Simply ChurchContinuing my tongue-in-cheek job description for five-fold ministries: Wanted: People with a passion to reach out to others Job description: We have an urgent need of evangelists to meet the current shortfall. This team player has an inner compulsion to communicate the good news of Jesus to those who do not yet know the Lord in… Read More
Mega churches are starting missional communities in many areas around the country. (Exponential, the largest conference available for church planters, has several organic church people speaking at the main sessions this year –I've even been asked to take a workshop!) But I haven't yet heard that many stories from slightly smaller churches. However, here's a great story… Read More
A few years ago, it was rare to hear anyone speak about the Kingdom of God. Now, people are writing and speaking about it everywhere. Jesus spoke about the Kingdom all the time. When Jesus was on earth, the main theme of his teaching was the Kingdom of God (Matthew 4:23). Many of his parables… Read More
“The single most important thing that makes house church meetings reproducible” Felicity has written a very helpful blog on the subject of simple patterns for house church. There are many benefits to this kind of simplicity. One of the benefits is that it makes it easy for house churches to reproduce. The question then… Read More
The fourth reproducible element from Acts 2:42 in our times together is prayer. Prayer is foundational. It takes many forms. It includes praise, supplication, intercession for unbelievers, prayer for each other, warfare and so on. Again, the Holy Spirit is very creative and as we listen to him and follow his leading, we will find… Read More
The third of the four things that the early disciples devoted themselves to was "breaking bread." The second half of 1 Corinthians 11, which discusses the problems caused when some people ate all the food without waiting for others to arrive or even got drunk (!), makes it plain that this was in the context… Read More
In the last post we looked at the first of the four things mentioned in Acts 2:42, namely the apostles' doctrine. The second of these is fellowship. The Greek word koinonia has connotations of intimacy, of community, of communication. What does it look like in the context of simple church? It means a willingness for… Read More
One of the problems with the "Honey, I shrunk the church!" approach is that it is too complex to be reproducible, especially by new believers. Since most people's greatest fear is of public speaking, that makes giving a talk a huge hurdle for people to attempt, even with a smaller audience. What if there is… Read More
I just finished reading the book Follow by Floyd McClung. This book discusses the basics of discipleship, teaching us how to disciple not-yet-believers into the Kingdom. These disciples become world changers by reaching out to their communities and starting D-groups (precursors to simple churches). Floyd is not interested in mere believism. He is looking for… Read More
I once had a word of knowledge about a person who had been repeatedly raped by her father and an uncle as a young child. As I looked at the people present at the gathering, I was fairly sure I knew who it was; a young woman had been glowering at me for most of… Read More