and mature.  
 
Conclusion
 
As you’ve read, our house church network meets in different sizes for different purposes.  The end goal is that Jesus is glorified through committed relationships that lift up the name of Jesus to others.  I’d love to know if the group sizes I’ve discussed here resonate with you.  Have you seen the effectiveness of these size of groups to conduct the life of Jesus? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 

 

Photo Credit: IMG_8917 by openg
 
*Much of this was in large part thanks to some information and training we received from CMA Resources and Neil Cole. If you’re looking for some more thoughts on this subject, I highly recommend Church 3.0 by Neil Cole.

 

May 16, 2012  

The Frozen Church is Thawing

A month ago, I had a dream.

In that dream I was walking through the downtown, urban section of a city. I came across a storefront church.  It was bustling with young, urban attenders that were very much of the hipster variety.  Everything about this church had the buzz of “cool.”

After hanging around for a while with people I didn’t know, I found out that the person I was hanging with invited me to preach but I was totally unaware. The leader of this church had asked me to preach on servanthood, but he was wanting a message on servanthood so that he would have an easier time recruiting people to serve the ministries of this church. He had no interest in servanthood as a value in the Kingdom.

From the front of the building, we walked into the sanctuary with the pastor and his assistant.  The sanctuary was actually a stadium-style ice rink.  The pastor asked me to sit in the highest row, which is where he spoke from, but the worship of the meeting actually took place at the bottom of the stadium out on the ice. As the worship progressed, I began to realize that this church’s worship was a very detailed production/show and that everyone was dressed very formally. There was an orchestra, dancers and because an ice rink was central to this church, they even had ice skaters. Somehow I had ended up in dressed in a suit but had no shoes and was feeling very awkward about it.

Then suddenly towards the end of the “worship time” it became clear that the ice rink was melting.  But it wasn’t just the ice in the rink at the center of the stadium that was melting, but the whole building. Unbeknownst to me the entire building was made of ice and was beginning to melt. The stadium seats, the floors, and even the walls were melting and cracking.  It disrupted the whole service and we could not continue.  I woke up with this phrase on my spirit: “The frozen church is melting.”

Interpretation: I believe that this is a warning to the church, particularly in the West.  The church built on entertainment, cultural relativity, and business values will begin to come undone.  This will be in large part due to “atmospheric change” that the church in the West will find itself in.  I’m unclear about whether this will come from greater hostility toward the church from society in general or a greater intensity brought to bear on the church by the Lord Himself, resulting in more fervency in the body and a rejection of these values.  But one thing is clear: a Christian organization built on man’s organizational values that feeds a consumer mentality in the body of Christ in order to further the success of one or two leaders will be a recipe for a “melting church.”

Hebrews 12:26-27: “At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.”

Application: The call then, based on all of this, is to repent.  We need to repent of those areas where we’ve been working for our fulfillment and notoriety instead of the Lord’s glory and the advancement of the Gospel.  We need to reject human leadership values and church structures based on marketing principles and not God’s word, even if you can vaguely construe Scripture to justify your approach.  Go back and do the things you did at first when Jesus was your first love.  Begin again to follow Jesus, listen to His voice, and look to Him and His word for how you and your church can begin to follow Him based on what He values.

Now: Do you see anything in the interpretation or application of the dream that I missed? If you do, please feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below.

Photo Credit: Flying Through a Crack in the Ice by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

April 30, 2012  

Redefining Spirituality: Seven Benchmarks for a Discipling Culture

Christianity in the West has settled for something significantly lower than a culture of discipleship.  Our “spiritual” members are typically those who have consistently read their Bible and maintained a devotional private life.  The most honored among us are those who have brought their spiritual life to bare on one area of their public life, be it their job or their friends.  The point is, much of this falls significantly short of what Jesus intended for His church.

