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  • Mark 4:17 pm on November 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Hidden Numbers of an Underground Movement 

    If you’re looking for the next big thing God is up to around the world – it might be harder to find than you think.  [youversion]1 Cor 1: 28,29[/youversion] says that “God takes the unnoticed things of this world, and uses them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.”

    Recently there’s been some discussion about the growth of the house church movement worldwide, and how seemingly unnoticed it all is to most of us.  Its hard to notice something that’s underground.  Tall Skinny Kiwi wrote a reflection article that Wolfgang Simpson recently published on the topic of the unnoticeable movement of house churches around the world that is rapidly growing out of control.  TSK wrote 7 reasons why you aren’t seeing the house church movement as overtly as other world-wide movements:

    1 Off-the-grid house churches that intentionally do not want to be known, listed or be on anybody’s radar. We find out about them by accident or through opinion polling or sampling, the kind of research George Barna does.

    These OoCC (out of Church Christians) gatherings contain a lot of the God-yes-church-no crowd out there.

    2 Business groups, either house churches within a company or those connecting folks in the business world. This number is huge but hard to track as many business folks believe it’s nobodies business whether they hang out with witches, freemasons or create or join their by invitations-only organic churches for support.

    3 More and more traditional churches are changing their home groups or even transitioning their whole lot into house churches; some, in order to avoid misunderstanding and tension, intentionally misname their emerging or fully functioning house churches as “home groups” or even “cells.”

    4 Inside the Roman Catholic culture (I said culture, not church) there is a surprisingly large amount of “small, little churches” that are intentionally set up to cut out the middle layer of clergy and directly connect the people with Jesus & the Bible. Behind this are some born again bishops and cardinals; actually, it goes right up to the top. Again, this development is far larger than most think. But only because it happens in an un-protestant environment does not invalidate it.

    5 It is not only the Anglican Church that develops “small missional communities”, but many more denominations do that. Amongst them big ones like the Assemblies of God in certain areas of the world.

    6 Insider movements. A staggering amount of under-the-radar-house churches are emerging within religious megablocks, the Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, the New Agers and even within certain cults. But they choose to stay within their religious culture for effectiveness and to build bridges of God. One of my friends is a former Hindu priest, fully painted up and in his safran dress, who now very effectively plants house churches amongst Brahmins in India. If “proper” Christians would meet him, they’d probably shower him with tracts…

    7 There is a seventh version of hc’s out there that I do not bring up here intentionally because it kind of messes with the idea of a sixpack. It would be media-birthed house churches, initiated by TV, radio or folks like a friend of mine who became a guru and coach in a (huge!) online gamer community… So for sixpack reasons I would not mention it, but this actually might have the potential to become the biggest initiative of all: a facebookable, twitterable digital spawning of hc’s that emerge – but not stay – on the web.

    What are your thoughts on these reasons?  Are they accurate?  Are they inflated?

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  • Mark 8:57 am on March 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: christian science monitor, evangelicalism, michael spencer,   

    No One Dared to Join Them… 

    Just read an article on the coming Evangelical collapse in America.  I am both relieved and filled with anxiety as I read Michael Spencer’s words.  He depicts with such clarity the “costly” mistake of evangelicals identifying with social and political conservatism: in the next ten years, thousands of ministry and churches closing, a society-wide embrace of Post-Christian secularism, and a major tide in cultural antagonism toward evangelical Christianity as America begins to view conservative Christians as enemies to social progress.

    Will this happen?  Who knows for sure.  I do know that at some level, Evangelicals deserve it.  Though I don’t primarily identify myself as an Evangelical (especially in the popular sense of the word) there is a lot about the movement I agree with (the gospel is something to be shared, Bible is central to understanding our faith, etc).  And yet I can’t help but say this coming collapse is “deserved.”

    Evangelicals have squandered their massive influence on America, with refusing to creatively engage the culture and instead creating a Christian sub-culture (with radio stations, bookstores and the like) and when Christians DO engage their surrounding world, its sort of reminds me of little the little kid that would throw a snowball at a passing car, only to return to his little group of cronies to talk about brave he was.

    Pickets for “pro-life” and anti-gay marriage protests are not going to bring the Kingdom of God.  This sort of change in culture is not what Jesus wanted, or he would have been a politician.  Instead, he was a storyteller, an actor, a healer, a teacher, and a revolutionary.  I don’t think he’d join a cause, he WAS a cause, him and his followers.

    In Acts 5:13, Luke says, “But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them.” What’s up with that?  Almost like everyone appreciated the progress in society these early Christians were fighting/dying for, but few people had the guts to join ranks with them.  Isn’t this the opposite of today?

