A couple shots of our kids from the past several days.

I caught Alex in mid-jump…

Kirstie at the piano… a natural!

Ian can’t keep a tooth in his mouth these days…

🙂

There’s something magical about fishing. Ian is currently enthralled. He remembers fishing last year in the pond at the place we are staying again this year. And he loves it. It compels him to cast again, reel in and hope for a bite from a tiny little Brim.

They obliged.

Ian was hookin’ the little critters left and right. One after another, some only moments after the bobber hit the water! It was great!

But the magic was not in the water. It wasn’t in the reeling, or sliding the worm on the hook. Certainly not in the fishy smell, though that does kinda grow on ya…

The magic was in the dad, and the son and our new older friend (he’s a great grandpa type) sitting and talking about fishing, and other stuff of life. It’s quiet, peaceful, and there’s no other noise. Just the noise God has made.

We saw lots of fish, entertained a turtle or two, and learned a bit about each other and about fishing.

Simple. Peaceful. Perfect.

I think we’re going to be fishing more.

KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 2C

How do you control these churches doctrinally and morally?

There are two ways to respond to this question!

The first way to answer this question is to acknowledge that simple churches do have a natural form of accountability that comes through relational lines. Every church was started by another church or by a church planter who has within himself an understanding of the things of Christ. These relational/family lines provide the best kind of accountability. DNA is passed from generation to generation, much like in a biological family. Sometimes simple churches incorporate more formal special training opportunities (classes, retreats, books), but these are only supplements to the relational training that happens naturally.

The second way to answer this question is to probe into our motives for asking it in the first place. In all honestly, only God controls His church. When we ask who is in control we are asking a dangerous question because we are assuming that the church works better if a human(s) ultimately controls it. What we ignore in asking this question is that some of the most structured and controlled church denominations and systems throughout history have been plagued by moral failings and doctrinal issues. Control structures have not proven very effective in eliminating these things. We have come to a place where we fear that control structures may do more to limit the spontaneous expansion of the church than they have done to preserve its purity. Based on this, we would rather err on the side of freedom than err on the side of control. In fact, it is the very presence of controlling leaders (not the absence of such) that has led to the emergence of heresies and cults throughout church history. This fact is a major blind spot in today’s understanding of church structure.

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Supplemental Readings:
Acts 15:22-35
Houses That Change the World by Wolfgang Simson

When this world is a mess,
and I’m feelin’ less
than in control
My heart is at ease
cause there is a peace
deep in my soul

The Mighty King
Will never change
That’s all that I can know
His peace in me
Will always be
The rock that is my home
The Mighty King alone.
————————-
– g.campbell (2003)

Sometimes it’s good to remember that.

KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 2C

Practical Implication #3: Learning to Question our Most Frequently Asked Questions!

Meaning no disrespect to those who ask, I must admit that most of the questions that we are asked about simple church are the wrong questions! We humbly acknowledge this because these are the same questions we spent much time asking ourselves. The questions we are most frequently asked include the following:

• What do you “do” at a simple church meeting?
• How do you control these churches doctrinally and morally?
• What do you do with kids in a simple church?
• How are finances handled in a simple church?
• How does leadership work in a simple church?

There are, of course, some reasonable answers to these questions which are included below.

But first, let’s consider if these are the best questions to be asking! What is it that these questions all have in common? I have come to realize that these are all questions that we ask as we try to take what we’ve learned about church under the “place where” assumption, or the “non-profit organization” assumption, and apply it to a simple church setting.

• We are used to having an order of service when we go to church, so we ask “what shall we do at house church?”

• We are used to having control structures in place to preserve a certain denomination’s theology and to make sure that we don’t “blow it” morally. Because we have grown accustomed to these control structures, we ask how we can preserve theology and morality without such structures.

• We are accustomed to dropping our kids off at class, attending the church service with other adults, then picking our kids up afterwards and hearing all that they have learned about Jesus. We enjoy this convenience (at least until we get the phone call asking us to volunteer as a children’s worker and to teach a room full of kids about Jesus!). With this in mind, we ask what the arrangement for kids would be like if we met in a house.

• Finances are a major issue in the non-profit organization, as discussed above. We are accustomed to elaborate systems for teaching tithing, collecting and accounting for offerings, ensuring bills are paid, and systematically distributing missions and benevolence funds. We shrink at the prospect of having to re-invent all of those systems within our little house church, but what else would we do?

• And last, but not least, is the question of leadership. We are accustomed to a board (or multiple boards or teams) that run the church either according to a representative government model, or a corporate business model, or some combination of the two. How does this translate into church in the living room, we wonder?

