Calling for a Counter Culture October 27, 2009
Posted by bajanpoet in Christianity, House Church, House churches, apostolic, emergent, links, missional, new churches, personal, prophet, prophetic, testimony.Tags: Christian, church culture, counter culture, prophecy, prophetic, prophetic essay
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I’ve had a message the Lord gave me about 3 weeks ago that has shaken me up – again. God has been speaking to me about the fact that he wants to create what he called a ‘counter culture’ of Christianity – which is not the same thing as the religious culture of having Christian music, Christian apparel and stuff… but really, really impacting society by bringing in Kingdom thinking and Kingdom principles. I emailed it out to a couple friends (okay, about 20) asking for input, and Archie put it straight on his blog – go to it here – http://wp.me/pwYvw-w. I am also attempting to attach the document itself here – until I do get it done sucessfully, you can get it from the above link. (Update: Here is the link to the Counter Culture document itself. Finally figured out how to get it done!)
Disclaimer – For those who read the text of the email on Archie’s website I wasn’t thinking at the time I sent my original email that it would go beyond the Caribbean – at least not yet …. so the original wording is specific to that region. (“Yeah, right,” I can hear some of you saying. “You didn’t think it would get out?”) The other thing is that the wording seems to single out my Christian experience at my tertiary institutions, but underneath God is really speaking to the fact that he wants to interact with society in a real way, in a new way.
The Shape of the Church May 13, 2009
Posted by bajanpoet in Christianity, House Church, emergent, personal.Tags: amoeba, cell church, Christianity, disciples, House Church, shape of the church, viral disciples, what is the church
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For those who don’t know, I’m a part of what some would call a ‘house church.’ We meet in each other’s homes and exist with a paradigm that tries to break ‘Christianity’ down to its essentials – relationship with God, and man. (See Matthew 22:36-39)
Some members of the Body of Christ have been recently making house church as the ‘new thing’, the best thing since slice bread, and crying down the more ‘traditional’ types of church assembly (where ‘traditional’ in this context isn’t just whether you meet and sing hymns, or meet and sing contemporary songs.) 
(Gentle jab to one of my new blog acquaintances and her blog post on modern vs contemporary church services – Hi Lynese!)
I used to be one of them.
But I’ve come to realize that the container doesn’t matter as much as the commitment to the purpose, if you get what I mean. Whether the church meets on Sunday morning, or Tuesday night, whether we sing hymns or just sit in a circle and discuss life – the main purpose for the church is put pretty succinctly in the Scriptures (Matthew 28:18-20 and Mark 16:15-19. )
And now I see a blog post that gives me what I’ve heard recently is an ‘Aha!’ moment!
In Discipling Viral Disciplers, the author had me at the first line: “I no longer try to start house churches.” Wha…. Interesting. Let’s continue.
The post says:
Jesus invited us to join him, organically, in the reproduction of life. (my emphasis) His church is a living, thriving, reproducing organism (Mark 4) that allows life-in-the-Spirit to spread virally from one disciple to the next. His church is alive as illustrated by a seed (Mark 4) that brings forth 30, 60, or 100-fold reproduction. That is the life of the kingdom. His life in me is passed on to the life of another (2-fold) which is passed to the life of another (4-fold) which is passed to the life of another (8-fold), etc. That is the way of organic/viral life and this is what the kingdom IS. This is ultimately what Jesus invited us to become part of: discipling viral disciplers.
I’ve been a part of a house church for over ten years. When the Lord first called me to join it, I turned away from everything that was, in my view, ‘rigid’ and ’structured.’ It took a couple of years for the Lord to finally get into my skull that even an amoeba (a one celled organism that flows into any shape and reproduces by splitting in half) had a structure.
So I came to realize that house church, in itself isn’t “it” – the author puts it beautifully when he said that:
When I have made house churches the end game, I have discovered that they do not naturally reproduce nor become movements. In fact, house churches have a shelf life. They may serve a purpose for a season, but when that season ends (and it will) the “movement” is over. The influence of a house church is temporary.
He says had commented earlier that “Kingdom life is viral, organic, and, by nature, a movement.” and he expounds on this by continuing:
This explains why Jesus did not ask us to go and “make gatherings or churches.” He did not ask us to go and “make house churches.” He said, “go and make disciples.” This shift from starting gatherings to making disciples (who go and make disciples) goes to the very heart of the matter. Discipling viral disciplers is the end game. This places us squarely in the midst of reproductive life that the kingdom is intrinsically about. We become movement-starters not church-starters. We release disciples who will influence the world throughout their lifetime and beyond as those they disciple disciple still others.
WOW. I couldn’t have put it better myself. This is the missing link in my thinking. But does this mean that we have to look for another container to house the church in? Not according to him – but house churches themselves are not the goal, they are the means to the end of spreading the gospel….
