Tag Archive | House Church Movement
February 29, 2016  

How to Protect Yourself (And Your Church) From Heresy

Heresy.

It’s the great fear of churches of all sizes and stripes. It’s particularly feared whenever you talk much about releasing the church to be the church in small, relationally focused groups (house churches).

Who will protect the people from heresy? What if someone believes something that isn’t in the Bible and starts teaching it to others? To those who have grown up under a strong biblical teacher or someone who has watched someone go into error, this is enough to scare people away.

Our house church network has had to deal with this issue over and over again. Small groups of Christians meeting together where anyone can share are prime places for people with weird views to show up. Heretics, both of the doctrinal and lifestyle varieties1 have tried to insert themselves into what we’re doing.  But in the nine years that we’ve been doing this one thing has consistently guarded us against heresy: relationships.

That may sound weird if you’ve never been part of a relationship-centric church.  But over and over again I’ve watched as deep, abiding relationships around the word of God have rescued others from biblical error. Whenever a heresy has sprung up, it was dealt with not through authority and bible-beating, but friendships where one person has lovingly challenged another about a particular belief not being in the word of God.

We’ve also noticed that the number one indicator of someone who comes into our fellowship having the potential to be a problem has been whether or not they are in relationship with others.  Those who come as believers in Jesus but have terrible relationships with other parts of the body of Christ (by their own admission) have over time shown that they are after their own interests, not Christ’s. Again it comes back to relationship. Having a healthy relationship with Christ necessitates having a healthy relationship to his body.

The crazy thing is Jesus and the apostles believed in this relational element to the truth. Jesus says, “Anyone who receives you receives me…” (Matthew 10:40). John, the Apostle, says, “These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us,” (1 John 2:18-19).  I could go on.

The point is real, biblical truth is designed to flourish in community, not in isolation. And more importantly, real, biblical community is designed to protect the truth of Christ in the hearts and lives of His followers. Do you want to protect yourself or your church from heresy? Enter in to true relationships around God’s word.

1 I’m indebted to Neil Cole for pointing out that there are two types of heresy which the New Testament speaks of. When we speak of heresy, we usually refer to heresy of doctrine, which is obviously important to avoid. But the New Testament speaks equally about heresy of the life, where we live a life of error that doesn’t point to Jesus. While both doctrinal and lifestyle heresy are common, our discussion of heresy tends to focus on doctrinal heresy (i.e. believing Jesus is the Son of God, understanding how a man can be saved, what is the role of the Holy Spirit) while ignoring lifestyle heresy’s such as greed, legalism, or adultery.  I believe Jesus is concerned with both doctrine and practice and to a certain extent, our practice is our doctrine (see Titus 2:1-13).

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.

 

August 6, 2012  

Five Thoughts on the Five-Fold Ministry

One of the most misunderstood aspects of the church as God designed it is the place of the five-fold ministry.  God has designed the body of Christ so that it builds itself up in love.  An important part of that process is mature five-fold gifts functioning in and amongst the body of Christ in a mature way.  But many have misunderstood the purpose and functions of different aspects of these gifts.

Because of the importance of these ministries, I’ve assembled some of the best posts on the five-fold ministry that I’ve found on various blogs.  These are written by men and women with experience with people who have functioned in these gifts.  These are my top five posts.  Feel free to leave a link to your favorite post on this topic in the comment section.

What Is the Purpose of the 5-Fold Ministry? by Felicity Dale

Felicity gives us a great post to introduce us to the idea of the five-fold ministry and right off the bat she combats the major misconceptions about these gifts God gives the church. This is a short post but many people miss the profound implications that are found within it.

The Reign of God by Len at Next Reformation

Len’s thoughts on a quote from An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land don’t directly mention the five-fold ministry.  But he does touch on an interesting idea: The Kingdom of God is extended by Jesus as He gives these gifts to the church for the world.  Read on to see more.

Apostolic Leaders, Churches, and Five-Fold Ministries by Bob Robers Jr.

I love this post by Bob Roberts.  Bob really brings a very balanced perspective to the whole issue of the five-fold ministry.  I love that his insights are born out of his work in the non-Western world and I’m greatly encouraged on his emphasis on the whole church becoming apostolic, and not just one man.

Missional Communities Led by Five-Fold Ministries by Mike Breen

Mike does a great job in this post of describing what a missional community will look like if it is lead by each of the five-fold ministries.  While not entirely the same as a house church, I’ve noticed similar group dynamics in house churches led by each of these different ministry gifts.  You may learn a few things about why you lead your house church the way you do from this post.

Signs of Immature Five-Fold Ministries  by Mike Breen

Last but not least, this post is extremely helpful because it identifies characteristics of immature people with five-fold giftings.  Many times we reject five-fold minstries because of our negative experiences with the immature versions of five-fold ministries.  This frank discussion about the downside of immature five-fold ministries will help those who have had negative experiences.  It’s also really helpful to those maturing in these gifts because it highlights weaknesses they will need to address.

Photo Credit: This image is a product of five pictures representing each of the five-fold ministries.

Thanks to Ben Sutherland for Rouault’s Christ and the Apostles, Phantom Leap for Seer, Boliston for Birmingham Street Preacher, Jake Liefer for Pastor Garrison, and Stock.XCHNG for Professor at Work.

« Older Posts
Newer Posts »