Many of our questions stem from our “place where” / “non-profit organization” understanding of church. We’ve even been taught which Bible verses justify (or even mandate!) each element of our non-profit organization’s structure. After all, 1 Timothy 3 was intended to give the qualifications for “board members,” right? We jest. Of course Paul did not have “board members” in mind, but probably a very different understanding of what it meant to be an “elder” than what we have come to understand.

Having established that these frequently asked questions are not the best questions to be asking, here are some general responses nonetheless!

What do you “do” at a simple church meeting?

Simple Church meetings are open to many activities. No two simple churches meet in exactly the same way. Some simple churches have a set meeting time each week just to ensure that everyone does gather and make a priority to meet with God and with each other. Some simple churches are meeting throughout the week, intermingling individual lives with one another, allowing each other to be more spontaneous about when it is time to engage in spiritual disciplines and when it is time to have fun together.

Some groups have embraced the Greenhouse theory of “D.N.A.” (Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships, & Apostolic Mission). Under this theory, each simple church looks to keep all three elements as part of its core identity, whether only two or three are gathered, whether an entire community is gathered, or whether multiple communities are gathered. Regardless of the size of gathering, there is church when there is Divine Truth (awareness of God’s presence and the freedom it His love brings), when there are Nurturing Relationships (awareness of each others’ needs and genuine love for one another), and when there is Apostolic Mission (awareness of the spiritual and physical needs of those around us, and the mission to them which we have as the church).

Other groups get this more intuitively and are able to spontaneously be what God has called them to be.

As far as specific activities that happen in the midst of simple churches, they are not new ideas, but often fresh expressions of familiar ideas and include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Churches break bread, not only in the sense of remembering the body and blood of Christ, but also in the literal sense of sharing meals (and the preparation and clean-up) with each other. Both the spiritual and the physical aspects of Biblical “breaking bread” come back together as one as they originally were.

• Churches pray, not only in the formal sense of thanking God before a meal and asking God to heal the sick, but also in more contemplative, meditative, and experimental forms. Churches practice the Biblical concept of blessing as they pray for each other and speak into each others’ lives.

• Churches teach, not only through reading a section of the Bible and making life application from it, but also by allowing each person in the community to come to meetings prepared to share what they have been learning from their week with God.

• Churches worship, not only by singing praise songs accompanied by musical instruments, but by actually creating in the image of the Creator (which may include original artistic expressions to God through songwriting, poetry, painting, cooking, writing, etc.).

• Churches serve the needs of others, not only by planning service projects, but by simply noticing what needs are present in the room or in the neighborhood and spontaneously responding to those needs.

• Churches laugh together and cry together. Churches hang out and eat meals and play video games and go on trips and go to movies and play board games and flat out enjoy life together. Churches go through the worst parts of life together crying with each other and working through conflict and saying goodbye to loved ones and listening in silence to a friend whose life has fallen apart.

Since churches are like families they go through the most profound moments of life together and the most mundane parts of life together, and everything in between.

Since church is plural for Christ-follower, and Christ-followers are holistic people who simultaneously live the sacred and secular, churches are holistic communities that simultaneously live the sacred and the secular as well.

Once again, it is important to realize that churches are really identified by whose they are, not by what they do. Only when they realize whose they are will they really begin to do what they are designed to do.

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Supplemental Readings:
Acts 2:42-47
Romans 12:9-21
1 Corinthians 14:26-33 (read in the broader context of 1 Corinthians 12-14)
Authentic Relationships by Wayne & Clay Jacobsen (Baker 2003)

Here we are in Virginia. We arrived last night at about 5:00pm, just in time to rehearse, unpack our stuff and get ready to lead a bunch of teenagers in some musical worship. Nice.

Did I mention the 5:00am wake up time? Or, the 10 hour drive with a baby who wouldn’t sleep? Or the fact that we really don’t have enough money at the moment for such a long trip?

The night went quite well. We are very welcomed at the Fairmount church. It’s always a pleasure to be here. The food after we sang was great as always. (Though I was looking for some genuine sweet tea… being here in the south and all…) It was great to reconnect with old friends and meet some new friends.

The music wasn’t bad either. 🙂

We didn’t get the kids in bed till around 10:30pm or so. Which wouldn’t be that bad except for the long day and the see through curtains that let ALL the light possible in the room at 5:30am. So, Alex awoke at 6:30 and Kirsten was not far behind.

