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 Eliakim Odida.
Eliakim and Diane
Praise Jesus! My name is Eliakim Odida and I was born in 1979. I’m from Mfangano Island, Homabay County in Kenya, Africa.
Throughout my life I have lived in a remote village without electricity, good schools or a hospital, but I thank God things are getting better now, especially since the introduction of solar power.
My parents were members of an indigenous church and our fellowship was in a small house that belonged to us. I still have fond memories of that grass thatched house.
Those intergenerational meetings were accompanied by great works and we were a family who had one father, God. At fifteen years old winds of change were sweeping the indigenous churches. Pastors were forced to go for training and groups were pressured into being institutionalized. Groups were no longer relational.
My father Peter, and my mother Brigitte, were now called Pentecostals. Meetings became filled with lectures and monologues. I felt something was lacking.
I finished high school in 1999 but my life was a struggle because of rampant poverty. I didn’t follow my father in his ministry as I had doubts about the way the church had changed. I was married in 2011, to my beautiful wife Diane. I shared with her the questions I had about the changes I thought were not right. She supported me in prayer and we started disciple-making groups asking the Lord to lead us.
Our ministry was met with resistance from the local traditional churches who believed in hierarchy, clergy/laity, pews and the need for degrees. Many times I was in the hands of police with false accusations of devil worship and in 2016 my house was torched. God rescued my wife, myself and our four children.
Seeing how disciples of Jesus were suffering, I kept on seeking God’s heart and listening to his Spirit to teach me more. This led me to the book of Acts 7:48. God does not live in houses made out of human hands.
As of today we have planted thirty-four house churches and people have heard and accepted the truth, doing life together in a relational way. We don’t have church buildings or professional clergy. We are one family and all of the body is free to participate. Serving Christ in this way is easy.
The fire of the Spirit is burning wild and nobody can stop it. We have the heart of a servant and Jesus is the one controlling His church. Love among us makes us grow as the Lord adds to His church. We are going on and encouraging others to hold true to the gospel. It’s all of us, not some special person.
Blessings from Kenya, Africa
To contact Eliakim Odida
Phone number +254757064967 Email: odidaeliakim62@gmail.com
If any burger chain will be around for 2000 years into the future, it may well be McDonald’s. They may not have the healthiest food but they have great marketing and have built quite an empire.
I recently looked up “healthiest burger chains” online and an article on cozymeal.com came up entitled Top 16 Healthiest Fast Food Burgers in 2024. McDonald’s had no burgers on the list. Wendy’s Jr. Hamburger took second prize and the article said this:
The Jr. hamburger from one of the healthiest fast food chains, Wendy’s, might become your new best friend. This mini version of the classic packs a flavorful punch and is a lighter option than the Jr. cheeseburger. Featuring a fresh beef patty with toppings on a soft bun, it’s a delicious option.
One wonders why people are still attracted to a less healthy option when alternatives are right around the corner.
When I talk with people about relational gatherings, I run into a common issue. You can talk to people about how unhealthy the institutional church may be, but you can’t tell them to run to Wendy’s and check out the food there. Relational gatherings, healthy ones, are hard to find. It’s also difficult trying to tell people who have had a steady diet of McDonald’s for 1700 years, that there might be a healthier alternative. There may be no place to actually experience it.
If you’re flipping burgers at Wendy’s, you’re my hero. I’m proud of you, don’t stop and don’t get discouraged. As more and more healthy relational gatherings crop up around the country, we can finally invite people in to sample the food. Then they can make their own decisions.
I’m hopeful, that as He continues to build His church, people will have a place to experience the Biblically-based reality of relational gatherings. Who knows, maybe Wendy’s will be the one that survives into the future.
The full title of this book by Alan Kreider is “The Patient Ferment of the Early Church”. This work, at a little over 300 pages, is extensively researched. Alan provides insight from documented sources on how a small group of Christ followers were able to impact the world. This book is not for the faint of heart but provides great perspective. Check out the excerpt below for a take on Evangelism.
Alan Kreider
Unlike many churches today, the third-century churches described by the Apostolic Tradition did not try to grow by making people feel welcome and included. Civic paganism did that. In contrast, the churches were hard to enter. They didn’t grow because of their cultural accessibility; they grew because they required commitment to an unpopular God who didn’t require people to perform cultic acts correctly but instead equipped them to live in a way that was richly unconventional.
The churches chose this approach for good reasons. The first was theological: they believed that the God whom they worshiped revealed himself in Jesus of Nazareth, an embodied human who at ultimate cost demonstrated the way to live, and that Jesus’s way was saving and life giving for individual humans and their communities. It was vital for the Christians to live in his way, unusual though it was, because they thought that it was true. The second reason was evangelistic: the churches’ primary witness was a product not of what Christians said but of how they lived. It was rooted in the assumption that the lives of Christians and their communities provided embodied evidence of the truth of their words. How could the Christians undercut this approach to mission? By admitting new people too quickly whose behavior compromised the Christians’ distinctive attractiveness.
