Tag: house church

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Biblical Church

Preparing The House

I recently came across this quote from T. Austin Sparks.

The truth is that subjection to Jesus Christ is not a miserable life as a vassal.  It is a life of triumph, a life of victory, a life of glory, a life of fullness. It is the blinding work of the enemy with men, to make them think that to belong to the Lord, to have the Lord in their lives, means they are going to lose all that is worth while, and be shut down, and then all the time be poor cringing creatures, hardly able to lift their heads up, going about as beggars. That is Satan’s lie.  The Old Testament brings it out here so clearly that, when all things were subject to, submitting themselves to, God’s appointed king, it was a time of fullness, such as the people had never known: and so it is when Jesus is Lord with us in heaven.

T. Austin Sparks, God’s Spiritual House

The Old Testament scripture he is referring to is found in 1 Chronicles 24. In this chapter, David is preparing to hand over the many resources he has collected to Solomon, so he can begin construction of the House of God.

Now David said, “Solomon my son is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the Lord must be exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all countries. I will now make preparation for it.”

Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies all around. His name shall be Solomon, for I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his day.

I Chronicles 24:5, 9

As we examine our lives, are they full of victory, glory and fullness? If not, maybe there are a few things to consider. Have we been blinded by the enemy to believe that life truly devoted to Christ is slavery? In this case, we hold back from completely surrendering to our Lord. We want to keep various portions of our lives separated from Him. It’s hard to give up everything.

However, I think there is something more troubling. Consider our corporate church culture. We are taught that we need to help our church/pastor fulfill his vision for his house. We are given gifts and talents to help build up the ekklesia but instead we use them to build up a man’s vision of his church. You might think this is harsh but would you consider the fruit of the church today to be “exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all countries.” Would you consider that the church is at rest with our enemies? It appears something is not working. Church based and founded on dynamic personalities will never achieve this. I know from personal experience.

So the question is, whose houses are we building? I truly believe, and have experienced, that when we submit ourselves to our King, not a dynamic leader, our lives and the life of the ekklesia will be exceedingly magnificent.

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Books / Videos

The Pastor Has No Clothes!

I just want to honor Jon Zens for sharing truth since 1965. I’ve just recently learned about Jon and read and reviewed a couple of his books. This one is a gem and well worth your time and money. Jon totally debunks the idea that the corporate church and/or even what we call House Church needs a centralized leader/pastor. Below is an excerpt.

We are afraid of doing church without a human leader. Except, the truth is, we do have a Leader – Jesus Christ. Further, the practical reality is that every group will have leadership each time they get together. His Spirit always leads the saints to express Christ one to another in diverse ways; not in a traditional, concrete pro forma format. One sister may share something that becomes the theme that others build on – in one meeting or in several; for a day or for months, even years of interaction. Another time, a brother may tell how the Lord ministered to him in the past week, and that leads to different things, which go on from there. The point is, in organic meetings His Spirit leadership is gracious, fluid and over a period of time involves everyone. If a group looks to the same person time after time to get and to keep things rolling by solely providing the essential content of the gathering, then the living Christ blossoming through all the parts is soured.

Sadly, in this way I am convinced that we are all like Israel – we want a visible king. Read 1 Samuel 8 and see how Israel was not satisfied with having the invisible God as their Leader; they wanted to be like the nations around them who had visible human kings. It underscores human desire of having someone else tell us what vision to follow, where to meet, what to do, and what to believe – in short, to spoon-feed us like children – thus, we reject the Lord’s leadership, substituting a vastly inferior system in his place.

We all will have a king. The crucial question is, will our king be visible or Invisible? Will we run church like the corporations in the world – in other words, be like the world – or will seek higher satisfaction in following the One, whom having not seen, we love?

Do not be mistaken! These behaviors are not limited to the traditional “church” experience. I have seen this phenomenon kill the life expression in simple gatherings just as frequently. It is the existence of pastor-wannabe’s, elder-wannabe’s and former church officials who come to such a group claiming a false non-scriptural basis to “improve” their gatherings. Even among those who have completely left the institutional church, too often there is tendency to look for former “leaders” in past settings to provide the impetus for what takes place in the new one. 

Those from leadership positions in the institutional church must take their ambitions and history of being “up front” to the cross. They must take their proper place as just another brother or just a sister amongst other brothers and sisters. If not, the group will inevitably revert to an institutional form usurping Jesus’ leadership. Simply meeting in a home does not, in any way, ensure that a Christian group functions under Jesus’ Lordship. The pressing issue here is whether or not a person or group takes the place of Christ at the center of any fellowship meeting.

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God’s Spiritual House

This book by T. Austin-Sparks was published in 1942 and is a true inspirational work. Unlike many books on my Resources page, this work focuses on what the Church is spiritually.

What, then, is this spiritual house? What is this Church? Let us not have an objective mentality about this, thinking of it as something somewhere outside of and apart from ourselves. What is it? The answer is a very simple one. The spiritual house of God is Christ Himself. Yes, but not for Christ personally alone, but Christ in you, in me, the hope of glory.