That was not what Mom nor Dad wanted. 🙂

But, we are making due.

Has been a nice day here in Virginny. Had lunch at Chick-Fil-A, one of Jen’s favorites. And a nice relaxing afternoon getting ready to do it all again tonight!

In fact…

Here we go!

KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 2A

Practical Implication #2: Learning to See Family as the Primary Image for Church

There are two problems that emerge from trying to figure out “church.”

First, when we try to figure out “church” we often start with a cultural assumption that church is a non-profit organization, or a “place where” something happens, as discussed above in the introduction. Early on in our house church days, we were really just doing big church shrunk down and stuffed in someone’s living room. We still had a teaching time (the house church version of a sermon) and usually a signing time (acoustic guitar instead of the full band). If no one could play guitar, then we would “just pray” instead. We took communion formally in a small room. We even passed a jar to collect some cash. It wasn’t all bad, but it was silly in many ways. We were trapped in our institutional understanding of church even when we moved it into a house. This began a long journey of learning what it meant to be Christ followers with each other. Many of us had to work on what it meant to be a Christ follower apart from “going to church.” And, even those who had something meaningful to share about that had to figure out how to do that with an intimate community of others. Groups struggled to discover who they were. Some went to one extreme and insisted on keeping “teaching” time and “singing” time. Others went to the other extreme and just hung out without any agenda ever. Many landed somewhere between. All of us were awkwardly trying to live out relationship with Father with each other.

The second problem that emerges from trying to figure out “church” is that we are focusing on a secondary issue. Healthy churches only emerge when people are following Christ in a healthy way. It has been said that a church is only as healthy as its disciples. Or, put another way, once we get “God right,” then we will get church right. Once our hearts are healthy, once we understand the love of our Father for us, then we will overflow in our love for each other, and we will be unable to help but to “get church right.”

We arrived at our idea of church from the back door, by stripping down our institutional idea of church to its relational essence. A healthier process would be to focus in on our relationship with our Father, and then allow that relationship to spill over into all of our other relationships.

Some Christ-followers find it necessary to go through a period of detoxing from church in order to get their relationship with Father right. Detoxing means taking a set amount of time to intentionally rest from Christian activities: going to church, going to Christian events, listening to Christian radio, reading Christian books, etc. None of these activities are bad in and of themselves, but sometimes we can’t focus on our relationship with our Father because we are so distracted and busy.

Once we come to experience our Father’s love and begin healing our hearts, we naturally start to turn to others. We begin living out, quite naturally, the one-another commands of the New Testament with people around us who are also experiencing Father’s love. This then becomes the basis for “church.”

Church is then not defined by a “place where” assumption. The church still gathers, but often in more intimate communities, and often in homes, though the church can gather almost anywhere. The primary image that describes what church looks like shifts from non-profit organization to family. Churches in many ways resemble extended families. Church gatherings are often closer in size to family gatherings. Churches, like families, are led by parents. Churches, when healthy and mature, naturally reproduce. You don’t have to convince them to do it, because the process is actually quite natural and even rather enjoyable. Churches, like families, value their kids, make supreme sacrifices for their kids, and include their kids in most (though not every) aspect of who they are. Churches, like families, are connected to other churches (families), though not in a hierarchical way, but in a relational way.

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Supplemental Readings:
Acts 10:1-2, 44-48
Acts 16:14-15, 29-31
Acts 18:7-8
The Cry For Spiritual Fathers & Mothers by Larry Kreider

KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 2

PART II: PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF A SIMPLE UNDERSTANDING OF CHURCH

Practical Implication #1: Learning to see what is happening with the church globally.

As Americans it is very hard for us to admit the facts that are now being widely reported to us: The church is growing faster in other parts of the world than it is here in the U.S. In places like China and India, the church has grown faster than in North America in recent decades. This has happened through church planting movements, which allow small, simple churches to multiply rapidly. We often lose sight of this because we see the explosion of mega churches in many suburban areas. What we do not see, however, is the shrinking of the church in urban and rural areas. What we do not see is that the population is exploding much faster than the church is growing here in North America.

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Supplemental Readings:
Church Planting Movements by David Garrison, available at www.imb.org/resources.

Don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but the Supreme Court decided this week that it would be OK for local governments to take private property against the will of the landowner to develop it as they see fit. In the case in question it is to create a commercial center that will raise tax revenue, thus decreasing the burden on the community. That complies (so says the SC) with the original intent of the 5th Ammendment, where if land was deemed necessary for “public use” the local government could possess the land for “just compensation” (a strange provision in our constitution, I think).

