March 26, 2001
CHURCH AT HOME:
Early church model gaining favor
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___AUSTIN--Church is different at 5 Katy Lane in Austin. At least it's different from what most people today think of as church.
___The congregation meets every Sunday. They sing, pray, teach and worship. But they do it all in a house. And not just as a temporary measure. This is where they want to be.
___Tony and Felicity Dale started Austin Fellowship of Home Churches five years ago, and the congregation that meets in their home has no intention of ever being anything other than a house church. They do, however, have a vision for starting countless other house churches. Eight already are in various stages of development.
___The Dales are part of a growing worldwide movement toward house churches. Such gatherings are different from home Bible study groups or cell groups. They are fully-functioning churches of 15 to 30 people, with a commitment to reaching others not by growing a larger church but by helping create more and more house churches.
___Wolfgang Simson, author of "Houses that Change the World," spoke to about 170 people in the Dales' home March 17-18. He told story after story of the millions of people around the world being reached for Christ through house churches.
___House churches are a "global phenomena," and they spread like a virus, he said.
___Simson, who lives in Germany, said traditional and cell-based churches have their place. He sees house churches, however, as reflecting the biblical model and being the best means for rapid worldwide evangelism and discipleship.
___The church must get small to get large, he said. "House church is the most effective way for making disciples."
___Simson used an animal metaphor to illustrate the evangelistic impact of house churches. If you put two elephants in a room and two rabbits in a room, in three years you will have three elephants and 476 million rabbits, he said.
___Wonderful things happen in "elephant type" churches, but "with all of these elephant churches around" it's "time for a rabbit plague," he said. He compares house churches to rapidly multiplying rabbits.
___House churches began to experience a rebirth in 1949 when Mao Tse Tung forced western missionaries to leave China, Simson said. The West could not imagine how the church in China would survive; but 30 years later, the number of Christians in China had grown from 3 million to 60 million. They meet in house churches.
___Church is a "very simple thing" that has been made more complex by western cultural aspects that have nothing to do with the gospel, Simson said.
___House churches are the New Testament model, and they are a natural fit with how God has revealed himself in Scripture, he asserted. "The type of church we have on earth depends on the type of God we have in heaven. If God would be a father in heaven, the church would be like a family on earth."
___Being part of a family is a "24/7 thing," he said, meaning that it affects a person's life 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But families have their most intimate gatherings in houses.
___"So many of the things going on in this country are very sophisticated," the German speaker said. "One of the messages of God for this nation" is that the simple and weak things are "going to change this land."
___Sunday morning activities at 5 Katy Lane begin with a potluck breakfast at 10:30. Church members eat and share informally in small groups that fluctuate as the people move around. "The food is as important as everything else," said Tony Dale.
___After a leisurely breakfast, the congregation moves toward a prayer and worship time. Adults and children mingle together in small groups to pray.
___Music comes next. There is not a structured order of worship, and no one knows exactly what will happen. A couple of praise songs are sung to get things started, and the service moves forward as a free, interactive experience among the worshippers. Children occupy themselves around the fringes of the group.
___After a time, the children are taken to another area, and a speaker delves into a passage of Scripture. About 1:30 p.m., the gathering breaks up, but the churchgoers don't rush off. Some eat lunch from the leftover breakfast. Others clean and straighten. Everyone talks.
___Lori Byerly has been a part of the 5 Katy Lane congregation for more than a year. Asked why she worshipped there, Byerly said, "Probably for a long time I was sort of dissatisfied with staring at the back of somebody's head." She wanted a closer fellowship.
___"It's been an incredibly healthy move for our family," she testified.
___Her 10-year-old son is "all wiggle and always has been," she said. "The traditional churches have been hard on him. Now, he loves church. If he gets wiggly, it's more a family atmosphere. It's the first church where he has felt really accepted."
___It's been good for her and her husband, Paul, as well. "It's like we have real friends in this church, ... a real personal knowledge of each other and a real willingness to do the practical."
___The church at 5 Katy Lane has reached out in varied ministries, and about 80 percent of funds collected by the church "go out to bless others," Felicity Dale said. A housing project in south Austin has felt the congregation's loving touch; and The Magdalene Project, launched by member Robbi Sluder, ministers to women involved in prostitution, exotic dancing and the street life.
