As I sat at a table sharing a meal with men and women whom God has raised up as leaders in what are commonly called house churches, one man turned to me and asked, “How did you discover house church?” I paused for a minute and then answered his question. As I heard each of the others describe their own journeys I realized that I had been asked and had answered the wrong question.
I am very interested in house church or simple church, and may very well become involved in starting one. However, house church is not the message God has given me. I have not had a revelation of house church, nor do I champion simple church as the best model of church. In fact, I’ve become bored with the whole discussion about models of doing church. The message God gave me is valid regardless of the model or package that we put the church into.
So why am I so interested in house church? Because the men and women I’ve found who have heard the same message I have are the very ones that are starting house churches. Because the message I received has been rejected by the pastor of our local church without any appeal to scripture. Because God has told us that it is time for us to go, but is leading us not to find a new church home but to allow him to create a new one from the harvest. Because simple church offers the greatest hope for us to avoid building a kingdom unto ourselves and hence recreate the very thing God is calling us out of.
So what is the message I received? What is the message that has so shaken me and transformed my spiritual worldview? Here is my best attempt to compress it down to a 30 second sound bite.
Simply Be. To be what God is transforming me into. To yield to his touch and hold the form. To rest in him, be content in him, end striving, to hear his voice and be ready and willing to obey – even if I don’t see a big picture and I don’t take ownership of what God is having me do.
To see the Kingdom of God increase and our own kingdoms decrease. To see the reality of the Kingdom of God manifested not in doctrinal beliefs, Biblical knowledge or activities done in his name, but in who and what we are and are becoming in Christ. To disciple new believers instead of just teaching or preaching to them. To equip the body of Christ for ministry instead of making them dependent on our ministry. To cast off the shackles of religious obligation in order to embrace a life of walking in the spirit by faith. To honor the Word of God by letting it speak to us and mold us instead of speaking for it and molding it. To Simply Be.
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4 comments:
And the pastor disagreed with your message how? It seems like there is not even a point where one could find disagreement?
What would you say? "Don't yield to his touch, don't be content in him"? It doesn't make any sense to say that.
The answer is in the final paragraph. It contains a series of contrasts. To a large extent these contrasts are between what I have been taught and have experienced under his leadership and where God is drawing me too. That paragraph is packed with meaning and is very challenging. Take the very first sentence "To see the Kingdom of God increase and our own kingdoms decrease." What is the Kingdom of God? What is our own kingdom? Do we advance the Kingdom of God by making other's dependent on us, or by equiping them to become mature spiritual adults in their own right who can go and equip others? Do we advance the Kingdom of God by growing the attendance of an organization, or by growing the people within the organization and encouraging them to fulfill their own calling. Do we advance the Kingdom of God by insisting that anyone who wants to come to Christ must come to us and accept our organizational culture or by going to where people are and sharing Christ within us in their own culture? My pastor is a good man, but the reason this message is such an offense to him is that is flies in the face of his perception of himself and his own role in the body of Christ.
Which is greater? A father who has a large family by keeping his adult children home with him, or a father who has raised his children to be men and women who have gone forth and started familes of their own - producing grandchildren. This very human question is at the root of all the spiritual and theological questions.
You might find Jesus' talk of fruit trees to be of interest. This is an idea I have been wrestling with myself in the past few months. While there are certainly things to believe and things to do, the point is not those thoughts or actions. Those should flow naturally out of who we are in Christ.
Good trees are supposed to bear good fruit. And that good fruit manifests itself all sorts of ways. When we begin to understand that who we *are* determines everything else, then we have begun to more clearly understand what the Kingdom of God has come to do. It has come to transform men and women. It has come to take them from who and what they are (fallen and sinful) and make them who and what they are not (redeemed and regenerated).
Thank you Bill. Yes, yes, yes. Very well put.
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