What happened was this. Non-Christians and Christians worked together and lived near each other. They became friends. Non-Christians were at times attracted by the Christians and interested in exploring Christianity further. The Christians could not take them to Sunday worship services-these were off limits to people until they had been catechized and baptized. But the Christians could invite their friends to go with them early on a weekday to meet the church’s “teachers.” Would the teachers admit them to a process of study and habituation-lasting for some time-that would eventually lead to their admission to the community? Would they admit them as catechumens en route to baptism?
Agape Feast
The non-Christian applicants went with their friends/sponsors to meet the church’s teachers. In this meeting, called the First Scrutiny, the teachers-at times clergy, at times laity-gave primary attention to the sponsors and asked them to “bear witness” about the candidates. The sponsors had to answer questions, not about what the candidates believed or (as in conventional associations) about whether they could pay hefty initiation fees (the churches required none), but about how the candidates lived. Why this concentration on how they were living? There were two reasons.
The first reason was the candidates’ teachability. The teachers wanted to know that the candidates were living in such a way that they were able “to hear the Word.” Can they appropriate what the teachers are teaching? According to the Apostolic Tradition, the church gave major attention to these questions. And for good reason. The teachers, like the early Christians generally, believed that the surest indication of what people thought was the way they lived, and they were convinced that the candidates’ behavior was the most reliable predictor of whether they would be able to learn the Christians’ habitus. The teachers, with the candidate standing by, pressed the sponsor about the candidate’s behavior in light of the church’s deep rejection of idolatry, adultery, and killing. Would the way the candidate has been living enable him or her to “hear the Word” (to master the church’s teaching with their bodies as well as their brains)? For example, actors who gave pagan theatrical performances-could they hear the Word in a community that vigorously repudiated polytheism? Gladiators who killed in the arena-could they hear the Word in a community that forbade the taking of life? Prostitutes-could they hear the Word in a community that emphasized chastity and continence? The Apostolic Tradition specifies that, in each case, these people needed to leave their professions if they were to be accepted as potential Christians; their professional commitments made it impossible for them to comprehend the Christians’ teaching.
In the case of certain other professions, however, it was somewhat different. The Apostolic Tradition asserts that their practitioners would be capable of hearing the Word on one condition-if they took socially costly steps necessary to modify their behavior. Painters, for example, could be accepted as catechumens if they refrained from depicting pagan themes.” As for soldiers, the Apostolic Tradition assesses them, like the members of other professions, by their capacity to hear the Word: did their external professional commitments the tasks and milieux and religious commitments of their jobs-enable them to receive the Christian good news in churches that emphasized patience and in which reconciliation with the alienated brother was a precondition for prayer? The Apostolic Tradition’s assumption is clear. Inner and outer are inextricable; if you live in a certain way in everyday life, you cannot hear, comprehend, or live the gospel that the Christian community is seeking to embody as well as teach. The church will not baptize people in hopes that they will change thereafter.
The church’s witness was the second reason that the teachers carefully examined the candidates in the First Scrutiny. As a catechumen, would the candidate’s behavior represent the church well or let the church down? Christians are to “be competitors… among the nations [gentes]” by their exemplary behavior; if they behave conventionally, the pagans will conclude that there is nothing in Christianity worth investigating. So if a potential candidate is married to a husband (who may be pagan), let her be admitted as a catechumen, provided she is willing to be taught “to be content with her husband.” Her admission is conditional on receiving teaching; as we have seen, the church was open to having women members, chaste and sexually disciplined, who were married to pagan men. However, the church categorically refused to admit to the catechumenate other candidates whose occupations contradicted the church’s teaching. For example, in the case of men who were makers of idols or gladiators whose profession involved killing, the teacher’s verdict was crisp: “Let them cease or be cast out.”
But for the sake of the church’s witness, other candidates whose jobs were at least in part acceptable could be admitted on the condition that they gave up their unacceptable behavior. For example, in some places soldiers had been attracted to the Christian communities that rejected all forms of killing, including killing in warfare. So the teachers responded to a soldier by saying, “Let him not kill a man. If he is ordered, let him not go to the task nor let him swear.” If the soldier was unwilling to submit to this limitation of his professional behavior, the verdict was “Let him be cast out.” Four times in chapters 15 and 16 of the Apostolic Tradition, the teachers accept applicants on the condition that they receive teaching; three times they accept applicants on the condition that they give up unacceptable behavior; and ten times the teachers respond by categorically refusing applicants. In one case, the teachers are astonishingly flexible: when a man teaching young children (whose lessons involve pagan stories) has no other trade, the teachers determine that “he should be forgiven.” Church leaders of a later age might have said, “Let’s admit them as they do their current jobs and eventually, when they have ‘heard the word,’ they will think their way into a new life.” The church of the Apostolic Tradition says in effect, “No, our approach is the opposite. We believe that people live their way into a new kind of thinking. If we admit them as they engage in idolatry, immorality, and killing, they will be unable to ‘hear the word,’ and they will change the church, fatally compromising its distinctiveness, which is the basis of our witness.”