Problem is, if they call a shopping mall “public use”, who really has any rights as a property owner? Anyone can come in and say, I want this land for “public use”… and the rich get richer and the powerful get more powerful.

Scary.

Read More Here…

KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 1C

I finally realized that the problem with the church was a personal problem!

But intertwined in our structural and theological rediscovery of church was an even more primary piece to the puzzle. The puzzle had so many pieces in place, but the center piece was still missing. And as I looked at our puzzle and pondered the question of what is wrong with the church, what I found in the center of the puzzle is not what I expected to find. What I found was a mirror.

Right at the center of the puzzle was my reflection staring back at me. The problem with the church, though partially a generational issue, partially a cultural issue, and partially a theological issue, was primarily me. Yes, that’s right, the problem with the church was me. Before you hire someone to take me out in order to rid the church of its problems once and for all, I hope you will understand that I am speaking figuratively! I am speaking on behalf of us all. The problem with the church is me, or, more accurately, the problem with the church is us.

Our hearts are not healthy. My heart is not healthy. It’s healthier than it was when I first voiced this realization. I anticipate it will be healthier yet in the days and months ahead. But the truth is, our hearts are not healthy.

A few people began speaking into my life and helping me understand this. They helped me understand more fully that God really loves me, that the primary image of God is that of a Father loving me as His son. It’s a lot like the Prodigal Son Parable, where dad would give everything for His kids. Once I let this profound truth seep into my heart (instead of just my head), then I quit trying to follow a religious system in order to gain God’s approval. That led to me giving up the struggle to gain my fellow-man’s approval. I began to love other people not out of a sense of obligation, but out of an overflowing of an awareness of God’s love for me. I began to have enough love inside me to allow some of it to overflow to those around me, starting with my wife, my kids, and then radiating outward to my closest friends and beyond.

These understandings started coming in conjunction with my 30th birthday. When I turned thirty years old, I did some soul searching. I had a hard time believing I was no longer in my early twenties! I came to realize that my life was no longer about me. I had been married long enough that I should have been better at loving my wife than I was. I had a daughter at the time (now I have a son also). I was struggling with the transition from being the kid to being the father. I had lived my whole life primarily interested in what I could do and what I could get from others. I saw my 30th birthday as a transition point where I would have to start focusing my life on giving more than receiving. I was going to fail as a husband and as a dad if I didn’t change my perspective. I was going to fail as a church leader and as a friend as well.

I shared these thoughts with a trusted mentor. I shared how I was trying to become more of a giver and less of a receiver. Being a few years ahead of me on the journey, he knew exactly what I was feeling, yet he leveled with me that I could not do what I was trying to do! Instead, he challenged me to focus on receiving (yes, getting!), but only by receiving from God. He instructed me that I would never be able in and of myself to really give more than I received. Instead, I would have to start trusting my Father to constantly give to me so that could overflow with love to give to others. I was being challenged to start trusting God instead of just believing in Him. I was being challenged to allow God to heal my heart so that I would have something to give: something to give to my wife, something to give to my kids, something to give to my friends, and something to those who would come behind me in the journey of faith. I took my mentor up on his advice. I’m still learning how to do it, but my heart is healthier today than it was on my 30th birthday. I am learning to focus on receiving from my Father so that I can turn around and give to those around me.

My same mentor friend, seeing that I had made some progress, shared another thought with me a couple of years later. He described the life of following Christ by saying, “It’s not about being right, but it’s about giving your life away.” Those are words I intend to ponder and implement over the upcoming years.

All of this is part of my most recent piece to the puzzle of what is wrong with the church. I am now looking at the mirror at the center of the puzzle and working on the health of my own heart. I do so in order to have something to give to those who surround me. And as I have more and more to give to those who surround me, I am finding that those who trust in the Father as I do are my church, and those who do not yet trust in the Father as I do are my mission field. It is really that simple. I am focusing on my relationship with my Father, praying daily “Father, help my relationship with You to be the first thing on my heart today.” As I slowly but surely “get God right” I find it quite natural to start “getting church right” as well.

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Supplemental Readings:
• Luke 15:11-32 (read with The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen)
• The Book of Galatians
• 1 John 4:7-5:5
• He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobsen (Insight 2000)
• Authentic Relationships by Wayne & Clay Jacobsen (Baker 2003)
• The Only Necessary Thing (along with anything and everything else) by Henri Nouwen (Crossroad Publishing 1989)
• Dangerous Wonder by Michael Yaconelli (NavPress 1998)