___"This is such a small body of believers, and they do so much," Byerly said.
___Another member at 5 Katy Lane, Michael Reed, said in a house church "it's all together up to you to lay hold of God; ... and that's more out on a limb. I don't like being out on a limb, but I sure like watching him come through."
___The church is not affiliated with a denomination and does not have a pastor. Tony Dale functions as an elder, providing light-handed leadership throughout--guiding and directing the activities but not controlling them.
___When the family of God does come together, it should do four things, Simson said.
___First, they should eat together, he said, noting this was a "very important aspect of the ministry of Jesus."
___Almost every day he was in someone's house and eating, Simson said. "This is where it starts. Eating is a sign of your family."
___When the church eats together, however, it is not just about food. Christians "need the power of the Holy Spirit for it. ... The Lord's Supper is a family meal with God."
___Second, Simson said, church is not about organized meetings. It is to share God and life with others and "to share life needs time." That means to share in whatever way needed--spiritually, financially or whatever.
___Third, church involves teaching the word of God, which mainly refers to teaching through example, Simson said. "It doesn't have to do with long monologue; it has to do with dialogue."
___Fourth, church includes praying and prophesying. "Prayer was the lifestyle of the early church," he said. Prophesying refers to how God speaks through individuals to the church.
___As for what's happening at 5 Katy Lane, Felicity Dale admits it's a lot of work, but she loves it.
___"Once you've tasted something like this morning, when God touches you at a deep level, how can you be satisfied with anything else?" she said. "You don't know what the Holy Spirit is going to show up and do."____
The Baptist Standard
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Toward Intimacy Together in Christ
Conversational Prayer by G L Graves
When people gather in Jesus’ name in small groups or smaller groups there is an opportunity for intimacy. Under Christ intimacy leads to transparency and transparency leads to purity and power. In conversation there is a meeting of minds and a touching of hearts, which is very important. In conversational prayer there is a molding of hearts together. When people pray together interactively they see deeply into each others heart. The Kingdom of God advances through heart connections. As the Lord molds hearts together His followers become more and more open channels of blessing through which the love of God flows freely.
As you converse with God together please consider the following ideas:
Acknowledge God’s presence in the group. Praise and adoration is always good to help focus the group on communicating with the Lord.
Pray short prayers of one, two or three sentences.
Pray about one subject, idea or person at a time until everyone has shared as much and as often as prompted by the Spirit on the subject.
Be reluctant to change the subject as you would in any conversation until everyone is finished with it.
Pray specifically and personally. As you pray with God’s love for a person in the room with you the bonds of love between you grow.
Times of silence can give the timid and the thoughtful time to contribute.
To help a group become accustomed to conversational prayer it can be helpful to suggest sentence prayers for a few sessions as people learn.
The more the conversation with God is passed around the group the deeper the intimacy grows. In time a small group becomes totally unified and purely transparent. Watch God’s love flow freely, lives transform and answers to prayer abound. “And the place where they prayed was shaken…….”
Gail L Graves; POB 190862; Boise, Idaho 83719; gailgraves@msn.com
For more information see Masterlife: the Disciple’s Personality page 41 by Avery T. Willis, Jr; LifeWay Press; Nashville, Tennessee USA. See also the classic little book called Prayer; Conversing with God by Rosalind Rinker.
When people gather in Jesus’ name in small groups or smaller groups there is an opportunity for intimacy. Under Christ intimacy leads to transparency and transparency leads to purity and power. In conversation there is a meeting of minds and a touching of hearts, which is very important. In conversational prayer there is a molding of hearts together. When people pray together interactively they see deeply into each others heart. The Kingdom of God advances through heart connections. As the Lord molds hearts together His followers become more and more open channels of blessing through which the love of God flows freely.
As you converse with God together please consider the following ideas:
Acknowledge God’s presence in the group. Praise and adoration is always good to help focus the group on communicating with the Lord.
Pray short prayers of one, two or three sentences.
Pray about one subject, idea or person at a time until everyone has shared as much and as often as prompted by the Spirit on the subject.
Be reluctant to change the subject as you would in any conversation until everyone is finished with it.
