Tag: Cheers Church

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Getting Started

Compiled and edited by Felicity Dale, this manual contains insights and biblical content on how and why people should start simple church. It’s uniquely formatted with information on the left side and supporting quotes on the right side. I have added excerpts below from both sides. You can find more resources and information on Tony and Felicity Dale by clicking here.

What should we do when we get together? One of the important things to realize is that church as a small group is not like anything else you may have experienced as “church.”  We get asked, “Is it like a prayer meeting?” We pray, but no, it is not like a prayer meeting. “Is it a Bible study?” No, it is not like a Bible study, although we will usually spend some time over the Word. Perhaps the greatest temptation we have is to make it a mini version of a larger meeting, where someone has been delegated to prepare some worship songs, another has a teaching, etc. If we do that, we have not gained much from meeting in a smaller group. Small group dynamics are totally different from those of a larger group.

Church is family. A normal family, gathered around the dinner table, does not have, for example, the mother say to the children, “Now let’s all listen to what Dad has to say,” and then the father talks for 40 minutes explaining something that is not of much relevance to the kids. No. Normal family is interactive, participatory and intensely relevant to the people there. And church should be the same way.

The Holy Spirit needs to be the One who controls the agenda in our times together. He has the plan for what needs to be accomplished. If we will learn to hear and follow His promptings, we will never have a boring meeting!

I Corinthians 11-14 talks about what we should do when we come together. Chapter 12 spends much time explaining how vital every part of the body is, and how each part has a different function. This needs to be expressed in our times together. I Corinthians 14:26 is the key verse for our meetings. It says that when we come together, each one has a contribution to make. Whether a song, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation-everything must build up and edify the body.

According to Acts 2:42 when the believers came together, they “devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers.”  These are the four elements that we try to include in the times that we spend together.

Felicity Dale, Getting Started

In the NT, one gets the impression that a meeting of brethren ought to be more like a football team huddle, hospital, family mealtime, spontaneous party and military troop rally-these being daily events rather than once a week. These similes paint a picture that is a far cry different from what most Christians’ church life is like.

Robert Lund, The Way Church Ought To Be

This everyone-involved type of gathering happens very naturally when believers gather in homes and sit in the normal seating of the home. Please don’t drag in a pulpit and put the chairs in rows!

Sometimes the everyone-participating, normal gathering of the church is altered a bit if a traveling apostle, prophet, or teacher comes through your area and meets with you. Then the everyone-participate gathering allows room for the brother or sister to share, as took place in Acts 20:7-11. Room was made in the gathering for Paul to share. But he did not “take over” or monopolize. In fact, the Greek word, as we have already seen, means “converse, discourse, argue, discuss, dialogue.” He dialogued with them. He talked-but they also participated.

Nate Krupp, God’s Simple Plan for His Church

The Holy Spirit, for some reason, did not give us blow-by-blow descriptions of day-to-day body life and church meetings. Otherwise, we would have mimicked and worshiped the outward forms of the church, instead of continually seeking the mind of Christ for the near infinite number of ways that the principles and patterns which reflect the NT wineskin could be expressed. Indeed, much of Christendom has been slavish adherence to heartless rituals. We are to honor and implement the apostolic traditions that Paul spoke of, being careful to maintain underlying NT values, while avoiding the mere mimicking of outward ritual.

Robert Lund, The Way Church Ought To Be

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A Natural New Testament

A friend sent me a link to A Natural New Testament translated by Frank Daniels and originally released in 1995. I have included some of his commentary and some comparative scripture. As far as I can tell, this is not in print form but is only available on-line. If there is a print version please contact me. You can go to this link and scroll down on the page to A Natural New Testament.

The present translation intends to discover the authors’ intent in writing their narratives, letters, and expositions – and to make these more apparent in English. Consequently, certain terms that are normally left untranslated (or translated into Latin) appear translated in this edition. “Christ” is rendered “Anointed One,” and whenever the reader passes over the term, it ought to convey the full force of the Messiah that had been promised to the Jews. There are no apostles, angels, deacons or ministers, bishops, devils, demons, or preachers in this edition; rather, the reader will find envoys (people who are sent out as representatives), messengers, servants, overseers, accusers, spirit beings, and heralds. The term “church” has also been dropped in favor of “assembly,” which is the meaning of the Greek word. Here, this translator has followed certain former translators who refused to retain the “old ecclesiastical words.”

It is this translator’s effort to provide a translation as free of tradition as possible, in the hopes that this will bring the reader closer to the paradigm of the original followers of Jesus. And while every translator or group of translators believes that their own translation is most accurate, one thing must be noted:


This is a translation into English of a set of documents that were written over 1900 years ago in Greek. In many cases, Greek was a second language to the authors, who existed under entirely different conditions than we do today. While they saw clearly what were their own customs and patterns of thought, we today often have trouble distinguishing between the intent of the author and our own preconceived notions. Therefore, we must carefully distinguish between our own opinions and the facts. Every translation follows the opinions of the translators and is therefore an opinion. This is a translation, an opinion, a mere human viewpoint of an ordinary human being. The value of this translation rests not in its authoritative nature but in the examination of the different paradigm which it may be found to contain.

