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Books / Videos

Is This Book For You?

I usually wait until I finish reading a book before I add it to my Resources page, write a commentary and then, if something really touches me, create a blog post about it. I had only finished reading the introduction of the book When the Church Was a Family by Joseph H. Hellerman when I came across a truly honest and inspirational few paragraphs which I want to share.

Is this book for you? The author states that his book is for the Traditional Church Leaders and what he defines as the Emerging Church Visionaries (House Church included). The paragraphs below are addressed to the Traditional Church Leaders.

A good portion of those who serve the institutional church sorely recognize the need for renewal and reform in the way we do ministry. Our programs are tired, our services have often become repetitive and nonengaging, and – most notably – we increasingly struggle to keep people connected with one another in ongoing networks of mutual support and accountability.

We tried for a season to play the consumer game by appealing to our people’s felt needs through programs such as “Three Keys to a Healthy Marriage” and “How to Find Success at Work.” You have surely heard the sermons, and you may very well have preached them yourself. The spiritual bankruptcy of consumer Christianity has become quite clear in retrospect. Indeed, it has completely backfired where the cultivation of community is concerned. The “let us meet your needs” approach to marketing the church, which became so popular among the baby boomers in the 1980’s and 1990’s, has only served further to socialize our people to “prefer a variety of church experiences, rather than getting the most out of all that a single church has to offer.” This hardly encourages lasting Christian community, so we continue to long for genuine renewal.

I trust that those of you who are attempting to revitalize an existing congregation’s values and structures will find this book a promising vision for church as God intended it. But I must caution you in advance to prepare yourself for an acute paradigm shift. A return to the community orientation of early Christianity requires much more than a slight course correction in our weekly programming or the addition of another line item to the church budget.

Contextualizing New Testament social values in our congregation requires us to significantly revise the way that we conceive of church. And there will inevitably be a cost to pay as leaders. For as is generally the case during seasons of renewal, those of us who have the most invested in “church as it is” will inevitably be called upon to sacrifice more than the others in order to liberate our people to experience “church as it was” during the New Testament era.

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Biblical Church

Great Quotes

Charles Spurgeon

Does God need a house? He who made the heavens and the earth, does he dwell in temples made with hands? What crass ignorance this is! No house beneath the sky is more holy than the place where a Christian lives, and eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and praises the Lord in all that he does, and there is no worship more heavenly than that which is presented by holy families, devoted to the fear of the Lord.

Charles Spurgeon

As the church started in the home, it is going to come back to the home.

J. Vernon McGee

The church is never a place, but always a people; never a fold but always a flock; never a sacred building but always a believing assembly. The church is you who pray, not where you pray. A structure of brick or marble can no more be the church than your clothes of serge or satin can be you. There is in this world…no sanctuary of man but the soul.

John Havlick, Southern Baptist pastor

The expression ‘in church’ (en ekklesia)…refers to an assembly of believers. There is no suggestion of a special building. Indeed, the idea of a church as representing a building is totally alien to the NT.

Donald Guthrie

Even the meetings of the ‘whole church’ were small enough for a relatively intimate relationship to develop between the members.

Robert Banks, Fuller seminary professor speaking about the early church.

The early church was able to defy the decadent values of Roman civilization precisely because it experienced the reality of Christian fellowship in a mighty way… Christian fellowship meant unconditional availability to and unlimited liability for the other sisters and brothers – emotionally, financially and spiritually. When one member suffered, they all suffered. When one rejoiced, they all rejoiced. When a person or church experienced economic trouble, the others shared without reservation. And when a brother or sister fell into sin, the others gently restored the straying person. The sisters and brothers were available to each other, liable for each other and accountable to each other. The early church, of course, did not always fully live out the New Testament version of the body of Christ. There were tragic lapses. But the network of tiny house churches scattered throughout the Roman Empire did experience their oneness to Christ so vividly that they were able to defy and eventually conquer a powerful, pagan civilization. The overwhelming majority of churches today, however, do not provide the context in which brothers and sisters can encourage, admonish and disciple each other. We desperately need new settings and structures for watching over one another in love.

Ronald Sider, seminary professor

For two or three centuries, Christians met in private houses…There seems little doubt that these informal gatherings of small groups of believers had great influence in preserving the simplicity and purity of early Christianity.

W.H. Griffith Thomas, co-founder of the Dallas Theological Seminary

For the first two centuries, the church met in small groups in the homes of its members, apart from special gatherings in public lecture halls or market places, where people could come together in much larger numbers. Significantly, these two centuries mark the most powerful and vigorous advance of the church, which perhaps has never been equaled.