Written in 2006, this small 80 page book by Buff Scott, Jr. is easy to read and highly recommended. If you’ve visited my Resources page, you can see all the books I’ve read over the last couple of years. This book has a passion that most of the others lack. There are only a few copies left in print. They can be purchased by going to Jon Zen’s website. In the search menu type “Buff” and his book will come up. It’s only $4.00. You can also download a free PDF version of this book by going here.
When Moses’ descent from the Mountain of God was delayed, the children of Israel built an idol in the form of a golden calf and bowed down to it, thus corrupting themselves (Exodus 32:1-8). If the implication of the above caption carries any validity, the Christian community can be charged with idolatry, for she has built for herself “golden calves” in the likes of church edifices while Jesus’ descent from heaven is being delayed.
I affirm that church structures and edifices are monuments that testify of our idolatry. The issue is not whether it is right or wrong to meet somewhere. The issue is whether or not we have built church structures and edifices and set them apart-sanctified them as holy articles or entities. I’m convinced we have. The evidence surrounds us. If I might be so bold, the organized church is as guilty of idolatry as were the children of Israel who erected Asherah poles as symbols of worship.
“Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved [consecrated] stone in your land to bow down before it” (Lev. 26:1).
Protestants and Catholics have done just that. Catholics have not only set up “consecrated stones” in the form of “holy” church structures, but they have made idols and images and bow down to them. We are speaking of earthen material destitute of emotions- idols and images that cannot hear, speak, or understand. Protestants, on the other hand, have set up their elaborate edifices and crosses and view them as sanctuaries and hallowed designs. There may be a few exceptions, but the rule seems to be universal.
There’s an old maxim, “Our heart is where our money is.” If we will but consider the hundreds of millions of dollars that are squandered on church structures, designs, religious inventions, edifices, statues, and compare that amount to the few dollars we spend on seeking and saving the lost and feeding the genuinely poor, we don’t need a prophet to locate our hearts. If this isn’t idolatry, I’ve lost my ability to reason. In the institutional church, money has become the “name of the game.”
And speaking of “games,” be on the lookout for those churchy “pledge cards.” Usually, they’re just another way of bleeding us blind so that the “holy edifice” idol can be even more embellished and revered. Instead, I suggest we bypass the collection plate and “pledge cards” and send our dollars to evangelize unbelievers and help feed the world’s poor.
But no! We’re too busy with our home-based “materialistic evangelism” to bother with the lost or to fret over empty stomachs.
When we mull over the fact that an evangelist and his family in Asia, Africa, India and several other world locations, where responsive hearts are abundant, can be supported for as little as $50 a month, but we don’t because we have an edifice to construct and a deadbeat pulpiteer to keep vocationally afloat, it is heartbreaking and depressing.
There are scores of missionaries who have been “called home” from evangelistic fields who could no longer be supported because of a materialistic program back home. This is not only despairing, it is an evil and a misplacement of priorities.
Ours is a history of a noble movement that apostatized centuries ago when Jesus’ command to “get out and go” was replaced by the clergy to “come in and stay.” Our idols-churches-have isolated us from the world’s needs, immobilized us, nailed our pants and panties to cushioned pews, and provoked us to import professionals to do our ministries. We no longer have to speculate why the world looks upon us in disgust and laughs at our efforts to “save” them.
To clean out one of the cobwebs some of you may have accumulated, let it be said that I have never argued that believers should not come together. For if we’re going to encourage and stimulate each other’s faith, and we ought, we must have a designated place to meet-whether in the living room of our home, under the shade of an old apple tree, or in some idol (church structure).
My whole point has been that our priorities are misplaced. We spend millions of dollars on our idols-venerated structures and edifices and very little on evangelism and feeding the world’s hungry. As I see it, we are as guilty of idolatry as were the children of Israel and the pagans of their day. I entertain no doubt but that my analysis is correct.
We esteem our church structures as the “works of our mighty hands” as though God Himself built them. We refuse to be ousted from our comfort zones. The cushions are too comfortable, and we delight in being hand-fed by hirelings who induce sleep by their stagnated “sermons.” We are stalemated with no hope of recovery unless we revamp the whole system and start over.
Buff Scott, Jr. produces a weekly newsletter on all faith related topics. You can be added to his email list by contacting him at renewal@mindspring.com.