    For those reading this and are not Christians, I’m sorry for the way we as Christians have misrepresented Christ.  I’m sorry for how I’ve misrepresented him. For those who are followers, let’s really get out there and FOLLOW!  I want to move beyond argumentative Christianity, and then I want to move past cynicism and despair, and live in the adventure of the Christ-movement in North America!

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  • Mark 6:58 am on March 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Planted Life – Death becomes us 

    tha-death-star_msp1

    We have this crazy fear of death.  Okay, maybe from a certain perspective this is understandable.  But I think our culture has taken all the dignity out of death and put all our hopes on staying alive as long as possible.  Machines, tubes and drugs keep people awake and numb at the same time.  These medical marvels are great in one sense, but at the same time I believe they are killing us.

    Churches have this crazy fear of death.  Okay, maybe from a certain perspective this is understandable.  When a church believes that the work of God is limited to the existence of a church building in a certain space, they fight tooth and nail to keep the doors open for as long as possible.  This has left ten blue-haired ladies and a rector propping up their “service” in million-dollar sanctuaries in every city in America.

    This church and many like it have been dead for decades, but the outward signs of life are kept up in unnatural ways.  It is not only unnatural, it is unholy.  We have lost touch with a theology of death.

    The avoidance of death is not the same thing as truly living; its learning to live “SAFE.”  Neil Cole writes about this in his book Organic Leadership. His acronym for living SAFE is:

    Self-preservation = our mission

    Avoidance of the world and risk = wisdom

    Financial Security = responsible faith (stewardship)

    Education = maturity

    This can be considered the major values from which most elders and church leadership operate.  Essentially, this is a theology of “self-preservation” something I don’t think Jesus would look too kindly on.  Actually, its the one thing that Jesus says will kill you and separate you from God!  Self-preservation outside of God inevitably leads to self-destruction.  “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” (Mt 10:39).

    While this may apply to individuals, don’t forget that Jesus is talking to his disciples as a whole.  Meaning – your community must be ready to die at any moment if it is ever to truly see true life.

    Without death, you can’t have a resurrection.  Cole conveniently has a creative acronym for DEATH too…

    Dying daily to who we are

    Empowering others (not self) as our life

    Accepting risk as normative

    Theology as not just knowledge but practice

    Holding tight to Christ and having an open hand with all else that we “possess”

    I have been a part of two churches as they made plans to die.  It is a hard thing to admit to death, but most of the time we are only saying outloud what has been true for a very long time.  The more ready your community is ready to take on death for sake of God’s grander purposes, the more vibrant the community will be for as long as God has plans for it!

    I am reminded of our human bodies.  Even now as you read this, your body is hard at work, killing off old cells and multiplying new ones.  Both death and multiplication are necessary for your continued health.  Imagine for a minute that your body stopped multiplying new cells.  It would not take long for your body to begin to decay and your life would be over.

    “Multiplication stops when death occurs, and death occurs when multiplication stops.  Death and multiplication are intricately woven together in a symbiotic relationship.”

    Jesus talks about this in organic terms. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

    Is your church willing to give up its very life, today or tomorrow, to see God’s work accomplished?  What about your own life? That is the call of the gospel.

    So how to avoid the threat of the church-as-hollow-shell?  How about learning to expect death, and dealing with it well.  Find ways in your community to anticipate death and celebrate it as a source of fertilization for new life!

    Our church network in Chicago is planning a “Planted Life Event.”  Sometime near Easter, (a good symbol of death and new life), we’ll hold a worship event and a potluck meal where  we celebrate people in our network with a vision to start a new organic church.  We will also offer a dignified death to groups that are need to die, and cross pollinate to other churches.  Healthy groups can recommit for another year.  In all, we will honor God with our life and our death.

    Planted Life – churches are like the grain of wheat.  If we can open our grip and release our church to its death, we may see it bear much fruit.

    My friend Miller once said of organic church planting, “We’re breeding rabbits here, not elephants.”  Meaning, these groups will multiply like crazy, but they’ll also die much sooner than traditional churches.  This is okay.  I honestly hope I see the death of many churches in my lifetime, but I hope to see the birth of many more.

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    • Sean 10:39 pm on March 19, 2009 Permalink

      yeah man. I totally feel you hear. The church must except death and draw its roots from the old soil. We must continue to grow and change with time.
      Good stuff bro. This just gave me an idea with Shelbourne street. They are having some talk around the cross of Christ. This in tandome with my reading in Exiles has got me thinking about some interesting ideas for continued change.

    • Tim C 9:03 pm on April 6, 2009 Permalink

      Great idea with the Planted Life man. I am going to be thinking about his for a while. I hear you on the theology of death too. You know, I read a great book called Between Cross and Resurreection: A theology of Holy Saturday. also, John Douglas Hall has a lot of good writing on this. The Cross in Our Context is a short hand of his ideas.

      So encouraging to read these blogs man. Keep writing!

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