Spontaneous expansion begins with the individual effort of the individual Christian to assist his fellow, when common experience, common difficulties, common toil have first brought the two together. It is this equality and community of experience which makes the one deliver his message in terms which the other can understand, and makes the hearer approach… Read More
Author: Felicity Dale
Picture yourself this fine day at the hospital and you have just come in from the waiting room to the doctor’s office. What’s the first question the doctor has for you?: “Tell me where it hurts?” You answer, “Oh, Doc, I had some bad food last night and my stomach hurts terribly.” Now imagine that… Read More
(The following is an excerpt from a book by Edwin Hatch [1888]. Thanks to Jon Zens for connecting me to this great author. What I found very helpful was to realize that the troubles with "church-as-we-know-it" did not start with Constantine but can be traced back even earlier, to the 2nd Century.) It is impossible… Read More
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Why I quit the job I loved.
Many of you might have been wondering why my wife and I have left YWAM, after 20 plus years of fulfilling ministry on three continents, to live in a small farm house in Chetek, WI and settle for a mindless job at Wal-Mart. The answer is not simple or short so I hope that you… Read More
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The Last Holdout
In my observation, one of the last "holdouts" that God is dealing with as He changes the shape and forms of today's Church is the sermon. It's the "Alamo." It's "Custer's last Stand," or even worse, the "Ark of Sacredness." When it comes to the things we are willing to adjust, alter, or change, the… Read More
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After supper He took the cup.
If you can stand it, I would like to ask you all one more time to look at the Lord's Supper through the lens of the New Testament and see if you would not agree with me that this may be one of the biggest blind spots for the church around the world in the… Read More
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Detoxing from an Institution
The subject for today is that of detoxing from a system / institution, be that church or missions. What are the easier parts, where are the pitfalls? Webster's defines detox as: "to remove a harmful substance (as a poison or toxin) or the effect of such". If you have lived through a "detoxing phase" in… Read More
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The Need for a Velvet Revolution
For the past few months I have been working part time as a web designer. This may not seem to be a good place to find parallels to the house church movement but I found some interesting comparisons with how people use web sites and how people “do church”. It seems hard to imagine but… Read More
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The World Aflame
Many denominations, extra-local fellowships and circles of emphasis will begin disbanding and severing those ties, even those that were ordained by God for a season, in order to take their place in this great net that the Lord is now forming. For some these ties will be just ignored or forgotten until they have passed… Read More
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5 Signs of a Healthy Church
"Since the time of Socrates it has been an accepted part of Western wisdom that, in matters of social organization, it is necessary to know what is right before we can know what is wrong. Insofar as man is reasonable, the intelligent way to begin is to consider first the end. The only reason… Read More