I was recently introduced to Buff Scott, Jr., a 97-year-old gentleman who is still on fire for our Lord. I had a chance to interview him and the audio is below. Buff still writes his Reformation Rumblings newsletters, which he has been doing for 39 years. He converted from IC to relational fellowships about 50 years ago. He is not only an Unsung Hero but he is a gem of a man. His testimony below was taken from a couple of sources. If you would like to get on his mailing list email him at renewal@mindspring.com.
I was born and brought up in the Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. There were nine of us. Education wasn’t stressed in those Kentucky mountains. My formal education consisted of the 7th grade. My teacher refused to promote another student and me to the 8th grade when she caught us looking up dirty words in the dictionary. Yes, that actually happened.
Mom was a Hatfield before she married Dad. I was four years old and rocking my pet cat in the old rocking chair on the front porch of our shack when I watched a man shoot another man down, 20 feet in front of me. The impact of the bullet made him sick instantaneously and he fell to his knees and threw up. I screamed and ran into the house. As the bullet missed his heart, but barely, and lodged in his rib cage, he survived. But he never again “trespassed” the shooter’s wife.
Such was life in the Appalachian Mountains. Dad did some bootlegging when I was a kid, but surrendered his unprincipled lifestyle and embraced Jesus when I was about 11 years old. He threw his cigarettes and bottle of moonshine whiskey in the same creek he was immersed in and never touched them again.
It was later on in life that I educated myself, mostly through self efforts. A big part of my occupational experiences has been in the journalistic field as Writer, Editor, and Publisher. Additionally, many years have been spent in the psychiatric arena as alcohol and drug counselor, Vocational Rehabilitation Specialist, and teacher.
My career in the bowels of Churchianity began when I was but a youngster. I was indoctrinated at an early age. When I was 26, I was “called” to my first church as pulpit minister. That was a giant step for a hillbilly who was born and brought up in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky, one mile from where the Hatfield-McCoy feud began.
Interview with Buff Scott, Jr. by Jonathan Rovetto
Having been a child of partisan religion a big part of my life and served many of her churches as pulpit minister, pastor, orthodox leader and teacher, I want to tell you in this undertaking why I deserted Churchianity and became a free man in Jesus. Inasmuch as the clergy-“chief priests and elders”-have no control over my life, my thinking, and my teaching, I can tackle this endeavor without interference from the ecclesiastical “powers that be.” I assure you, I am no longer one of their puppets.
Let me say at the outset that I love and respect my spiritual brothers and sisters, in spite of their loyalty and addiction to Churchianity. They are my brothers and sisters and I have not rejected them. I have rejected the system that has them enslaved. I can identify with them, for I was once as they are. Like them, I too believed Jesus authored a church. I preached my brand of church on the sidewalks and from many pulpits. I pressed her upon others. I strove to win converts to her ranks. I was totally sold on the concept that Jesus redeemed her with His sacrifice. I felt that King James’ Romans 16:16 and other related scriptures were pure gold. I equated “church” with God’s new reign and defied any man to show otherwise. Like my churchly brothers and sisters, I used the same arguments, affirmed the same theology, advocated the same principles, and quoted the same scriptures.
It was 1976 when, after careful evaluation of and research into institutional religion, I concluded that Churchianity was not the solution to sin, or to the world’s problems. I discovered that institutional religion and the contemporary church were introduced by men who envisioned their answers to life’s problems more profound than God’s. The stream flowing from the river of life was pure and tranquil before religion and church contaminated it. It is my sentiment that God has been replaced with Religion, and Jesus has been substituted with Churchianity.
The spirit of man can survive only in an atmosphere of freedom, and it is difficult if not impossible to be free while being a bond servant to some sect or denomination. I love my freedom too much to allow some church or religious party to tell me what I can and cannot teach, what I can and cannot believe, and how I can or cannot conduct my daily affairs.
My allegiance is to a Man called Jesus, and it is to Him that I will give an account. It is in Him that I will stand or fall. And He is able to make me stand. I will never grow too old to acknowledge and listen to valid counsel from others, but I will never become so senile as to renounce my will in favor of religious slavery-no, never again.
Did I leave Jesus when I abandoned organized [partisan] religion or the religious establishment? Goodness, no! He and I are closer now than ever before. As a result of my surrendering institutional religion in favor of freedom in Jesus, I am now a “believer at large,” a free thinker, and one of God’s instruments for reform.
No human being and no partisan group or church does my thinking for me any longer. I arrive at conclusions after careful evaluation, study, and prayer. Simply stated, I have cast aside the chains of religious orthodoxy and deserted the Establishment’s status quo. God has blessed my ministry of reformation abundantly. Currently, I have hundreds of recipients, here and in foreign lands, who receive my weekly Reformation Rumblings.
Not every recipient agrees with my views on reformation-naturally. But rarely do I have a “theological knock-down-and drag-out-fight,” or an exchange of unsightly implications with any of them. But in spite of the few who disagree disrespectfully, I enjoy exchanging views with many of the admirable readers. So I’m not going anywhere unless I’m fired!