David Watson, Anglican priest and evangelist

Since in the first and second centuries church buildings in the sense in which we think of them today were not yet in existence, families would hold services in their own homes.

William Hendricksen, Reformed scholar

The New Testament Church began as a small group house church, and it remained so until the middle or end of the third century. There is no evidence of larger places of meeting before 300. There is no literary evidence nor archaeological indication that any such home was converted into an extant church building. Nor is there any extant church that certainly was built prior to Constantine.

Graydon Snyder, Chicago Theological Seminary

Those…desirous of being Christians in earnest…should…assemble by themselves in some house…those whose conduct was not such as befits Christians could be recognized, reproved…or excommunicated… Here we could have baptism and the sacrament…and direct everything towards the Word and prayer and love…

Martin Luther

It strikes me that there would be a great deal of good done if persons who have large rooms in their houses would endeavor to get together little congregations… Where there is a Church in the house, every member strives to increase the other’s comfort, all seek to promote each other’s holiness, each one endeavors to discharge his duty according to the position in which he placed in that church.

Charles Spurgeon
Categories
Biblical Church

Martha, Martha, Martha

Christ In The Home of Mary and Martha by Johannes Vermeer

 Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”

And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:38-42

If you’ve been a Christ follower for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve heard this portion of scripture expounded on and preached on. I’m not here to do that. I find it fascinating that an interaction in a home between two sisters and Jesus has been forever immortalized in scripture.

Mary was at Jesus’ feet hearing “His word”. Luke never mentions what Jesus was talking about but instead records the words of a disgruntled woman accusing Jesus of not caring about her plight. Surprisingly, Martha never interacts with Mary directly, instead she wants Jesus to correct Mary’s behavior. There is no indication if the situation ever comes to any resolution. Did Mary, after hearing the discussion, get up and help? Did Martha put away her things, stop working and listen? I guess we will never know.

Jesus was in a home, doing life with people. If you’re doing House Church you know people have all sorts of theology and beliefs and sometimes those beliefs must be lovingly challenged. What better environment to discuss disagreements or misunderstandings than among a group of spiritual family members.

If scripture was still being written today maybe some of your House Church conversations and disagreements would be immortalized too.

Categories
Biblical Church

Bigger is Better?

NPR recently posted an article entitled “Megachurches are getting even bigger as churches close across the country.” The article highlights Liquid Church located in Parsippany, N.J. which is growing at a rapid pace.

For the last several years, Liquid Church has been one of the fastest-growing churches in the nation, and a big part of its success has come through assimilating smaller, more traditional congregations. Four of its seven campuses – all in New Jersey – have come through these mergers.

NPR article by Scott Neuman

An unfortunate truth mentioned in the article is that the average Christian congregation has about 65 members and a third of them are over 65 years old. With smaller and declining congregation, these churches are ripe to become satellites for the megachurches of the world.

If you facilitate House Church, you sometimes fight against the mindset that bigger is better. Early on, doing House Church, I had a friend that was attending our group and also attending a traditional church. During one of our meetings he began to complain about the traditional church he was attending. He had written a song and wanted to perform it at his church but the music director said no. My friend was very upset at the rejection he received. He was on the worship team and had been attending for years, but the answer was still no.

Naturally, I suggested that he share his worship song with us. He never did. The mindset that there is more worth performing in front of a large gathering than in front of 8 or 9 people is troubling. The lines between performance and ministry get blurred. Does Jesus loves us more if we minister or perform in front of large crowds? Are large crowds a sign of success and health?

In John 6, Jesus talks about eating His body and drinking His blood. This didn’t go over well with many of His disciples.

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

John 6:66-69

It’s fascinating that Jesus decided to do life with a small group of people; take some time and meditate on that. Why did He chose to do this? What was His motivation? Perhaps there is some merit in His example. For me, I’m content with doing life with a small group of people; maybe you too should give it a try.

Categories
Biblical Church

The Missing Link

The excerpt below is from John Fenn’s book Return of the First Church, Chapter 8 entitled “The Missing Link”. In this chapter John addresses the topic of accountability. This first part of Chapter 8 is subtitled “Character Building Forged in the Midst of Relationships”.

Righteousness in Christ is designed to be worked out in the midst of relationships. It is within this context and understanding the New Testament was written but is outside the thinking of most in the traditional church. Again, the reason for this is because the pyramid does not foster relationships. It’s all about the structure and program and person at the top. But withing the context of the New Testament interpersonal and inter-generational relationships among family and friends in someone’s living room and workplace were the norm, thus strong character was developed within these relationships.