Pray specifically and personally. As you pray with God’s love for a person in the room with you the bonds of love between you grow.
Times of silence can give the timid and the thoughtful time to contribute.
To help a group become accustomed to conversational prayer it can be helpful to suggest sentence prayers for a few sessions as people learn.
The more the conversation with God is passed around the group the deeper the intimacy grows. In time a small group becomes totally unified and purely transparent. Watch God’s love flow freely, lives transform and answers to prayer abound. “And the place where they prayed was shaken…….”
Gail L Graves; POB 190862; Boise, Idaho 83719; gailgraves@msn.com
For more information see Masterlife: the Disciple’s Personality page 41 by Avery T. Willis, Jr; LifeWay Press; Nashville, Tennessee USA. See also the classic little book called Prayer; Conversing with God by Rosalind Rinker.
Introduction to Simple Church Life
Our Introduction to Simple Church Life
After fifteen years of earnestly striving to plant churches through out the greater Boise and southwest Idaho area the Lord gave me the desire of my heart. In serving as missions committee chairman for our Treasure Valley association of churches I had helped organize a series of meetings for the spring of 1994 to encourage the multiplication of churches. Our hope was to see our churches multiply and thus propagate evangelism and discipleship activities to reach our area in Christ. We had asked church planting experts to come to our area from all over and meet with churches, missions committees, pastors and associational leaders. These efforts followed many years of earnest prayer toward a church planting movement locally. As the intensity of the week of meetings proceeded my heart and mind raced to keep up with what God was doing. Many of the familiar obstacles to church multiplication continued to crop up in meeting after meeting. Where will we meet and who will lead? The general mindset of people continuously returned to the cost of a meeting place and the expense of providing a trained minister to lead the effort. Many dedicated Christians within a variety of church affiliations understand that the resources to accomplish the harvest are in the harvest. However the difficulty of providing the up front resources continued to create barriers. During the series of meetings I was absorbed in the intense challenges of building peoples faith to the point of trusting God to provide all the necessary resources.
I found myself traveling down the Oregon Trail backwards. I mean from west to east. I was returning from Ontario, Oregon where I had been meeting with a missions committee of a church that I had helped start. I was on my way to Boise where I was pastor of a newly started church. I was to meet with one of the oldest churches in our association concerning church multiplication. I was traveling down Interstate Highway 84 passing through Caldwell, Idaho where I had earlier dropped off some participants to meet with the missions committee of a church of long familiarity. Caldwell had been my home and where I served as pastor for nine years. As you may recognize from your studies in American history I was traversing the approximate path of the Oregon Trail but in reverse from west to east.
Suddenly the Lord broke in to my heart and mind. I saw a vision. I saw a mental picture of a small group of people setting around a kitchen table partaking of the Lord’s Supper together. Immediately the thought came to mind, “this is a sweet church.” Suddenly I saw church in new light. If little were to be normal then multiplication is not complex. Instantly everything, all the challenges of church life, all the concerns about church multiplication became simple, so simple. I understood for the first time in my Christian life that church and church multiplication is simple, very simple. I recognized that simplicity is at the heart of church multiplication.
I recalled the historic path of church history down through the ages. I remembered the gradual change that came to the simple church of the first century over time. Dedicated buildings, singular leadership and hierarchical structure came centuries later. The dominant form of church life in the fifteen century would have hardly recognized one of those first century groups. The sixteenth century brought radical change in the mutated form of church life. Yet in the following centuries as the new normal stabilized the prominent forms of church life remain complex. The complexity is to the point of encumbrance in the area of multiplication.
The little kitchen table group is reminiscent of the little groups that spread Christianity across Asia Minor like prairie fire during the first century. Over the next few weeks and months I came to realize that God had answered my prayers. He had shown me the path to multiplication of churches and Godliness though out my area and through out the world. I realized that it was the same plan that our Savior had modeled with the twelve. It was the same as Paul and the others modeled in the first century. I had traveled eastward all the way back down the Oregon Trail to St. Louis and further all the way back to the Atlantic across the ocean and trough Europe into Asia Minor. I returned to the church of the first century to discover the purity and reproducibility of simple little churches. Those were churches that required no dedicated buildings. In early churches the requirement for their multiple leaders was merely a walk with Christ. The primitive churches had a structure no more complicated than a family. Multiplication was a normal part of life in the little groups. Early churches were small enough to meet around a kitchen table in sweet intimacy with each other and eyes focused unwaveringly on Jesus. The purifying effect of those close knit little groups on the lives of each individual was inescapable. The potential for multiplication was limited only by the vision and the faith of the participants. I determined under Divine leadership to take the simple path to church multiplication and to trust Him for the results.