You can read a sample of Reformation Ramblings here. You can read an excerpt of Buff’s book Apostate Church here. You can download all three books as PDF files here.
To keep up on my blogs register below. I send out emails twice a month.
It was one of those “series of events” that our Lord loves to orchestrate. I was introduced to some articles by Buff Scott, Jr. by my good friend Jon Zens, and like I always do, immediately looked up the author to find out more about him. There wasn’t a lot about Buff on social media but I did get his email and found out that he lived in Phoenix. Imagine my delight when I found out that Buff lived only 10 minutes away from me.
I recently spent some time with him and found him still active at soon-to-be 97 years old. He’s been writing a weekly newsletter called Reformation Rumblings for almost 40 years and he has been a proponent of relational gatherings for almost 50 years. You can read a sample of his newsletter here. If you would like to be added to his mailing list email him at renewal@mindspring.com. The following is an excerpt of one of his three books where he defends relational gatherings and his friend Olan Hicks defends the conventional church model.
If we reflect upon what has been addressed and corroborated by heaven’s declarations thus far, I think it is safe to say that the early ekklesia was not composed of sects, denominations, churches, or religious parties. God’s colony of redeemed sinners functioned as a humane and evangelistic community. Their meetings were informal but orderly, serious and alive, responsive, and mutually managed. Ours are “services,” as at a funeral, largely non-responsive and non-stimulating.
The early meetings were bereft of pulpits, collections to buy and maintain flashy edifices and to keep an elite pulpiteer vocationally afloat, ritualistic nonsense, and pew-sitters. Their environment was family-like. Our gatherings resemble formal business meetings, where business or worship doesn’t begin until the hands on the clock are at a certain crossroads. Our overall anatomy mirrors a corporation, an institution, not a compassionate community of concerned ones.
What dissimilarity! We have retrogressed, not progressed. We have traded the holy for the common, the celestial for the terrestrial, the spiritual for the materialistic, the sacred for the plain. Yet there are many receptive and seeking hearts within the corridors of the apostate church. God will deliver them, if they are willing to remove their soiled garments and replace them with garments of reconciliation. His children no longer need wallow in the partisan litter of the religious establishment, for God will raise up reformers to rescue His elect. He always has. He always will.
But it isn’t likely He will penetrate the divisive armor of those whose hearts are solidly enslaved by the institutional church, and whose deep-seated infirmity is “mad church disease.” The divisive spirit is a work of our carnal nature. It is reflected thusly: “We are right and others are wrong; we are the only church Jesus founded; no one else regards the Bible as the only source of authority as we do; all of our teachings are from the Bible and are error free.”
As long as this separatist spirit lingers within the contemporary church, she will never be able to apply a healing balm to “mad church disease.” Freedom in Jesus will always escape those who parrot this mindset and exhibit a cliquish spirit.
It is indeed a rarity to find freedom in the apostate church. The reason is that the party line must be parroted, her precepts supported, her traditions preserved, and the “church system” idolized. If we veer a little to the right or lean a little to the left, we will soon be verbally disciplined and told to shape up or ship out-or worse. This is not freedom-it is bondage. To find a man who is truly free to speak his mind and heart while employed by a church, or by one of her organizations, is like looking for shelter in a hailstorm. Even pew-sitting peasants are not allowed the freedom to speak their heart and mind without ecclesiastical reprisal.
The only way to be free in Jesus is to cast off our shackles and disavow the sectarian systems religious parties that have subjugated us, and that includes all of them. This I have done. This I will not undo. No church or religious organization upon the face of planet Earth has one bit of control over my life, my mind, or my beliefs. I will no longer be a bondservant to any of them. My only Master is Jesus and He alone. I will forever be His slave. I refuse to bow to any other. “Give me freedom or give me death” will always be my cry. For without freedom to think, to dissent, to investigate, and to question, our walk with the Lord would be hard to negotiate.
I recently came across a couple of posts by Buff Scott, Jr. and have added them below. The first one is entitled The Early Believers vs. Today’s Believers and the second one is entitled Why Are House Meetings Springing Up All Over The Board? At 96 years old, Buff is still producing weekly Reformation Rumblings electronic newsletters. If you’d like to be added to his email list please contact me.
Buff Scott, Jr. has been producing weekly newsletters for 39 years.
The early believers won the world without Theological Seminaries, Missionary Societies, clergy, elaborate and expensive edifices, or any of the other “artifacts” and baggage that burden us today. They changed lifestyles without throwing a rock, burning a building, drawing a sword, or parading down Main Street in Jerusalem with pedophiles, losers, and so-called “transgenders.”
