In my normal time with the Lord one morning, Jesus spoke to me–not an audible voice, just that thought from nowhere that I've learned is often the way he speaks to me. "Walk Oltorf," was what he seemed to say. I would like to tell you that I immediately obeyed him, but that would not… Read More
Tag: church planting
The last few posts (starting here) told the story of how we started a church with not-yet-believers. Here are some of the principles: God is already at work in the lives of not-yet-believers and they are happy to tell you about it. We have a friend who once sat at a cafe with a sign… Read More
The first part of this story can be found here and here. Another interesting thing happened a few weeks later (at around the 3 month point). We had some friends visit us from Houston. "Can we come to church with you," they asked. Normally we try to keep Christians away from the groups we start… Read More
The first part of this story can be found here. It only took about three weeks before the group stopped referring to their New Age books and accepted the Bible as their authority. On week 6, we arrived at John 1:12. To as many as received him he gave power to become sons of God.… Read More
Jesus had his most important conversation with his disciples after his resurrection. What did he say to them? Be filled with the Holy Spirit and make disciples by talking about Jesus everywhere you go. What will I/we do about this?
Photo credit: Justin Masterson (Creative Commons) According to the research, millions of people in the United States find their primary place of worship outside the four walls of the institutional building. According to George Barna, this figure depends on how you ask the question, but somewhere between 4 and 12 million people are currently involved. (These groups are… Read More
Photo credit: James Marvin Phelps (Creative Commons) When existing Christians get involved in simple/organic church life they have to go through a process that our friend Wolfgang Simson calls "Death Valley." It's as though someone on the mountain top of legacy church can see the mountain top of simple/organic church in the distance, and they… Read More
Photo credit: tquiddle (Creative Commons) In the previous post, I described some of the churches we have started on our journey with simple churches. The majority of them were started with mostly unbelievers. We have also started churches with believers, but it is usually far easier and often more effective to start with not-yet-believers and… Read More
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Wanted: Apostles
While waiting for a plane in Heathrow airport and pondering my next blog post, I found myself wondering what a “wanted ad” for 5-fold ministries would look like. Here’s my first take on it: Wanted: apostolic leadership Job description: This Kingdom-motivated and foundation-laying person will be sent to break new ground in order to… Read More
I've been involved in churches that had open participation and attempted to follow the Holy Spirit now for around 30 years!! Over this time, a number of gatherings stand out. Looking back, they were when the Holy Spirit was clearly leading. I'd like to describe a few of them for you. We started a church… Read More