Encountering Jesus, Organic Church, and Corporate Prayer
At the heart of Christianity is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This doesn’t mean that everyone who becomes a Christian has to have an experience like Paul did on the road to Damascus, but it means that everyone who is truly born again will encounter Jesus by His Spirit. Often that begins by faith, accepting the truth of the Gospel and the work of Jesus on the cross and then as we grow in faith we learn to interact with Jesus as a living being as we grow up in Him. But make no mistake, every believer (whether they feel it or not) encounters Jesus.
When I first became part of the organic church movement, there was a lot of talk about encountering Jesus. Many of those I learned from had taught us how to encounter Jesus by waiting on the Lord in silence and prayer. As I’ve been exposed to more and more parts of the house church movement, however, I’ve noticed varying degrees of emphasis on encountering Jesus in prayer, usually less. To some degree I’m sure this has to do with some who have tried to call the church away from religious prayer routines.
While I applaud leaving behind dead religious traditions, I’m often saddened by the hardness towards people who try to encounter Jesus within the organic church/house church movement. Our lives were never designed to be lived outside of a regular encounter with Jesus, so while we need to leave behind the trappings of religion that really were more like hiding than meeting Jesus, we also must position our hearts to regularly encounter Christ. Jesus tells us to do this individually in secret prayer routines where we meet the Father (see Mathew 6:5-6).
The life of the body, however, is not just the coming together of the individual lives of the believers that make it up. Christians have always believed that because of the blood of Christ they have had direct access to God themselves, personally (Hebrews 4:15-16), but they’ve also always believed that something different happens when believers come together and pray. Jesus said that He would show up in a different, more significant way when two or three believers gather together and pray. Part of the promise of Him showing up when those two or three gathering and agreeing in prayer is that He will answer their request (Matthew 18:19-20).
So this encountering of Jesus through prayer, this agreeing together, this listening and obeying Christ, must be done both individually and corporately. If we try and obey the commands of Jesus without it, we will find ourselves continually wearied and unequipped both individually and corporately, because we were never designed to live the life of Christ outside of being fueled by encounter with Him. While this must happen individually, it must certainly happen corporately. If we don’t teach our churches how to pray, we stop successive generations of disciples from learning how to pray together (we don’t pass it on) and we lose the promise Jesus gives us when we agree together on anything.
Friends, our brothers and sisters from the house church planting movements around the world almost unanimously agree that movements do not start without a groundswell of prayer. This may begin with one person, but it culminates with many, many people praying for God’s Kingdom to come to their neighborhood, city, and region. When they gather and pray in a significant way, God answers. These are the people that have put their dependency on God answering their prayers and because of that they see people healed, raised from the dead, and most importantly lives transformed by the Gospel. I believe we have much to learn from these brothers and sisters, not the least of which is their dependence on God answering their prayers.
Friends, we serve a God who desires to encounter us. He will do this both individually and corporately, but He will encounter us differently with a group than He does when we are all alone. So let’s not stop gathering together with other brothers and sisters to pray, as some are in the habit of doing, but let’s begin to gather to ask Jesus for the harvest that He desires to bring in.
He will respond.
Photo Credit: Small Group Prayer by Portland Seminary H
New Testament Church Planting
The conversation happens so often you can almost predict how it’s going to go. Someone who the Lord has just started speaking to about organic church or house churches logs onto a house church discussion group and they ask this question: “What’s the best book out there on organic church?” People will begin to suggest the staples: Books by Neil Cole, Frank Viola, Jon Zens, etc. I’ll throw my two cents in and suggest my top five books on house churches. But inevitably someone will suggest the book of Acts.
Now, I’m never sure if someone is serious when they suggest the book of Acts or whether they are being a bit tongue in cheek to highlight peoples’ tendencies to rely on current authors over God’s word. Sometimes I think they’re doing both. Inevitably, though, someone will recommend the book of Acts as the book to read if you’re wanting to plant house churches.
This conversation happened again today on Facebook and it got me thinking about how we treat the New Testament in regards to church planting. Obviously we have a lot to learn from the book of Acts, but I found myself a little sad today because no one recommended the books of First and Second Timothy or Titus or the Gospels or the Minor Epistles. There is so much to learn from the New Testament that aids us in our pursuit of the church God wants, that to only learn from the book of Acts would be a travesty.
How do the books of the New Testament apply to house church planting? In so many ways. Here are a few:
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
It should go without saying, but the Gospels are critical to the success of any house church. Without the story of Jesus’ perfect life, atoning death, powerful resurrection and ascension into Heaven, none of what we do as house churches makes any sense. Not only are we redeemed by the good news we find in the Gospels but we are matured by the good news we find there. We are designed to grow up into the image of Christ (Ephesians 4:15), so we must constantly hold in front of us the image of Christ, not the New Testament church, so we can grow up into His likeness.
Acts
So based on my previous statements this should be a no-brainer. The book of Acts shows us how the small, struggling group Jesus left behind became a nearly unstoppable missionary force. We’d do well to learn from the apostles and others we see in the book of Acts and adopt many of their principles. If anyone tells you the book of Acts is descriptive but not something we should base our churches or strategy on, remind them that all Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16), including the book of Acts.