Their resurrection message to the unregenerate was simple, “Repent, and turn to God!” The new reign welcomed everyone-yes, even homosexuals and prostitutes and drunkards and thieves and swindlers. In the congregation at Corinth, there were recovering homosexuals, prostitutes, thieves, drunkards, and swindlers [I Cor. 6:9-11]. They had been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.
If we intend to influence the world with the message of salvation, we must struggle for reform within our sectarian establishments and partisan religions. For if we do not opt for reform we will face defeat before we “fire the first shot.”
The religious Establishment couldn’t be any more warped if the Lord had commanded it. The world will not nor cannot be won to Messiah Jesus as long as she is the cause instead of the solution. Nor can the world be conquered for the Captain of our salvation by exerting most of our efforts parroting the party’s clichés or adding more theological waste to our partisan rostrums. The slate must be cleaned, reformed, renewed, and reshaped before receiving our marching orders. Then and only then will we be able and ready to give the battle cry!
If apostles Peter and Paul had endeavored to spread the message of the risen Christ while agreeing with and furthering the sects of their day, their efforts to transform the world would not have survived. If we hope to achieve reformation, we must reach beyond the established order and ecclesiastical structures. The activities, movements, and efforts of the first believers were unskilled, ordinary, unsophisticated, and informal-although serious and edifying. Our contemporary arrangement is perplexing, rehearsed, organized to the brim, ritualistic, formulistic, and boring. It is, in truth, self-destructive.
More and more disillusioned believers are suspending “going to church” and switching to house meetings instead. Their reasons vary, but it is safe to say that all of them are tired of being programmed by a solo speaker-professional elitist-who downloads their spiritual food week after week.
I was driven to write a few words about this subject because of a piece that appeared in the January (2010) issue of Newsweek. Lisa Miller says in Finding Spirituality at Home, “[Believers] mistrust authority and institutional hierarchy.” This, according to her, seems to be the principal reason so many are abandoning the big churches in favor of house meetings-commonly called “house churches” (a term I dislike). And some of the big churches are hurting. They are not hurting in spirit, but in the pocketbook!
I agree with Ms. Miller’s diagnosis that it is mainly because of mistrust of authority and institutional hierarchy that so many are walking away from institutional religion and the big churches. There are other reasons as well.
Believers are sick of meaningless liturgy-stand, sit, bow, sing, contribute. These rituals, rites, and formalities are totally empty of any coherent and edifying message, and they do nothing but breed disheartened believers. Truth-seeking believers long for a family-like atmosphere where everyone is free and encouraged to verbalize, share, mutually participate, and where no one is dressed up like he’s on his way to a Halloween party.
Believers are finally recognizing that once they formally “place their membership” with a church or denomination, they get caught up in all of their projects and programs. Many have begun to realize that the Christian community has moved from compassion to project. As a result, she has lost her anchor.
Most believers who are walking away from established churches are aware that Satan is shouting “Hallelujah” when 85-percent of church contributions is squandered on materialistic projects and programs and only 15-percent go to support evangelism and to alleviate the needs of the destitute. These were the only two undertakings the early believers contributed their money to-evangelism and alleviating the poverty of the destitute.
Believers are also becoming more aware that “church conversion,” as opposed to heart conversion, is not the way of salvation. Religion and church have polluted the stream flowing from the river of life. On a personal note, I ceased long ago trying to convert anyone to any of the modern-day religions or to any of the numerous sects. I now point them in the direction of Jesus only, because 2000 years ago there were no church factions for believers to join. They identified themselves with other believers of a common cause, thus forming Christian congregations or communities. None of the early believers were afflicted with “mad church disease.” And none were church addicts.
As the apostles and first believers were not Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Mormons, Catholics, or associated with any of the other sects that sprinkle our current partisan landscape, recovering church addicts are also free of these schisms. These religious parties did not exist in the apostles’ time. Therefore recovering church addicts will not be formally aligned with any of these except to work within for reform.
If Jesus were on earth in the flesh today, I’m confident He would view our present-day religious institutions as He viewed those of His time. He worked among partisan systems for reform while not joining any of them. And so it is with recovering church addicts-work within and among partisan groups, whenever possible, without subscribing to any of them.
So may house meetings increase! And may the systems that enslaved believers for centuries decrease and finally self-abort. And to God be the glory.
Below is an excerpt of a treatise by John M. Bland from 1995. His thoughts below are under the subtitle The Human Tendency Toward Irresponsibility. You can read the entire 85 pages here free. I struggled a bit on whether or not I should post this. The second half of his treatise has strong Cessationist ideology which I don’t agree with. The first half, however, is really inciteful and I would hope you would take time to read the excerpt below and the first half of his treatise.
“Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, Look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make for us a king to judge us like all the nations…. And the Lord said to Samuel, Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them (1 Samuel 8:4-5,7,).”
