Category: Perspective

Love and Relationships – The Heart of the Organic Church

Many Christians feel a lack of true connection and live as disconnected and isolated individuals despite attending churches.

In the organic church, we are part of the same Body and members of one another. Here we can be ourselves, share our weaknesses, and find support. Often, this need is not met in traditional churches. The organic church is a welcoming and loving environment where authentic relationships are developed. This text aims to explore the meaning of love and relationships within the context of organic churches, based on the teachings of Jesus. Read the full text by clicking the link below.

https://northphoenixhousechurch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Love-and-Relationships-The-Heart-of-Organic-Church-1.pdf

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is “Will my dog go to heaven?” My usual response focuses on the fact that there are horses in heaven so why not other animals, although I’m pretty sure cats will never make it. My last dog, Spencer, may have made it; he was a bit naughty but perhaps he was able to sneak in with those big eyes.

Spencer, a Yorkie, was a ball of energy. One of his naughty behaviors was that he would jump out of the bicycle basket. He loved going for car rides where he would insist on sitting on my lap but he couldn’t sit still on a bike. I thought of keeping him on a leash or restraint in the basket but had nightmares of him jumping out and strangling himself.

I do see pictures of dogs that love to sit still and go for rides on bicycles. They seem so happy, taking in fresh air, seeing sites and having full faith that they are safe and secure in their owners’ care.

We talked about dogs at our fellowship meeting last Sunday and it got me thinking. It seems Christians can be one of three types of dogs. The first type is the dog that just stays at home, maybe goes out for an occasional walk but never really goes on any adventures. When it’s time for a ride, he knows it’s to the vet so he’s not very happy. Dogs are happiest having adventures, playing with others, having fun and cuddling with their owners. May I suggest that it’s the same with all of us. When it’s time for you to go to church, do you feel like you’re going to the vet? Is your spiritual walk here on earth exciting and an adventure or are you just holding on waiting for your eternal reward?

The second type of Christian would be like my Spencer. They want to enjoy life and have adventures but don’t fully trust the Lord. They keep jumping out of the basket thinking that Christ will ask them to become a missionary in some foreign country. They are the ones that say “That’s OK Jesus, I can handle this life on my own”.

Hopefully, we all aim to become like the third type of dog. The one that completely trusts in his master. At 65 years old, I have finally come to the place where I can stay in the basket, enjoy life and believe that wherever the Lord takes me will be filled with awesomeness and wonders. So far it’s been quite a ride!

It’s the beginning of October 2024, only 33 days until the “big” election. At 65 years old, I’ve been through many election cycles but I’ve never seen this much angst within the Christian community.

The majority of my friends are conservative and will vote Republican but they seem to have adopted a do-or-die attitude. They think if the Democrats win all hell will break loose, Christians will be persecuted, religious freedom will be a thing of the past, our country will crumble and civil war will break out. I guess only time will tell.

I’ve heard Christians distort scripture (Romans 13) saying that we don’t have to obey authority if we deem that our leaders are “evil”. I’m hearing comparisons to Hitler and Nazi Germany. They say Hitler would never have stayed in power if the “church” took action, implying that the church should take up arms. There is even a movie coming out in November about Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” Last time I checked Jesus was not a ninja.

My wife and I enjoyed the beauty of Kauai last week; it was awesome. Beautiful scenery, refreshing oceans, great food. We didn’t want to come back to Phoenix especially with the record breaking heat, but we did.

The picture above was taken at the beach where my wife lost her earring. Yes, she was upset but she knew the general area where it had fallen. When she searched for it the sand had already swallowed it up.

A short time later, out of nowhere, comes an angel named Daniel with a metal detector. We asked if he could search for the earring and he agreed to look for it. In a short time his detector started pinging and he recovered the earring.

Daniel then said to my wife, “Do you know the greatest thing that I’ve ever found?” After a short dramatic pause his response was “Jesus”. We all let out a hallelujah and had a great conversation about the Lord.

