In Western society it’s difficult to do life together, but it does happen, it can be sustained and it can be life-changing. I pray these stories encourage you to keep meeting, keep searching and start gathering. This story is told by Peter J. Farmer.
My name is Peter J Farmer, I’m married to Marsha Lee Farmer and we have three teenagers. I’ve spent most of my adult life in Nottingham – home to the legend of Robin Hood and the birthplace of William Booth; founder of the Salvation Army.
My mum led me to Christ when I was seven, I was water baptized at fourteen and filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues at twenty-one. Between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one I had several encounters with God that convinced me that He was real and that He had a plan for my life. I’ve had a strong sense of calling on my life from an early age.
In 2000, I moved to The Meadows, an inner-city urban area, to work with an Anglican Church. Part of their mission was focused on ministry to unchurched youth and their families. The church had youth clubs and youth camps. The youth camps were very impactful and most years many young people made professions of faith. On returning, however, the youth neither attended church nor developed into disciples of Jesus.
I asked the leaders of the church, “How are we making disciples of these young people?” As a result I opened up my home, which was adjacent to the church, on Tuesday evenings, and invited young people who wanted to know more about Jesus.
I usually served biscuits and juice, however one day I made some ‘proper food’, a full meal, the kids appreciated this so much that they started knocking on the door everyday and asking if they could come inside for dinner. The word spread, until daily after school, there were lines of young people queueing up outside my house for food.
A real community and extended family environment emerged and most nights the house was full of young people. We would pray together, share food and share stories from the Bible. Sometimes it would get chaotic as many of the young people came from ‘broken homes’ and were involved in criminal gang activity. However it wasn’t long before single mothers in the area started inviting me into their homes to pray with them and their families and share food together.
Around that time Mark, a prophetic friend, asked me if I’d ever read books by Frank Viola. What we were doing reminded him of Frank’s writings regarding new wineskins/ecclesiology. I started reading ‘Rethinking the Wineskin’ (later republished as Reimagining Church) and most of Frank’s other books. I also read books by Neil Cole, Wolfgang Simson, Tony and Felicity Dale and Alan Hirsch.
We began intentionally meeting and forming simple organic missional churches. We’ve been involved in organic fellowship, accidentally from 2000, and officially since 2008. We’re still involved in gathering organically and sending out people in pairs and small teams to form new communities of disciples in places where people live, work and play.
At one time, in my home, we came together intentionally on a monthly basis for an apostolic equipping gathering. People involved in simple churches shared their joys and challenges, encouraged one other and shared stories and fruitful practices. We engaged in Discovery Bible Studies, addressed issues we were facing and set Faith Goals for the future. In this way we multiplied second and a few third generation churches (following principles of 2 Timothy 2:2 and global disciple multiplication movements principles).
When we experienced significant barriers and challenges, the prophets among us would call for a season of corporate prayer and fasting. We would come together in ‘Houses of Prayer’ and listen together for the voice of God until He gave us guidance.
Common issues we’ve encountered in simple gatherings:
-Inward focused house churches (what our friend Wolfgang Simson refers to as ‘us four no more’).
-Churches that are just ‘honey I shrunk the church’ (institutional type gatherings squashed into a living room).
-Simple churches that aren’t missional or intentional about making disciples.
-House churches made up of people who are merely dissatisfied, bitter or hurt by the established church.
-Churches focused on narrow issues and split over doctrines or heresies such as King James only, flat earth, or whether we are the original Hebrews, etc.We’ve overcome this by organising around Jesus and His Mission of intentionally making disciples. We don’t focus on pet doctrines or organise along doctrinal debate.
Over the years, we’ve engaged in community living in a variety of ways. We’ve had people living with us as part of our family, we’ve shared meals, opened our gates to the community and hosted community events in our back garden. We’ve shared cars and houses and our families have been on holidays together. We’ve pooled resources and started kingdom businesses and social enterprises and invested money into common missions. We’ve hosted multiple baptism parties in our back gardens and also baptized people in our bathtubs.
There are over 59 ‘one-another’ scriptures in the Bible that deal with how we are to relate to one another as the Body of Christ – it’s a challenge but it’s important to continue to practice these in extended-spiritual-families-on-mission together!
We have encouraged many to start simple churches by gathering disciples in their home, work or leisure spaces. Make a list of your oikos (all the people you know) and begin praying for them, seek ways to share your story (testimony) and the good news about Jesus (gospel) and find ways of offering hospitality (inviting people over for seasonal events such as Christmas, Easter, BBQ’s, National Events etc).
As groups begin to form we use tools such as Discovery Bible Studies, 7 Signs of John and 3/3’s Process to begin discipleship.
When we run out of connections in our oikos – we extend into Pioneer Mission principles based on Luke 10 (Sending disciples out in pairs to find the Person of Peace who will gather their household/oikos to form an intentional discipling community that will develop into a new church).
One of the secrets to healthy community is recognising the latent gifts that are present in every member of the church and releasing and equipping people to function in them. We’ve found it particularly useful to help others identify their Ephesians 4:11 ministry- whether they lean primarily toward gifting as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd or teacher. We then look for ways on how that person can minister to the community. (helpful books on this include 5Q by Alan Hirsch and Primal Fire by Neil Cole).
As each part does its own special work it helps all the other parts to grow until the whole body is healthy, growing and full of love (see Ephesians 4:11-16).
Check out Peter J. Farmer’s website here. Peter’s team developed a workbook called; ‘Pioneer Mission’ to help disciples start up new simple communities. The workbook is available on Amazon U.K. The link to purchase the workbook is on Peter’s website.
I would love to hear from those who have been doing organic church for an extended time. Contact me (Jonathan Rovetto) at 414.217.2189 or at jirovetto@yahoo.com. Don’t miss the next Unsung Heroes, subscribe below.