Being a teacher, I like to refer to many scriptures when I am teaching. I am known for telling people to turn to a passage, then backing them up to the previous couple of versus ‘to set the context’.

If you’ve ever been quoted by a newspaper or other publication, you probably know what it is to have your words taken out of context, and the anger and frustration you’ve felt as you try to explain yourself. (Usually only digging yourself in deeper)

If you’ve ever been in an argument and someone says you said something, but you know it’s been twisted because it was taken our of context, you know how important context is.

The whole of the New Testament was written within the context of strong interpersonal relationships developed through the church (the people) that met in homes. This was their culture. Therefore, it is only within this context that we can fully understand the meaning of the New Testament.

Just like someone quoted out of context, what they said was true, but the context in which it was spoken is the only way to gain a full understanding of what was truly meant in the quote. If we today, try to read what the scripture says out of the context of the way it was intended, we introduce error into our understanding.

Therefore, when we try to understand the New Testament through the eyes of a pyramid style church, we are seeing things askew because the context of the NT was not a pyramid, but rather a flat V or square building, with leadership at the bottom, within the culture of close relationships meeting in homes.

Categories
Books / Videos

Relational Revolution

If you grew up in a healthy family environment you should consider yourself blessed. Not many of us grew up in a House of Peace (Luke 10). Many adults still shows signs of dysfunction. So how do we love and function as a community as we gather together to do House Church?

A new book by John C. White, Toni M. Daniels and Dr. Kent Smith addresses this and other topics in Relational Revolution. I highly recommend purchasing a copy. Below is an short excerpt from a chapter called “Maturing Spiritual Parents”.

Unfortunately, many of us did not have the privilege of healthy family bonds that help us grow into families of peace. In communities of practice, we spiritual moms and dads (at the adult, parenting and eldering stages of maturity) train each other in the skills we missed growing up. As we mature emotionally, we establish houses of peace where God’s good news overflows in us and through us. We are able to love the younger and weaker in our midst and compassionately accompany them wherever they are in their stage of development.

God is in the business of re-parenting us, inviting us into a life-giving family (the Trinity) and connecting us with brothers and sisters with whom we can train. We do not have to have all the answers; we do not do all the work. Christ commands us to “call on the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers.” It is our privilege to find each other, connect together, and train one another to continue to be “houses of peace” spiritual parents for those in need, not only in our own homes but in our extended families and beloved communities.

Becoming and training emotionally mature spiritual moms and dads is rarely ever a working concept in most current church systems. Intellectual maturity, gifting maturity, social maturity might be expected from leaders, however, none of these maturities actually ensure that we love one another. And sadly, spiritual maturity is often defined by how well we know Biblical principles, not how closely we sense God with us.

If we do not have emotional maturity then it will be increasingly hard to love those around us, especially those who disagree with us.

For more resources click here.

Categories
Biblical Church

Are You a Geode?

My friend Vince and I recently traveled to the Desert Gardens Annual International Rock, Gem and Mineral Show in Quartzite, AZ. One of my purchases was the geode pictured above. I love looking inside and seeing the beauty of the crystals, each one so unique. I found the following information about geodes online.

Geodes are formed when there are pockets of air within rocks. This often happens after volcanic eruptions when lava cools around air bubbles. These pockets leave space for groundwater to seep in. But the water itself doesn’t produce geodes–it brings along minerals which stay in the rock even after the water evaporates.

On the outside, geodes just look like plain balls of rock. It’s only after an experienced rockhound spots one and cuts or cracks it open that it’s true inner beauty can be displayed. Some are quite fantastic!

Most of my life I have been involved with media. I was good at it. My talent opened doors for me in church and ministry life but I always felt like I had a deeper purpose that I couldn’t quite find. I had something special inside but there were no spiritual rockhounds to help crack me open.

Do you feel like this sometimes? Are you an usher or greeter? Do you help clean the sanctuary, run the media booth, teach Sunday school? There are countless jobs to do in a conventional church but has anyone seen inside of you? Has anyone wanted to crack you open to reveal your true calling and the beauty Christ has formed in you?

My wife and I had the pleasure of going out to dinner with a great couple. I love meeting new people. I love hearing their testimony and hearing how God has been faithful in their lives. They’ve recently relocated to Phoenix and they’re thinking about getting involved in a House Church.

No matter where they go or what they decide to do, I hope we can keep in contact. I love to see what’s inside when God cracks people open!

Categories
Biblical Church

The Bluegill and the Arrowhead

My good friend Paul and I usually meet on Sundays for coffee and fellowship. I look forward to our time together sipping coffee and chatting about life. One Sunday he suggested going out into the desert to a place where he occasionally goes to spend time alone with the Lord.