Maybe you think this was luck or a happy coincidence but could He have orchestrated such an event? Was this a reminder of His many promises in scripture? He knows our name, He knows how many hairs we have on our head, He’s gone to prepare a place for us. He cares about us and He loves us. Do we have faith in His promises? Can we trust Him?

If times get dark, which we know will happen, what will we decide to do? Should we take up arms and start shooting our enemies? Should we fight and rely on our own strength or rest on His many promises and expect Him to take care of us in life and even in death? We need to seriously work through these issues before things start getting darker.

On my way to a fellowship meeting last Sunday I did what I usually do, stop and grab a coffee at the McDonald’s Drive Thru. I enjoy a good cup of coffee and you can’t beat the price, especially if you have the app.

When the young man handed me the coffee, I didn’t notice that the lid was not on tight. I grabbed the cup, naturally squeezed it, and hot coffee poured all over my hand. It was painful but I kept calm. The young man looked like he was in shock, I had to instruct him to grab the cup from my hand. I could tell he was new and this was probably the first and hopefully the last time this would happen.

In a couple of minutes I arrived at my friend Victor’s home and he grabbed an ice pack. For those concerned about my health, I appreciate you. The next couple of hours I was intermittently applying ice to my hand. The pain subsided and the next day the only reminder was slight redness in the area where I got burned.

Looking back, I’m kind of proud of how I reacted. I didn’t drop the “F” bomb, I didn’t yell at the young man or demand he be fired, I didn’t request my $1.07 to be refunded and I didn’t think about opening a court case. I did think about getting $10 in McDonalds coupons, but didn’t go through with calling customer support. I didn’t want to get the young man in trouble.

My thinking was this, perhaps this happened to me so the young man would learn the importance of checking the lid. Perhaps if I didn’t get burned, some younger, more delicate skinned person would get burned worse. Whatever my thinking, I do feel like I passed a test.

Like Lady Galadriel, I had passed the test and now “I will diminish”. Over time and through testing, we hopefully find our sinful nature “diminishing” and His nature increasing in us.

Life will continue to slap us around; how do we choose to react? Do we turn the other cheek or do we fight back in our own power? I know this was just a small slap. Many of us have had crushing slaps, made worse because they came from people who were suppose to love and protect us. We must trust Christ to get us through. He left instructions on how to handle all sorts of difficulties.

Lady Galadriel passed the test and achieved her hope of “going into the West”, leaving Middle Earth and going to an eternal beautiful realm. This imagery by Tolkien is a reflection of heaven where Christ promised to go and prepare a place for us! It is a reminder that this place is only our temporary home and what awaits us is too glorious to comprehend. Let this future hope sustain us and cause us, while here, to strive to be conformed to His image.

We don’t know what evil awaits us in the future. Let’s pass the tests that come our way now, so we have a hope that we will reflect Christ then.

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I recently reviewed and posted excerpts from Nexus, a 525 page book by Rad Zdero and another of his books, The Global House Church Movement. The text below is copied from a post of Rad from 2011. In a dream the Lord told him to “prepare for revival”. I believe it is important for individual groups to relationally connect together, let’s prepare!

The topic of the church’s readiness to deal with disaster, harvest, and hostility is an important matter that was recently blogged about. Indeed, are we ready? And are we ready in the “right” things? It is one thing to be ready personally on spiritual and practical levels, but it is quite another to be ready corporately as the church. 

Several years ago, I had an unusual dream. Being a non-Charismatic skeptical person, I asked God to confirm it. He did several times. In the dream, the Lord said, “God is not satisfied with denominations, but is drawing out a remnant for himself that will accomplish his will.” And that we must “prepare for revival” in my region. My sense was that God asked us to put into place tangible expressions of relational, intentional, and missional unity. We must shift from simply awareness of each other to practical partnership. 

