Simply ChurchThe vision the individual members have for your group will determine the actions they take and your group’s ultimate destination. Photo credit: woodleywonderworks (Creative Commons) Why are the people in your group meeting? Simple/organic church provides a more intimate community. This is great, and an important component of simple church, but if that is why… Read More
Accountability has been key to the church that meets in our home over the last few weeks. Photo credit: ItzaFineDay (Creative Commons) In the last post, I described how a challenge to pray with someone during the week, led to my reaching out beyond my comfort zone to pray with a total stranger over the… Read More
Accountability can make you do some crazy things. Two weeks ago, the church that meets in our home discussed accountability. In order to make it practical, I challenged everyone to try and pray with someone, preferably who doesn't know the Lord, during the week, and said that we would report back the next time we… Read More
If you want to become proficient at a skill, the answer lies in practice. Photo credit: Morrow Cove (Creative Commons) Musicians rehearse, athletes practice, anyone who wants to become proficient at a skill puts in hours per day. They perform the same drill over and over again until it has become perfectly natural. I’m sure… Read More
If you want your group to be outward looking, the list is a powerful tool. In CMA's Life Transformation Groups, each person makes a list of three to four people who are not followers of Jesus that they commit to pray for daily. In T4T, each person is encouraged to make a list of all… Read More
Ying Kai in the book, T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution, shares how he taught a group of 30 impoverished farmers how to tell their stories, and then encouraged them to share their stories with at least 5 people during the coming week. The next week they shared reports of what had gone on. Eleven people had shared… Read More
We in the church sometimes live as though Jesus died to give us meetings, and meetings more abundantly. Jesus died to give us life. Being a disciple of Jesus is not measured by how many meetings we go to–however informal they may be. It's measured by obedience to Jesus and his commands. It's demonstrated by what… Read More
God is at work across the nations, and I see many positive signs that he is at work here in the West too. Here’s a little of what I see going on currently (in no particular order of priority): People understand the importance of listening to God and doing what he says. The prayer movement… Read More
In some countries, changing religion to Christianity is tantamount to a death sentence. In many other countries, new disciples face huge social consequences; they may lose their jobs or their housing. In villages in India, for example, believers may not be allowed to use the village well or buy rice at the local store. There's an… Read More
I’ve been looking forward to the release of Viral Jesus by Ross Rohde for some time. A few months ago I was given the privilege of reading the manuscript and writing an endorsement, and immediately I was struck with the relevance of Ross’s message to not just the simple/organic church movement of which both he… Read More