Frank Daniels, A Natural New Testament

The following comparison is from Ephesians 4.

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

New King James Version

And indeed, he gave the envoys, and the prophets, and the good messengers, and the shepherds and teachers, for the restoration of the holy ones to the point of work of service, for the construction of the Anointed One’s body, until all of us should reach the point of the unity of the faith and the recognition of God’s son – until we should reach a measure of stature of the fullness of the Anointed One, so that we would no longer be babies, being carried about by every wind of teaching (in the trickery of human beings, in craftiness) to the system of deceit. But, being truthful in love, we should grow up into him in all things. He is the head, the Anointed One, from whom all the body is made to grow to the point of its construction in love – being firmly joined and knit together through every supplying ligament, according to the working (in measure) of every single part.


A Natural New Testament
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A Church Building Every 1/2 Mile

This excerpt is from the third section of Jon Zens’ book describing Four Tragic Shifts. This is the introduction to that section. Check out Jon’s website here.

The church portrayed in the New Testament was a dynamic organism, a living body with many parts. The church from around A.D. 180 onwards became an increasingly hardened institution with a fixed and complex hierarchy.

We claim to take Christ’s revelation about the church in the New Testament seriously, yet the reality is that too often we are more attached to the inherited way of doing things – which is based on human traditions. What does it mean to be faithful to the New Testament’s teaching about the church? In what sense are the examples of church life “binding” on us?

For instance, some assert that since the early church met primarily in homes, we are obliged to emulate this example. I think the primary theological point of the New Testament in this regard is that under the New Covenant there are no alleged “holy places.” Contemporary Christianity has almost no grasp of this significant point. Taking their cue from the Old Covenant, people are still led to believe that a church building is “the house of God.” In actuality, believers are free to meet anywhere in which they can foster, cultivate and attain the goals set before them by Christ.

The problem today is that many church structures neither promote nor accomplish Christ’s desire for His body. Homes are a natural place for believers to meet, and the early church flourished well into the first and second centuries without erecting any temple-like edifices. In places around the world where persecution reigns, house-church movements have flourished. Someday in America, if our religious infrastructure falls as a result of economic and political turmoil, true believers will be forced to meet outside of traditional church buildings. But the issue still is not what type of believers gather in, but what form their committed life together takes as they wrestle with the many duties and privileges flowing out of the priesthood of all believers.

I believe that it is far more important to capture the spirit of church life as we see it unfolded in the New Testament than it is to attempt to woodenly replicate certain cultural aspects of first century life. We do not live in the first century, but the concepts and principles in the New Testament endure and will come to expression in any culture. Christians must take their stand and devote their precious energies to building up the body of Christ in ways that return to the original patterns of the New Testament.

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Reimagining Church

This is the second excerpt about counting the cost. Thank you Frank for being honest and encouraging.

Let me be clear. There’s a price to pay in responding to the Lord’s will for His church. You’ll have to reckon with being misunderstood by those who have embraced spectator Christianity. You’ll bear the marks of the cross and die a thousand deaths in the process of being built together with other believers in a close-knit community.

You’ll have to endure the messiness that’s part and parcel of relational Christianity – forever abandoning the artificial neatness afforded by the organized church. You’ll no longer share the comforts of being a passive spectator. Instead, you’ll learn the self-emptying lessons of becoming a responsible, serving member of a functioning body.

In addition, you’ll have to go against the harsh grain of what one writer calls “the seven last words of the church” (we never did it that way before). You’ll incur the disfavor of the religious majority for refusing to be influenced by the tyranny of the status quo. And you’ll incite the severest assaults of the Adversary in his attempt to snuff out that which represents a living testimony of Jesus.

Add to that, living in organic church life is incredible difficult. The experience is fraught with problems. Read the New Testament letters again with an eye to discovering the many hazards the early Christians encountered when living in a close-knit community. When we live in the same kind of community life today, the same problems emerge. Our flesh gets exposed. Our spirituality gets tested. And we quickly find out just how deep the fall goes.

As one person said, “Everybody’s normal until you get to know them.” This is all too true for those who take the plunge of living in organic church life. The problems are endless. It’s much easier to become a “pew potato” two hours on Sunday morning in an instititutionaal church. Anyone can be a perfect Christian then. Organic church life, however, is a wedding of glory and gore. But this is the genius of God. It’s His prescribed way to transform us into His image. For “iron sharpens iron” (Prov. 27:17).

Yet regardless of the suffering that follows those who take the road less traveled, the glorious benefits of living in body life far outweigh the costs. The Lord builds on broken lives; His house is constituted out of conflict (1 Chron. 26:27). This being the case, “Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore” (Heb.13:13). For it is there that we may meet the Savior’s heartbeat.