Airports, computers, roadways, human brain cells, ecosystems, and many other things in the man-made and natural world are networked. Simple/house churches should be networked too. Spiritual water can only flow properly if the spiritual plumbing system has been set up! Consequently, simple/house churches will not be ready THEN for disaster, harvest, or hostility, until several things happen NOW ahead of time. 

First, simple/house churches must trust, partner, and network together locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally NOW, so that coordination and cooperation can happen THEN, just like the early church (Acts 2:41-47, 5:12, 5:42, 20:20; Gal 1:18,19, 2:6-10; 3 John 1:3-8). 

Second, simple/house churches must learn true hospitality toward strangers and the afflicted by providing for their needs and empowering them NOW, so we will know how to do it wisely THEN, just like the early church (Matt 25:31-46; Luke 10:30-37). 

Third, simple/house churches must give generously and share money and material resources with each other NOW, so we will be able to efficiently funnel funds to the Body of Christ THEN, just like the early church (Acts 2:44-45; 1 Cor 9:1-14; 2 Cor 9:1-7; Philip 2:25, 4:15-16). 

Fourth, simple/house churches must develop leadership hubs for connecting, training, and launching a new generation of local leaders of churches NOW, so we can facilitate spiritual growth in quality and in quantity THEN, just like the early church (Acts 20:17-38; 2 Tim 2:2; Tit 1:5-9). 

Fifth, simple/house churches must identify, finance, and launch a new generation of travelling leaders who visit and equip entire networks of churches NOW, so we can strengthen and expand Kingdom frontiers THEN, just like the early church (Mark 3:13-15; Luke 10:1-10; Acts 10:1-48, 13:1-3, 15:36-41; 1 Cor 9:1-14; Eph 4:11-13; Tit 1:5; Philip 4:15-16; 3 John 1:3-8). 

Sixth, simple/house churches must create high-tech and low-tech communication channels to effectively broadcast information about needs, opportunities, obstacles, and attacks NOW, so we can navigate future surprises and challenges THEN, just like the early church (Acts 15:22-30,36; Col 4:16; 2 Thes 2:15). 

Seventh, simple/house churches must be open to the extraordinary power of God to speak to us, speak through us, heal the sick, deliver the demon-possessed, and even raise the dead NOW, so that we will be prepared and experienced vessels THEN, just like the early church (Acts 5:12, 9:36-42, 13:1-3, 19:11-12; 1 Cor 12:7-12; James 5:14-15). 

And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Otherwise, simple/house churches will be caught unawares, not knowing how to deal with disaster, hostility, or harvest. Let’s not miss the chance God gives us THEN! Let’s get ready NOW! 

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Several days after his death on May 12th, 1963, A.W. Tozer’s final thoughts were published. His article below has been abridged, you can easily find his complete article on-line.

Let me state the cause of my burden. It is this: Jesus Christ has today almost no authority at all among the groups that call themselves by His name…It is a basic doctrine of the New Testament that after His resurrection the Man Jesus was declared by God to be both Lord and Christ, and that He was invested by the Father with absolute Lordship over the church which is His Body. All authority is His in heaven and in earth. In His own proper time He will exert it to the full, but during this period in history He allows this authority to be challenged or ignored. And just now it is being challenged by the world and ignored by the church.

The present position of Christ in the gospel churches may be likened to that of a king in a limited, constitutional monarchy. The king (sometimes depersonalized by the term “the Crown”) is in such a country no more than a traditional rallying point, a pleasant symbol of unity and loyalty much like a flag or a national anthem. He is lauded, feted and supported, but his real authority is small. Nominally he is head over all, but in every crisis someone else makes the decisions. On formal occasions he appears in his royal attire to deliver the tame, colorless speech put into his mouth by the real rulers of the country. The whole thing may be no more than good-natured make-believe, but it is rooted in antiquity, it is a lot of fun and no one wants to give it up.

