I’m Writing a Book
I’m not sure there’s a much easier way to say it.
This is something I’ve felt strongly about since at least 2011, but I’ve never had the time or fortitude to start working on until last year. I’m writing about it today because if I don’t I may not finish. I would appreciate you, my dear readers, to ask me about it from time to time.
What’s It About?
Oh you know, the normal stuff I write about: Jesus, the reformation of the church, the Gospel going out to the ends of the Earth. Just little stuff. 🙂
Actually, I’m writing a short (50 pages?) e-book/booklet meant to provoke people into planting house churches.The working title is “Stick Out Your Neck: A Modern-Day Appeal to Dangerous Church Planting.” It’s a manifesto of sorts, detailing why Christians should leave their comfort zones for the messy, dangerous life of planting churches.
Obviously, the plan will be to call Christians to plant house churches in whatever context they find themselves. Most books like this are filled with how-to’s and the experience of the planter. This book will be purely focused on telling people why they should do it. It’s birthed out of a lot of conversations with ordinary believers who don’t think they can do it. I’m hoping to convince them they can.
Why an E-book/booklet?
Back in the day, Christians would write tiny pamphlets that were like tracts and they would hand them out on the streets. They would cover everything from abolishing slavery to giving women the right to vote to why Christians should pursue sanctification. These would be handed out on the streets, not to promote an author or gain a platform, but to promote an idea worth spreading.
Friends, in the past I’ve been tempted by the Christian celebrity circuit. But I’m not interested in gaining a platform or a being a paid speaker. My goal is to spread the idea that the harvest is great but it will mean many, many more laborers entering the harvest. I hope to write just enough about the topic to spread the idea that simple, reproducible churches are within the reach of ordinary believers.
So, I’m writing an E-Book/booklet. My hope is to make the E-book permanently free and produce a few hundred or thousand physical copies cheaply enough to give away. I hope that we can give it away to believers we meet who would never buy a book about house churches. I want to be able to take copies with me to Africa and hand them to the African believers that would never think of doing something like start a church. And I hope that others find it on Amazon/iTunes and that it can be helpful there as well.
Why tell us?
Frankly, it’s because I need to commit to finishing. Ever since I wrote the first chapter, I’ve secretly told myself that I would probably write the manuscript and never publish it. It’s the resistance telling me that what I’m writing will never be noticed. That thought alone will literally sabotage the book. But, since I committed to write publicly every day, I have. There’s something about committing to something in this space that helps me follow through. I’m hoping that this post keeps me accountable to actually following through.
Secondly, if you’re a believer, I could use your prayers. Pray that I have courage to write what I need to write. Pray that I write words that light fires in the heart rather than just inform the mind. Pray that this project remains an act of service and not something that glorifies me in any way. Pray that the book actually gets finished.
Lastly, I hope that some of you, who have come to this site over the years and have found my content helpful, will have some interest in this book when it’s finished. I also hope that when it comes out, not only will you be interested, but you’ll have others you know who need to be challenged in this way. My hope is this book becomes a part of a larger conversation about starting churches among the lost. Maybe you can help.
So…I’m writing a book. There, I said it. Look for more details in 2017.
Reason #1 We Started a House Church
In my head, whenever I have a lot of reasons for something or facts that I apply to a subject, I start numbering them. But I don’t number them really well. Whenever I use one, I assign a totally random and arbitrary number to emphasize the fact that I have a bunch of reasons or facts and this is just one of many. One example is my “Rules of Parenting.” I can’t tell you how many I actually have, but the next time I bring one up, you can be sure it will be “Travis’ Rules of Parenting #867.”
Yesterday I found another group of reasons that I could number in a similar fashion: the reasons my friends and I meet as house churches instead of as a traditional congregation. And while I could probably continue to make up non-sensical numbers, I thought it might be helpful for me to truly number the reasons we do house churches in order to see how many there actually are. My hope is after a year or so of writing to have 20 or more of these that I can point people to when they begin asking me questions about house churches.
So, with no further ado, Reason #1
I was sitting at McDonald’s with the guys in my 2&3. We had basically just finished up and were about to leave when our new friend Ahmed* came up and started talking to us. We met Ahmed last week and he told us his story of his life and his journey to Christ. Ahmed also told us he was homeless. We had asked Ahmed if we could help in any way and he told us he had it taken care of.
This week, however, things had changed for Ahmed. Without going into a ton of details, he had a misunderstanding that led to falling out with his homeless shelter. I had learned previously that Ahmed was part of a church, so I asked him if his church had helped him. He gave me a legitimate reason that they had in the past but weren’t now. But the next thing he said was difficult. “I understand why they can’t always help me out. They have expenses that they need to take care of.”