The above scripture is an excellent illustration of the human tendency to ascribe to someone else one’s own God-given responsibilities. Yahweh had founded a theocratic (God ruled) nation of priests. He had chosen them to be special. He had delivered them from the rule of Pharaoh and given them equality under His reign as defined below.
“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you will be a special treasure to me above all people; for all the earth is mine. And you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:4-6).”
History shows they were faithful to God for only a short period of time. They failed to obey God in driving out the inhabitants of the land. They quit inquiring into the will of God from the Levitical priests. The comment in Judges 17:6, is this. “At that time there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes”. Because they had rejected God’s rule, He sold them into the hands of oppressors. From time to time, God found it merciful to raise up a deliverer. They would rally around this judge and with God’s help conquer the enemy. Generally, they were called to personally participate in the war.
This was the background of things when Samuel, the last judge, was enfeebled with age. Israel was still surrounded with enemies. The people were weary of their responsibilities to confront these adversaries. They gave two reasons for their request for a king. The first is stated in the above introductory verse – that they could be like the surrounding nations. It takes courage and fortitude to be different. It takes commitment to an ideal to take a stand. It requires sacrifice to battle. From this perspective, you can understand their insistence on having a king even after the negatives were iterated. We want a king anyway, they said,
“…that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles (1 Samuel 8:19-20).”
Now we’re getting to the most important reason for their insistence. They were tired of fighting. They were glad – with some hesitation – to let others carry their responsibilities. God had warned them about the nature of kings. “They will tax you.” “They will make servants out of your children.” “They will take your sons for soldiers.” “They will make your daughters perfumers and cooks.” Etceteras! “Yeah,” they replied, “we can understand that but what is that to us?” “Give us a king!” (paraphrase mine)
Who were these responsibility shirkers? These were the elders, the older people. These were the ones whom God wished to be shepherds of His citizens: those that had the weight of age and experience. It was going to be their sons who would end up paying the cost of their folly. It was their daughters that would be tyrannized by the kings that would follow. It was the issue of their loins that would have to give up their hard earned money to the king and his court. It was their offspring who would weep and toil in a land of captivity while they “rested with their fathers.” The consequences of their demand was far reaching and enduring and they had no Scriptural right to relinquish their responsibilities to those “who would be kings”. In doing so, God accused them of rejecting Him.
This Old Testament passage illustrates the constant human disposition to make excuses and avoid personal responsibility. Adam was the first to blame someone else for his rebellion. He ended up blaming both God and his wife. In the instance of Israel, after God gave in to their wish and granted them a “substitute”, their first king Saul “shirked” his responsibility to carry out God’s desire and then blamed the people (1 Samuel 15).
In modern day vernacular we would say “let George do it”. Well, you say, that was then and this is now. Are we, the heirs of New Testament Christianity, guilty of the same?
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 my good friend Zack Armoney.
My name is Zach Armoney, I am a humble servant of Jesus, devoted husband and father of six beautiful children (three sons and three daughters). We live in Pine Grove, LA where we home school our children and host house church. Hollie and I met almost 18 years ago at a local church youth camp where she was leading worship. We met again a few months later at a local Bible college, MTI School of Ministry in Baton Rouge, LA. We immediately hit it off, delving into deep conversations about life, the word and the future.
A little less than two years later on October 10, 2009 we were married and our journey as a couple began. Four years after that, we already had three children and over the next 10 years we had a total of three boys and three girls. We both had a strong conviction that our children’s minds, hearts and souls were our responsibility. Who better to mold and direct their lives than their parents. It’s a labor of love, but we have had the privilege of witnessing great fruit.
My relationship with Christ began early. At eight years old, growing up in a mostly Christian home, I had the understanding of who God was but no knowledge of the cross of Christ. My parents separated and later divorced and this trial would push me closer to God. Through that difficult time, I cried out to God, walked through the conviction of my own sin and was born again.
By twelve, I was faithfully reading God’s word. The word was living and powerful like fire shut up in my bones. But I didn’t know what to do with that fire or the words of life that were so alive in my soul. After twelve years of faithfully attending congregational church, I had a strong understanding of the word of God and a conviction to live it out, but there seemed to be no outlet for my faith. I was later part of a church plant that began in a home and eventually moved into a traditional building. As a leader in this church I found little opportunity to live out or express the faith that I had. Each week I was only asked to help set up and run programs, sit nicely in my pew week after week, say a few amens and greet the brethren on their way in and out. Everything else was left up to the pastor: the “man of the hour”.
What was I supposed to do with this word, with this revelation, with this relationship that I had? Most of my Christian experience provided very little opportunity for me to live out or even communicate the faith that I had. I felt frustrated and trapped. Sunday mornings served more as a frustration to my faith than it did to encourage it.