After about a 15 minute walk down a dry creek bed, we separated and both of us found a place to spend time communing with the Lord. On our walk back I saw a small pool of water with a bluegill struggling to survive. The small bluegill was fighting hard. I had my empty coffee cup and I decided to scoop it up to see if I could help.

When I got home I immediately went back out and bought a small fish tank. I lined it with some rocks which included some rocks from a paleo site here in Arizona. If you’ve read my other posts you know about my love for fossils and rocks.

For almost three weeks in the fish tank the bluegill never ate. I tried all sorts of food but not one bite in three weeks. However, surprisingly, it seemed like it was getting stronger and when I noticed some blue returning to its gills I decided it was best to release it into a lake.

When I came home I decided to clean out the fish tank. I dumped all the rocks in a plastic strainer and began to rinse them off. I noticed that the paleo rocks had gotten soft and were dissolving and turning into mud. After a good rinsing, to my shock, there was an arrowhead in the strainer. Incredibly, an arrowhead had been inside one of the rocks. I always wanted a real arrowhead. Considering all the variables in this story this was truly something special.

I used to say to myself that I was the rock of Gibraltar. It was just me and God and I didn’t need anyone else. People, especially those who called themselves Christians, would disappoint me and I decided it would be better without them. However we do need each other and God helps refine our lives through other people whether we like it or not. He designed life that way.

The paleo rock with the arrowhead could have sat on my shelf for years without me ever knowing what was inside. God melted my rocky heart to reveal something beautiful – what’s inside you rocky heart that needs to be released? With so many variables I know the Lord had His hand in this fish story. Perhaps you think it silly but I know that Jesus is the master of setting up events in our lives to bring out the beauty in all of us. He uses each of us to do so, this was just an example.

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Books / Videos

The Epidemic Among Us

Mike Carroll Photo mikecarrollphoto.com

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Ephesians 5:25

If you’re a married man I’m sure you’ve meditated on this verse and tried to practice loving your wife as Christ loves the church. Denying yourself is never easy. In today’s times, Biblical family relationships are hard to achieve and maintain. Terry Stanley in his book The Way Church Was Meant To Be has a perspective that is important to consider. Below is an excerpt from the chapter “The Epidemic Among Us.” I’m interested to know what you think. You can reply below and you can find out more about the book here.

The family unit is where the strength of the church is maintained. When there are breakdowns at the family level, there is a breakdown in the church.

There is a sickness that has become so common in our families it is an accepted epidemic. It is an unseen and unnoticed plague that is destroying the very strength of the church. It is a vast and ever spreading plague in our modern society. This sickness infects the husbands, the wives, and the children. The worst part is the traditional church system offers a false remedy for this disease and allows it to go unhealed and largely unnoticed in our families. Therefore this virus continues to infect and to spread, potentially sweeping into every household in every city and every village on this planet.

What is this epidemic that has taken so many captive? What is this debilitating disease that cripples most households among us?

It is men not being men.

It is women not respecting their husbands.

It is children not respecting and trusting their fathers.

And the traditional religious system offers its counterfeit replacement.

The counterfeit intensifies the infection at the family level. The counterfeit legitimizes the disease and allows it to continue, undealt with and unhealed among us.

The apostle Paul told the Corinthians in I Cor.11 to follow in his example as he followed Christ. Immediately after he spoke this however, he said

“But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ,” (I Cor.11:3)

In other words, even though Paul was encouraging people to follow his example, every man is accountable to and ultimately must follow Christ and only Christ.

This scripture in I Cor.11 shows us the proper order of things. Paul was not any man’s head. Paul was not any woman’s head, (Eph 5:33, I Tim. 3:4-5 1 Cor.16:13, Eph 5:22,23).

Every man is to provide leadership and shepherding for his own household. Every man is to teach his family the Bible, pull them together for prayer, and actively speak into the lives of his wife and children. Every man is to provide shepherding and leadership in every way to his family, both physically and spiritually. Every man in the church is to be living an honorable and respectable life. If not, he should be held accountable by the brothers. Men are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church and the women are commanded to respect their husbands.

When you live with someone, you get to know them. You get to see all of their weaknesses. Women in the church don’t live with the pastor and don’t tend to see his weaknesses like they do their own husbands. When a wife sees her husband’s weaknesses, she is tempted to not respect him. Not so with the pastor. He speaks into the lives of families without confessing his sin to them on a regular basis. He doesn’t get irritated at the family, throw a temper tantrum, and then get to humble himself and apologize. The distance he has, allows him to better uphold his image of holiness. He is thought of as an extra-righteous man and he is respected as so. Why are families on their best behavior when the pastor comes over to their house? Because people believe he is in a different class than everyone else, and sometimes these men enjoy playing the part.