My friend and I looked at each other and smiled. It was the knowing smile of two people who knew that buildings and salaries weren’t more important than the homeless follower of Jesus trying to put his life back together. Ahmed caught our quick interchange and we explained to him that we might have thought differently about his situation than he did.
And so my friends, Reason #1 why we meet as house churches is we don’t want to put buildings and salaries ahead of the legitimate needs of others, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in need. Foregoing the building and the salary has helped us to never really need to be concerned about “the bottom line” of our churches when we step out to help others. Many might say they are able to do this as well with a building or salary that they need to pay. I rejoice in this fact! But I also know of many places who have had to make these hard choices and I’m not envious of that position at all.
Reason #1 has a name. Ahmed and the 10 or 15 others like him that we’ve been able to help is why we meet as house churches.
Side note: Please pray for my friend Ahmed. I believe him to be a sincere man trying to put his life back together but is in a tough spot. And pray for him to become a faithful witness of Christ in places many of us cannot reach.
Photo Credit: [Becoming.Number.One♥] by A♥
*It may go without saying, but Ahmed’s name has been changed to protect his privacy.
Guarding Yourself From Heresy: Three Responses
There is a way to guard yourself and your church from heresy. It’s called relationships.
Yesterday I shared the journey of how I came to understand that relationships centered around God’s word keep us from heresy. But different people need to respond differently to this idea. If you read yesterdays post, can I encourage you to do one of three things?
Build Relationships
Some of those reading this post have no committed relationships with other believers. As my two year old daughter would say, “This is a problem.” You may be smart or well educated in the historical beliefs of the church, but I guarantee that if you aren’t in relationship with believers, you are opening yourself up to error, the least of which is pride.
It’s become quite popular lately to say that you can be a Christian and not go to a particular church, be a Christian and attend church on-line, or be a Christian and attend no church at all. But none of these will save your life from falling into error. Frankly, for relationships to preserve you and your church from error, you and those you care for must meet with other believers in groups small enough for others in the group to know you. And I mean *really* know you.
So, if you want to build in a firewall of relationships that protect you from heresy, begin to meet and build relationships with a small group of believers submitted to Jesus and His word. Let them know you. Get to know them. This is step #1.
Leave Hierarchy
After building relationships, it’s important to purge hierarchy from them. This may sound even stranger than “relationships protect you from error.” The truth is one major source of deception in the body of Christ is our constant appeal to something else other than God’s word. When a believer who is considered a leader believes a lie or practices sin, that believer, left unchallenged becomes a source for others to appeal to. He or she goes from a person caught in error to a source to be appealed to. “I can do it because Pastor X says it’s okay,” is the lie we tell ourselves.
Instead, regularly gather under the leadership of Jesus and in submission to Him and His word. Don’t appeal to another’s authority. Appeal to the authority of Jesus and the Bible. All of the areas essential to life and godliness are covered in the Bible, leaving little need to appeal to another believer. Your testimony and opinion are great, but they’ll never rival the message of God, which is living, active, and able to separate between soul and spirit. I have fundamental concerns about any believer who is swayed by someone’s authority but not by the clear teachings of the Bible. If someone isn’t willing to listen to God’s revealed word, your persuasion or “rank” in the body won’t move them.
Learn to Encourage/Challenge/Rebuke
Finally, it’s important for believers to learn to lovingly encourage, challenge, and rebuke each other. This is difficult, particularly if you come from an environment where an authority was the final word on every subject. But the grand vision of the church in Scripture is one where believers “speak the truth in love” to one another (Ephesians 4:15).
This is the most difficult step. You, while equal in your standing before God, with humility, begin to encourage them to obey God’s word or bring to their attention where they aren’t. This will also require humility on their part as well. But it’s in this way that we achieve the mutual submission that Paul spoke of in Ephesians 5:21.
This will require of you that you learn to be patient, loving, and forgiving. Others will get it wrong. You will get it wrong. But the benefit here is well tested thoughts about God and Scripture, along with well tested lifestyles that stand strong in the face of persecution from the world. Your life isn’t perfect in your eyes but flawed in everyone else’s. You know what you believe because it was formed in the crucible of committed relationships.
Conclusion
None of these steps are easy. They all take time and intentionality. But if you build these three realities into your life and the life of the churches you are part of, the result will be a stronger lives in the Kingdom of God.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 