In 2007 I started a new job. My boss was also a graduate from MTI. Like me, he recognized some of the same pitfalls and errors of the traditional church. Daily we would share the word with each other, read through the Bible and pray together. This fellowship advanced my faith more than the previous twelve years of church attendance. In 2008 we started a home church together and this began my journey fulfilling what I believe is the biblical structure for the body of Christ. Two years later we joined a network of house churches called Oikos Ministries based out of Central LA where we served as elders.
Like the early church we met in homes, shared a meal together and prayed with and for each other. Each member was allowed and encouraged to use their gifts and share the word of God. Finally I found myself inside a structure that provided a platform for my faith and calling. But like any structure, having the right frame-work was only part of the puzzle. Lessons were learned and re-learned along the way and sometimes they were difficult lessons. Our fellowship must be filled with the spirit and word of God to flourish. Even in a good structure, like marriage, there are difficulties, there are labor pains but success happens when Christ is our centerpiece.
I soon realized that tradition and religion can be carried into any structure: “making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down” Mark 7:14. Do not expect that getting the structure right is the end of all your trials and labors. Each individual must passionately pursue Christ and bring to the body whatever word, calling or gifting they have in Christ. We must suffer with each other, encourage each other, endure with the weaknesses of the body and overcome.
When each member is built together in this way, we can be a building built by God and fitted together as a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit where God can and will do great things. This doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t happen by accident. I am convinced that each believer desires to see the same zeal and passion they have for Christ be lived out within the body. I believe many feel just as I did…stuck in the religious traditions of men. They have a strong relationship with God but don’t have an opportunity to live out their faith in institutional church.
Start sharing your faith with other believers. Break bread together, share your lives with each other and see what grows in His light. This type of fellowship will produce great fruit, not only in your life but in the lives of many others around you as well. It may not always be perfect or easy but just like raising children, if you are faithful and consistent the reward and fruit of your labors will be beyond measure in this life and in the life to come.
Find our more about Oikos Ministries by clicking here.
I recently read and enjoyed Howard A Snyder’s first book The Problem of Wineskins. This followup book is equally engaging even though it is a bit scholarly. Published in 1977, it is segmented into three parts: Perceiving the Kingdom, Understanding the Kingdom Community and Embodying the Kingdom Community. The excerpt below is from the second section and talks about the importance of community when it comes to witnessing.
If Jesus Christ actually gave more time to preparing a community of disciples than to proclaiming the good news (which he did), then the contemporary Church must also recognize the importance of community for proclamation. I would emphasize the priority of community in two directions: in relation to the individual believer and in relation to witness.
In the first place community is important for the individual believer. Mainline Protestantism, from its structures to its hymns and gospel songs, has emphasized the individual over the community. It has had a keen sense of the individual person’s responsibility before God but little corresponding sense of the communal life of the Christian. Too often the Church has been seen more as a mere collection of saved souls than as a community of interacting personalities. Christian growth has been a matter of individual soul culture rather than the building of the community of the Spirit. Saints who lived isolated, solitary lives were often placed on a pedestal above those whose lives were spent in true community. These tendencies, of course, were part of Protestantism’s pre-Reformation heritage.
But four biblical truths should call us back to the priority of community: (1) the concept of the people of God, (2) the model of Christ with his disciples, (3) the example of the early church, and (4) the explicit teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Christ’s statement, “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Mt. 18:20) quite adequately defines the Church. Authentic Christian living is life in Christian community.
This does not mean, obviously, going to the opposite extreme and dissolving individual identity in the group. The individual emphasis is a biblical one, but a partial one.
Spiritual growth occurs best in a caring community. There are spiritual truths I will never grasp and Christian standards I will never attain except as I share in community with other believers-and this is God’s plan. The Holy Spirit ministers to us, in large measure, through each other. This is what Paul is talking about when he says “we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph. 4:15-16). This interaction of the many members in one body is body life. Karl Barth rightly points out that when the New Testament speaks of upbuilding, it “speaks always of the upbuilding of the community. I can edify myself only as I edify the community.”
This has immediate implications for the evangelistic task. The individual believer’s responsibility is first of all to the Christian community and to its head, Jesus Christ. The first task of every Christian is the edification of the community of believers. If we say that evangelism or soul winning is the first task of the believer, we do violence to the New Testament and place a burden on the backs of some believers that they are not able to bear. The idea that every Christian’s first responsibility is to be a soul winner ignores the biblical teachings about spiritual gifts. Further, it puts all the emphasis at the one point of conversion and undervalues the upbuilding of the Church which is essential for effective evangelism and church growth.
This leads us to affirm, secondly, the priority of community in relation to witness. Fellowship and community life are necessary within the Church in order to equip Christians for their various kinds of witness and service. In one way or another every Christian is a witness in the world and must share his faith. But he can be an effective witness only as he experiences the enabling common life of the Church. And this common life is truly enabling only as the community becomes, through the indwelling of Christ and the exercise of spiritual gifts, the koinonia of the Holy Spirit.