Many times women respect the pastor more than they do their own husbands. This is not healthy. Many times, subtly and sometimes even overtly, the woman leads the household. She also can lead the husband and the children into being enamored by the pastor. The pastor begins to have a place in the household that only the father should have. This is a subtle thing in the hearts of the women, in the hearts of the men and in the hearts of the children.

Often the men lack confidence, are too passive to lead, and would much rather have another man do it for them. They are quite content to let another man stand up before their wives week after week and provide the ladies with instruction and answers for their lives. The pastor is speaking more into the lives and hearts of the women than their husbands are. The women take it right in. Men can be so docile and so passive that they follow another man and allow him to lead their wives.

We’ve exchanged the authority structure found in the scripture of:

Christ

Husbands

Wives

For the more common authority structure of:

Christ

Pastors

Wives

Husbands

Or even the erroneous:

Christ

Pastors / Husbands

Wives

The father of a household is not to share his authority with another man.

Understood, people are crying out and begging for leadership. But it is the man of every household who is to provide this leadership.

When one man stands before you, week after week, and speaks with authority into your life, it does something inside you. It affects your heart. Our hearts were made to follow. Our hearts were created to trust. When you spend time listening to one man speak, teach, and instruct, over and over again, he gets in you. You begin to trust him a little, and then a little more. This is another reason why many brothers should be speaking and teaching when we gather together.

I am well aware that many of you have your concepts all straight. “I don’t worship my pastor.” Or, “I would never follow a man.” But I am telling you that the pastors have an unhealthy power over many, many lives.

There is a place we can give others in our hearts that has authority in us and over us. When we give this authority to people, we really listen to what they have to say. This is not ordinary listening. But listening that allows what they say to go deep into our hearts. When we give this place of authority over to people, we listen to them without their words running past our healthy filter of weighing it out to see if it’s truth or not. We must remember that all men are very fallible and weak. Sometimes even quality, faithful, good men are deceitful, manipulative and selfish without them even knowing they are doing so. “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? (Jer 17:9) We should never give men this place of authority in our hearts.

Only Jesus should have this place in us! Only scripture should have this place in us!

When a man speaks to us, ANY MAN, we must have the attitude of “maybe so.” It must be weighed out with scripture.

If the Lord is using someone to do some shepherding in your life, you should acknowledge the Lord in this and be an imitator of their faith as Paul directed in I Cor. 11, but remember, “The head of every man is Christ.” (This passage is not to be used for a fleshly independence among men in the church; Brothers are not to have it as their practice of just doing their own thing without an attempt to be of one mind and without an attempt to move together in unity, I Cor.1:10).

Again, there is a proper function of someone doing the work of a “pastor,” which the word really means “shepherd.” But if someone is doing this work and speaking into the life of a member of a family, it should be weighed out by the father of that household. The father of the household is always the gatekeeper and shepherd of the family.

Categories
Encouragement

The Fireplace Channel

Quotes are from an interview with CBC Radio’s Margaret Gallagher.

The virtual yule log has been around since the 50’s or 60’s but George Ford is the one credited with building the perfect virtual fire. “It’s got to be bright and cheery and it’s got to have some crackle,” says Fireplace For Your Home/Netflix creator George Ford about the perfect fire.

It’s not as easy as it seems and George took hundreds of tries to get it right. He eventually settled on Canadian Fir.

“There are no hands. There are no pokers. I had to make that thing, and that’s the specialty. It starts from the beginning and it burns all the way through to the end. I had to make the logs kind of roll in on themselves … I had to make all of the stuff just look so natural, and it was so hard.”

Picture by Eva Pedersen

There is no doubt that watching flames in a fireplace, campfire or bonfire is captivating. Some suggest it taps into our primal need for safety, light and food. There are many references to fire in the Bible and today we hear terms like catch on fire for the Lord, keep your flame burning, fan the flames of your faith. I’m sure you can name many more.

I’m wondering, as we sit comfortably near the fire, do we realize that there are people out there in the darkness. Some have gotten acclimated to the darkness but I believe many are longing to see our flames and join us around the fire.

No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in might see the light.

Luke 11:33

Our culture is actively trying to extinguish our flames. It’s getting more and more challenging to share your faith without being accused of bigotry, discrimination or injustice. However, we can no longer be on the defensive, we need to find the courage to lift our flame onto our stand and shine brighter than ever before.