After fifteen years of earnestly striving to plant churches through out the greater Boise and southwest Idaho area the Lord gave me the desire of my heart. In serving as missions committee chairman for our Treasure Valley association of churches I had helped organize a series of meetings for the spring of 1994 to encourage the multiplication of churches. Our hope was to see our churches multiply and thus propagate evangelism and discipleship activities to reach our area in Christ. We had asked church planting experts to come to our area from all over and meet with churches, missions committees, pastors and associational leaders. These efforts followed many years of earnest prayer toward a church planting movement locally. As the intensity of the week of meetings proceeded my heart and mind raced to keep up with what God was doing. Many of the familiar obstacles to church multiplication continued to crop up in meeting after meeting. Where will we meet and who will lead? The general mindset of people continuously returned to the cost of a meeting place and the expense of providing a trained minister to lead the effort. Many dedicated Christians within a variety of church affiliations understand that the resources to accomplish the harvest are in the harvest. However the difficulty of providing the up front resources continued to create barriers. During the series of meetings I was absorbed in the intense challenges of building peoples faith to the point of trusting God to provide all the necessary resources.
I found myself traveling down the Oregon Trail backwards. I mean from west to east. I was returning from Ontario, Oregon where I had been meeting with a missions committee of a church that I had helped start. I was on my way to Boise where I was pastor of a newly started church. I was to meet with one of the oldest churches in our association concerning church multiplication. I was traveling down Interstate Highway 84 passing through Caldwell, Idaho where I had earlier dropped off some participants to meet with the missions committee of a church of long familiarity. Caldwell had been my home and where I served as pastor for nine years. As you may recognize from your studies in American history I was traversing the approximate path of the Oregon Trail but in reverse from west to east.
Suddenly the Lord broke in to my heart and mind. I saw a vision. I saw a mental picture of a small group of people setting around a kitchen table partaking of the Lord’s Supper together. Immediately the thought came to mind, “this is a sweet church.” Suddenly I saw church in new light. If little were to be normal then multiplication is not complex. Instantly everything, all the challenges of church life, all the concerns about church multiplication became simple, so simple. I understood for the first time in my Christian life that church and church multiplication is simple, very simple. I recognized that simplicity is at the heart of church multiplication.
I recalled the historic path of church history down through the ages. I remembered the gradual change that came to the simple church of the first century over time. Dedicated buildings, singular leadership and hierarchical structure came centuries later. The dominant form of church life in the fifteen century would have hardly recognized one of those first century groups. The sixteenth century brought radical change in the mutated form of church life. Yet in the following centuries as the new normal stabilized the prominent forms of church life remain complex. The complexity is to the point of encumbrance in the area of multiplication.
The little kitchen table group is reminiscent of the little groups that spread Christianity across Asia Minor like prairie fire during the first century. Over the next few weeks and months I came to realize that God had answered my prayers. He had shown me the path to multiplication of churches and Godliness though out my area and through out the world. I realized that it was the same plan that our Savior had modeled with the twelve. It was the same as Paul and the others modeled in the first century. I had traveled eastward all the way back down the Oregon Trail to St. Louis and further all the way back to the Atlantic across the ocean and trough Europe into Asia Minor. I returned to the church of the first century to discover the purity and reproducibility of simple little churches. Those were churches that required no dedicated buildings. In early churches the requirement for their multiple leaders was merely a walk with Christ. The primitive churches had a structure no more complicated than a family. Multiplication was a normal part of life in the little groups. Early churches were small enough to meet around a kitchen table in sweet intimacy with each other and eyes focused unwaveringly on Jesus. The purifying effect of those close knit little groups on the lives of each individual was inescapable. The potential for multiplication was limited only by the vision and the faith of the participants. I determined under Divine leadership to take the simple path to church multiplication and to trust Him for the results.
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