Now, not to confuse the issue, but often in the work of discipling viral disciplers I will be gathering people together in a manner that looks an awful lot like a simple/house church. Absolutely! But the underlying DNA makes all the difference. When I reach and disciple a viral discipler, that person is going to gather with other viral disciplers for encouragement, and then, as each of them reaches others, still more gatherings will take place. So, along the way, house churches are started. But, but rather than being the end game, they become a means to support the life that is being reproduced from one disciple to the next.
Just like the amoeba, “[the] house church gatherings themselves will shift, change, morph, end, and re-establish themselves in new forms but the movement of disciples who are reproducing disciples will continue.”
I like his comment here: “When we start house churches, our focus tends to be on the gathering—what to do, how to do it, what it looks like, etc. We say to ourselves that we are learning to “be” the church 24/7 (and we may even go do missional things), but often our priority remains on developing the structure/form of simple house church gatherings.” I dare say, that this is also the priority of those who gather in more ‘traditional’ settings as well. He contrasts this way of thinking – “church starters” – with being “movement starters” by saying
When following Jesus and inviting others to follow him becomes our focus (discipling viral disciples), we will have to shift from the “gathering” mentality to the “lifestyle-going” mentality. This shift changes the processes we walk out from top to bottom. And, this shift will propel us from being church-starters to movement starters (where churches spring up along the way).
I love this comment in his conclusion: “Jesus, the adventurous, undomesticated, on-the-move God invites us to join him daily where He is working.” He challenges that this change of thinking calls us to ‘examine our own “followership” as a starting point.’ (his words)
I will echo his concluding questions: What does this mean for us, to really be the church in the world? I am not calling out those who gather in church buildings on Sunday and saying they’re wrong – they are not. I am asking – what does it really mean to be the church? If we move from starting churches to releasing viral disciplers, how does this change our paradigm? What will it look like?
Thoughts?
Divine Connections! December 23, 2008
Posted by bajanpoet in emergent, prophetic.Tags: divine connections, emergent, prophetic, questions, shape of the church
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Below is a slightly edited version of a prophetic essay I was led to write recently. With people’s natural tendency to try to put things into comfortable ‘boxes’, I thought it was time to question what makes a genuine community – was it location, people of like minds, or what? Read and comment…
Divine Connections (2008.12.20)
“…The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7b)
There is much debate about the shape of the church, and many labels – “emergent”, “missional” and “apostolic” being the latest key phrases these days. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with man trying to understand and come to grips with what is happening in the Spirit, but these labels sometimes have the effect of garrisoning – people ‘camp out’ in one of these ‘streams’ of Christianity and are effectively shutting themselves off from the whole move of God. It has the effect of splitting the church into these different, seemingly opposing groups, who take pot shots at one another, splitting hairs over doctrinal differences. But how does God see his church?
To the question asked of Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus said, “’You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength,’ and the second command is like the first, ‘you should love your neighbour as yourself.’” (Matt 22:36, para.)
I have gotten the distinct impression that we as believers think too much about the Church’s overall shape, whereas the Lord is looking at something completely different. “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.” Man is looking at structure, and organization, and hierarchy, rigidity or fluidity … but God is looking at something else in relation to his church.
The Lord dropped the words ‘divine connection’ into my spirit tonight as I talked about the Kingdom expansion going on within one of Barbados’ parishes with a friend, who has asked me to be a resource in her evangelistic efforts. I have been feeling an increasing pull towards helping with what is going on there, making myself available to minister deliverance and prophecy, but also to teach and to help to baptize those seriously considering making a life change towards Christ. Carol has been seeking for a team of people to partner with to extend the Kingdom where she lives, and I have felt prophetically that the people are coming, and that God is doing something within her area.
I felt that we had a divine connection between us, and that God had linked us together for this time and this season to see his will accomplished. The Scripture I referenced when speaking to her was Eccl. 4:10-12, and verse 12 says, ‘Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves, and a three fold cord is not easily broken.’
As we think about community, the temptation to do it exactly as was done in times past is strong: move house and live in a physical location and embody the Church in a physical location. If things are not done in this way, we may feel that we are missing the mark and missing our opportunity. However, I feel that this is more of the same – the ‘how’ being more important than the ‘what’. I feel that instead the Lord is emphasizing the divine connections between us: our relationships. He puts the lonely together in families, the Scripture says, and he binds people’s hearts and lives together for his purposes. The Lord has always been placing emphasis on the relationship. Jesus, for example, prayed that the believers would be one ‘as I and the Father are one’, and that ‘the world would know that [we] are his disciples because of our love for one another.’
Relationship is the divine connection that is important. Whether separated by physical time and space, the bond of love and commitment far outweighs the ‘shape’ or ‘form’ of community we adopt. Let us be free to explore different forms of community, different shapes for our local expression of the Body of Christ, but without losing the power of relationship. Let us explore the divine connections formed and forming in our lives. Let us see what God is weaving together from these different strings to ultimately display the majestic tapestry of his divine purpose! Let us also be free from fear of ‘missing it’ because the shape is not what we expect; God’s will is for us to have faith in the fact that HE is building his church, and obey his leadings concerning our part in it.
Have anyone felt drawn to another for divine purposes – and knew it was God’s doing?