Among the gospel churches Christ is now in fact little more than a beloved symbol. “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” is the church’s national anthem and the cross is her official flag, but in the week-by-week services of the church and the day-by-day conduct of her members someone else, not Christ, makes the decisions. Under proper circumstances Christ is allowed to say “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden” or “Let not your heart be troubled,” but when the speech is finished someone else takes over. Those in actual authority decide the moral standards of the church, as well as all objectives and all methods employed to achieve them. Because of long and meticulous organization it is now possible for the youngest pastor just out of seminary to have more actual authority in a church than Jesus Christ has.

Not only does Christ have little or no authority; His influence also is becoming less and less. I would not say that He has none, only that it is small and diminishing…The Lordship of Jesus is not quite forgotten among Christians, but it has been relegated to the hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be comfortably discharged in a glow of pleasant religious emotion. Or if it is taught as a theory in the classroom it is rarely applied to practical living. The idea that the Man Christ Jesus has absolute and final authority over the whole church and over all of its members in every detail of their lives is simply not now accepted as true by the rank and file of evangelical Christians.

What we do is this: We accept the Christianity of our group as being identical with that of Christ and His apostles. The beliefs, the practices, the ethics, the activities of our group are equated with the Christianity of the New Testament. Whatever the group thinks or says or does is scriptural, no questions asked. It is assumed that all our Lord expects of us is that we busy ourselves with the activities of the group. In so doing we are keeping the commandments of Christ.

To avoid the hard necessity of either obeying or rejecting the plain instructions of our Lord in the New Testament we take refuge in a liberal interpretation of them. Casuistry is not the possession of Roman Catholic theologians alone. We evangelicals also know how to avoid the sharp point of obedience by means of fine and intricate explanations. These are tailor-made for the flesh. They excuse disobedience, comfort carnality and make the words of Christ of none effect. And the essence of it all is that Christ simply could not have meant what He said. His teachings are accepted even theoretically only after they have been weakened by interpretation.

Yet Christ is consulted by increasing numbers of persons with “problems” and sought after by those who long for peace of mind. He is widely recommended as a kind of spiritual psychiatrist with remarkable powers to straighten people out. He is able to deliver them from their guilt complexes and to help them to avoid serious psychic traumas by making a smooth and easy adjustment to society and to their own ids. Of course this strange Christ has no relation whatever to the Christ of the New Testament. The true Christ is also Lord, but this accommodating Christ is little more than the servant of the people.

But I suppose I should offer some concrete proof to support my charge that Christ has little or no authority today among the churches. Well, let me put a few questions and let the answers be the evidence…In the conduct of our public worship where is the authority of Christ to be found? The truth is that today the Lord rarely controls a service, and the influence He exerts is very small. We sing of Him and preach about Him, but He must not interfere; we worship our way, and it must be right because we have always done it that way, as have the other churches in our group…

For the true Christian the one supreme test for the present soundness and ultimate worth of everything religious must be the place our Lord occupies in it. Is He Lord or symbol? Is He in charge of the project or merely one of the crew? Does He decide things or only help to carry out the plans of others? All religious activities, from the simplest act of an individual Christian to the ponderous and expensive operations of a whole denomination, may be proved by the answer to the question, Is Jesus Christ Lord in this act? Whether our works prove to be wood, hay and stubble or gold and silver and precious stones in that great day will depend upon the right answer to that question.

What, then, are we to do? Each one of us must decide, and there are at least three possible choices. One is to rise up in shocked indignation and accuse me of irresponsible reporting. Another is to nod general agreement with what is written here but take comfort in the fact that there are exceptions and we are among the exceptions. The other is to go down in meek humility and confess that we have grieved the Spirit and dishonored our Lord in failing to give Him the place His Father has given Him as Head and Lord of the Church.

Either the first or the second will but confirm the wrong. The third if carried out to its conclusion can remove the curse. The decision lies with us.

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