Paul’s Epistles
Paul wrote the books of Romans through the book of Philemon. There is so much good in all of these books that I could go on for a long time, but I’ll focus on two aspects.
Some of Paul’s books feature rich and deep theology. Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians fit into that category. While each of these books have some stunning pictures of body life, they come after an unveiling of who Christ is in His resurrected glory. Understanding Jesus as the exalted Son of God is critical to house churches functioning as Kingdom outposts.
The other books Paul wrote–1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon are much more practical books. If the earlier books paint you a picture of the resurrected Jesus, these books paint a picture of what the practical early church movement looked like. Many of these books are Paul trouble-shooting church problems that crept in in his absence because of the highly mobile ministry we see him operating in in the book of Acts.
One final note on Paul’s contributions. Everyone who believes that Acts is a blueprint for what the Lord wants to do through house churches needs to spend serious time in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. These books describe Paul trying to finish what he started in his missionary journeys but didn’t have time to fully complete. I know many people who pit Acts style church planting vs. “Pastoral Epistle” style churches. In reality, Paul planted churches like he did in Acts and served them from a distance by writing books like 1 Timothy and Titus. The churches planted in Acts wouldn’t have survived without the wisdom we find in those books.
General Epistles
These books were written by other early church leaders besides Paul. They include the books of Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude. I love these books and think they are incredibly relevant to house churches and here’s why: Most of these books were letters written to house churches struggling with false teachers who have entered into their midst. You may have not struggled with false teachers, false prophets, or false apostles having come to your house church yet, but if you meet organically for any length of time you will. Often our response to false teachers is to elevate good teachers, but the apostles wrote these letters to encourage the church to contend with false teachers without becoming institutional. This is such a critical reality that we all need to learn from on our journey to becoming the church God wants.
Revelation
Finally, we come to the book of Revelation. Many of you will disagree with me and that’s okay, but I’m still firmly of the opinion that the book of Revelation should be read literally. I still believe that the second coming of Jesus is our hope in this age and the events described within the book are to prepare us for the hour before the Lord’s return. This movement of finding God’s heart for His church, for reaching lost people and discipling them, and for multiplying disciples and churches is going somewhere and I believe that somewhere is the literal return of Jesus to reclaim the Earth. This book serves us by teaching us not to give our hearts to world and its systems and that message will be more and more critical as the day draws nearer.
Conclusion
Imagine a church that is rooted in the Gospel, planted and established like the churches in the book of Acts, guided by Paul’s fascination with the risen Christ and the wisdom he had acquired through planting tens of churches. Picture this same church knowing how to deal with false teachers that show up in their midst and who are prepared, not just for the end times, but for the Kingdom Jesus is bringing on the other side of those end times.
This is the church Jesus is building. It will take the whole counsel of Scripture in order to produce it. It will require us to ask Jesus to give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. But if we read our Bibles with our hearts open before the word, we will be stronger house churches for it.
So what’s my favorite book on organic house churches?
Let’s start with the New Testament.
Photo by Jonathan Simcoe on Unsplash
The Thing About Being a Part of the Underground Is…
…you can’t always see what is happening beneath the surface.
The call for many of us who are planting and participating in house churches is a call to the underground. In China, this is by necessity. They have to hide their fellowships, their worship, and to some degree their walk with Christ in order to survive. Here in the West, we participate in the underground by choice. House churches are one way we participate, foregoing some of the flash to focus on the essentials which happen under the surface. Regardless of whether it is by choice or by necessity, we are part of an underground movement.
The price you pay to go underground is to be misunderstood. It can seem like you’re not growing. It seems many times like things are at a stand-still. Often it seems like you are being lazy and not producing very much. In reality, deep below the surface of the Earth, where no one is watching and no one sees, there is a life being formed that will sustain and produce fruit.
It’s just that no one sees it. No one notices. Sometimes you aren’t even aware of the deep work that is going on inside of you. You just know you aren’t seeing the results you thought you would see. Jesus compared this process to death: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the Earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,” (John 12:24). Every individual must go through this process, but each house church must go through this process as well.
It’s in this season that the foundation for life and fruitfulness is being laid. Everything depends on this season happening the way God designed it. So don’t be discouraged if you don’t see fruit as fast as you’d like. Don’t think that God isn’t working just because you don’t see results as quickly as others. If God has called you to His underground, He’s called you to grow deep so you can be fruitful in season and out of season.
I started to write this out yesterday and in the midst of writing it, a dear friend sent me a prophetic note that he had sent me about a year ago. In it, he describes the Lord showing him how apostolic works need to have shoots and roots. In the vision, the shoots could only go as far as the roots. The level of fruitfulness was determined by our level of rootedness.
Friends, don’t be discouraged by a rooting season. Give yourself to it. Grow your roots as deep as you can. God has a fruitful season for you, but your ability to sustain it will be determined by the depth of your roots.
Prayer Request:
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ around the country,
Recently a brother in Christ who is dear to many of us hear in Iowa suffered a massive heart attack. Rick Lumbard is the Director of Wind and Fire Ministries, a man of prayer, and a servant of the Lord that has been used in a number of peoples’ lives throughout our city and the state. He currently is unconscious and in a hospital in Des Moines. Would you join us in prayer for Rick as we believe for healing for him? He has a wife and several children that would be thankful for the prayer support.
Sincerely,
Travis
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 