Frank Viola, Reimagining Church
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Biblical Church

King Makers

I went out for some Mexican food with my friends Rich and Craig and at one point we talked about some of the larger churches here in the Phoenix area. We discussed some of the multi-million dollar homes the pastors of these large churches had or were currently building for themselves. Of course this is not only a local issue. I’m sure we all are aware of the big salaries, mansions and jet planes many of the ministers around the country have. I certainly don’t believe Christians should live in poverty but it does seem the excesses of ministers are not a true reflection of the life of Christ and His followers.

The question is…how does this happen? I’ve always been fascinated with the Hebrew people demanding a king, recorded in 1 Samuel 8. God’s plan was to have Judges and Prophets guide the people but the people wanted a king like the other nations. Samuel warned them.

So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. And he said, “This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.”

1 Samuel 8:10-18 NKJV

Is it our fault? Are we the ones still demanding a king? Are we the king makers? Instead of developing personal intimacy with Christ and intimacy with other followers, we would rather go to a large facility and listen to a king tell us what and how to do life. Many of the warnings stated by Samuel still ring true today. At church we become workers for the king, busy bees, building his kingdom. We lose our freedom and of course we are required to give our tenth. For most this is the easier path, requiring us to give our time, talent and treasure but not develop true intimacy that the Father requires of us.

It’s quite sad that the people rejected God.

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. 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. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also. Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them.”

1 Samuel 8:6-9 NKJV

I hope you take the time to examine your heart to see if you are truly serving the King or if you are in service to a king. There is so much beauty and freedom in doing our Christian walk the way God intended. Yes, the path is difficult but the results are worth every step!

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Biblical Church

Prepare and Warn

I really don’t like to write blogs that may be time sensitive but I’m making an exception here. Today I read two articles, one was titled ‘Berlin city official advises citizens not to make their Jewish faith visible’ and the other one was ‘US nabs Iranian national who snuck across southern border in dead of night’. Also today, my cousin Danny talked about the church he attends. He wonders if it’s really necessary that people are assigned to carry guns inside the church to protect the congregants.

My good friend Rachel posted a YouTube link in our House Church group chat. I usually don’t watch videos about prophetic predictions especially if they are an hour long, however, because it was Rachel I checked it out.

At one point they were comparing the days of Noah to our present day. They referenced Luke 17.

And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

Luke 17:26-30

They made the point that Noah was doing two things. Noah, knowing a storm was coming, was preparing a place of safety and he was also warning people.

If you’re on social media it seems Christians have the second part down. They are predicting and warning all the time, especially now. Concerning the first part, I know that there are ministries out there prepping people for the upcoming storm: buy a generator, raise chickens, get silver coins, accumulate food and medicine, but is there more to preparing a place of safety? What happens if synagogues and churches become targets of hate? Will every synagogue and church need armed gunmen inside and outside of worship facilities?

For us, we are building Arks. House Churches across the globe are places of safety. There may come a time when people are afraid to go to a building to worship. Where will they go? Hopefully we will be ready. We will need plenty of Arks to welcome them in two by two, now is the time to build…the sky is already getting cloudy.

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When the Church Was a Family

What does it really mean to be adopted into the family of Christ? Are we truly brothers and sisters in Christ? How far have we drifted from God’s original intent of His church being a family? Below is an excerpt from the book above.

Around AD 260, a devastating plague afflicted the great city of Alexandria. People were dying right and left, and the church family suffered some devastating losses. The response of the local church to the plague constitutes one of the most powerful examples of Christian brotherhood in the annals of church history.

Here is a section of a letter written by Dionysis, the overseer of the Christian community in the city:

“The most, at all events, of our brethren in their exceeding love and affection for the brotherhood were unsparing of themselves and clave to one another, visiting the sick without a thought as to the danger, assiduously ministering to them, tending them in Christ, and so most gladly departed this life along with them; being infected with the disease from others, drawing upon themselves the sickness from their neighbors, and willingly taking over their pains…In this manner the best at any rate of our brethren departed this life, certain presbyters and deacons and some of the laity…So, too, the bodies of the saints they would take up in their open hands to their bosom, closing their eyes and shutting their mouths, carrying them on their shoulders and laying them out; they would cling to them, embrace them, bathe and adorn them with their burial clothes, and after a little while receive the same services themselves, for those that were left behind were ever following those that went before. But the conduct of the heathen was the exact opposite. Even those who were in the first stages of the disease they thrust away, and fled from their dearest. They would even cast them in the road half-dead, and treat the unburied corpses as vile refuse.”

Dionysius began his description with the use of family words: “brethren,” “the brotherhood.” He closed with a pointed contrast, comparing the behavior of his Alexandrian Christians with behavior among the natural families of pagans in the surrounding community (they “fled from their dearest”).

Dionysius clearly viewed his church community as a well-functioning Mediterranean kinship group, and he was proud that they were living up to their family ideals, even at the cost of their very lives. As Tertullian had said some years earlier:

“The practice of such a special love brands us in the eye of some. “See,” they say, “how they love one another and how ready they are to die for each other.”

Tertullian, Dionysius, and the Alexandrian Christians were only following in the footsteps of their Master: “This is how we have come to know love: He laid down His life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).

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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.

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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!

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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.