One of the sayings of CMA, an organic church planting fellowship I’ve learned a lot from is “we need to lower the bar on what it means to be a church and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple.”  They believe that if church is simple enough for anyone to participate in it and everyone is a committed disciple, churches will begin to be established quickly and repeatedly.  My question then is, how high should we raise the bar?  The following is my list of seven benchmarks for discipleship:

  1. Intimacy with Jesus- Every spiritual reality in the Kingdom of God is born out of a deep and abiding relationship with Jesus.  When a person is truly born into the Kingdom, they are immediately grafted in to a real relationship with a resurrected Lord.  But we never graduate beyond that relationship.  There is no level of spiritual maturity where listening, loving, and abiding becomes something you did when you were young in the Lord.  Cultivating this ongoing relationship with Jesus becomes the basis for every other Kingdom activity we do. (Matthew 22:34-40, John 14:15, John 15:1-10)
  2. Ability to Follow the Holy Spirit- Jesus expected the ministry of His Son to be carried on through those who followed Him.  Jesus-style ministry did not stop when He ascended to Heaven.  It continued on in the lives of those who had followed Him and in the lives of those who would come to believe in their testimony.  The Holy Spirit led the expansion of the church, the direction of its mission, and fueled the internal growth of holiness in His people.  It’s not necessary to take a class on following the Holy Spirit, but we all need to grow in understanding how He leads individually and practice obeying His leadership. This will include knowing His voice, following His promptings, and manifesting His gifts. (John 20:21-22, Acts 2:33, Acts 2:38, Acts 9:31, Acts 13:52, Acts 16:6-10)
  3. Growing Character- We all come to Christ as enemies of God and it’s the work of God to cause us to surrender to Christ.  This change from a captive of Satan to a citizen of the Kingdom of God will have ramifications on our lifestyle. As we develop intimacy with Jesus and follow the Holy Spirit there will be continual change of character reflected in our lifestyle.  This is fueled not out of religious pressure but the work of God in the soul of man.  Jesus called us to be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect, Paul told us he pressed on to the upward call of Christ but had not reached it.  Our lifestyles are to grow up into the image of the One who saved us.  (Romans 5:8, Colossians 1:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Galatians 5:22-24, Matthew 5:48, Philippians 3:12-15, Ephesians 4:15-16)
  4. Retelling the Gospel with Relevancy- Anyone who has been to a third world country and seen effective ministry being carried out by the illiterate and unlearned will understand that it doesn’t take a seminary degree to be a disciple.  But the ability to grasp the Gospel is essential in coming to Christ.  The ability to retell the Gospel is crucial if we desire to see others come to Christ.  So every believer from the newest to the most mature should be able to retell their story of Christ meeting them (their testimony) and the story of how that was accomplished by Jesus (the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, otherwise known as the Gospel). (1 Corinthians 1 :26-31, Romans 10:14-15, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
  5. A Commitment to the Body of Christ- When Jesus saves us, He sets us in spiritual families that corporately represent Christ.  We lose our individuality and gain a corporate family more amazing than anything we have ever participated in.  This family is at the same time a universal brotherhood and a specific and local group to which we belong. We begin to tangibly demonstrate our love for Jesus and our status as disciples as we demonstrate love for other broken humans redeemed by Jesus.  (Psalm 68:5-6, Ephesians 4:4-6, Romans 16:3-5, 1 John 3:14-18, John 13:35, Romans 12:9-21)
  6. A Commitment to Care for Orphans and Widows- God found us when we were unwanted orphans (spiritually) and adopted us into His family.  Truly following Him, then, means we take care of the weakest and most broken parts of society, whether they are believers or not.  We demonstrate the reality of our Gospel by caring for widows and orphans. (Romans 8:15, James 1:27, Galatians 6:10)
  7. A Commitment to Reproduction- The Gospel and and it’s effects were designed to spread from person to person with little difficulty. Our commission from Jesus is to teach whole nations the realities we’ve learned from Him.  If we miss this element, we cease to be a discipling culture.  Paul wanted Timothy to not just teach other people, but to teach people in a way that they could pass his teaching on to others.  It was this commitment to spreading both the Gospel and it’s associated lifestyle that allowed it to reach most of Europe in a short period of time.  The same will be true today.  (Matthew 28:18-20, 2 Timothy 2:2)

Simply put, we are to be people who know Jesus deeply and follow the Holy Spirit.  This will cause us to grow in character, express the Gospel in word and deed, care for fellow believers and take care of widows and orphans wherever we find them.  When we commit to reproducing this lifestyle in those that are following Jesus around us, we begin to see a discipling culture take root.

One thing to know is that none of these characteristics require extensive schooling or training.  Most of them are just the result of you following Jesus and learning to trust His leadership.  All of this can be taught (and more likely caught) in the context of the body of Christ on mission.  That has deep implications for our current training systems across the body of Christ, but that’s a topic for another post….

Now the question today is this: What would you add?  Let me know in the comment section below.

Photo Credit: Masters Commission DR by AmslerPIX

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