T. Austin-Sparks, God’s Spiritual House

We have lost so much in this day and age. Generally, our thinking and reasoning is shallow, our attention spans are short and we communicate using memes. Reading a book of this caliber is refreshing and is certainly recommended. Below is another excerpt from the book.

You see, corporate life is spiritual and is life. It is a matter of life. Our union, our relationship with Christ, is on the principle of life. “Unto whom coming, a living stone…ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house.” Again I say, God is not dealing with us as bricks: God is dealing with us as with living stones. That means that He is treating us as those who have a common life with the Lord Jesus, and our relationship with the living stone is the relationship of one life. It is a spiritual relationship and it is that life which
brings about the corporate expression. It is all the difference between this corporate expression on the basis of life, and a society, a club, an institution. You can join a club, you can come into a society, and you may agree on many things with regard to conviction and procedure, and yet not be bound together by a corporate life. But the Church is this latter thing. One life in all the members links all the members with the Head, and thus by that life it expresses Christ wherever it is. It does not just proclaim things about Christ. It brings Christ in and says that here, though it be but in two or three or more, here Christ has come in. It is not a claim made. You see, the Roman church will make that claim, that very claim, that where that church is, Christ is. Ah yes, but there is a difference. It is not just a claim, but a fact borne out, that where these spiritual and living stones are, the Lord is there in very truth and people know it, and there comes about that of which the Apostle wrote. When someone comes in from the outside and things are as they should be, when they are after this kind, the outsider comes in and falls down and says, “God is indeed among you.” Ah! that is what we want. Whether people begin to fall literally or not, that is not the question. The point is that inwardly they go down; prejudices, suspicions, fears, reservations go down. One thing rises supreme with them and brings down everything. I cannot get away from it, the Lord is there! If only we would surrender to that and all that means it would be very much better for us. But that is the great matter, namely, bringing in the Lord. The Church exists to bring the Lord into every place, even where represented by but two or three. May this all be true in our case. I am sure our hearts respond to that. Well, let us get to the Lord about it, that so far as we individually are concerned as living stones, it may be true in our case; that we are a ministration of life, a representation of Christ, that we are bringing glory to God, that we are setting forth the exaltation of His Son.

T. Austin-Sparks, God’s Spiritual House
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Books / Videos

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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Reimagining Church

Masterful work by Frank Viola, here is the first excerpt on rediscovery.

To borrow a term from scientific philosopher Thomas Kuhn, we need a “paradigm shift” regarding the church before we can properly rebuild it. That is, we need a new worldview regarding the meaning of the body of Christ. A new model for understanding the ekklesia. A new framework for thinking about the church.

Of course, the “new paradigm” that I’m speaking of is not new at all. It’s the paradigm that undergirds the entire New Testament.

Our day is not much different from that of Nehemiah’s. In Nehemiah’s time, Israel had just rediscovered the Law of God after being without it for many years. But once it was discovered, it had to be reexplained and reinterpreted. Consider the words of Nehemiah:

They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that people could understand what was being read.

Nehemiah 8:8

In the same way, twenty-first-century Christians must relearn the language of Scripture with respect to the church. The original meaning of countless biblical terms like “church,” “minister,” “pastor,” “house of God,” and “fellowship” have largely been lost.

These words have been invested with institutional power. A power that was foreign to those who originally penned them. Therefore, a pressing need today is the rediscovery of biblical language and ideas. We need to rethink our entire concept of church and discover it afresh through the lens of Jesus and the apostles.

Because of common misteaching, we have many deeply buried assumptions that are in need of excavation and examination. Many of us have been mistaught that “church” means a building, a denomination, or a worship service. And that a “minister” is a special class of Christian.

Since our contemporary notion of the church has been so entrenched in human thinking, it requires a conscious effort to view it in the way that all first-century Christians did. It demands that we rigorously plow through the thick and tangled weeds of religious tradition until we unearth the virgin soil of organic Christianity.

As we rethink the church in its scriptural context, we’ll be better equipped to distinguish between the biblical notion of church and those institutions that pose as churches.

In the eyes of those who see the world through institutional glasses, unless a church meets in the “right” place (a building), has the “proper” leadership (an ordained minister), and bears the “correct” name (one that indicates a “covering”), it’s not an authentic church. Instead, it’s dubbed with innovative terms like “parachurch.”

Hence, among those who haven’t yet grown weary of running on the program-driven treadmill of institutional “churchianity,” that which is abnormal is considered normal and that which is normal is regarded as abnormal. This is the unhappy result of not basing our faith and practice upon Scripture.

In brief, nothing short of a paradigm shift regarding the church, coupled with an impartation of fresh light from the Holy Spirit, will produce enduring change. Readjustments to the old wineskin, no matter how radical, will only go so far.

Consequently, in my personal judgement, the church doesn’t need renewal. It needs a complete overhaul. That is, the only way to fully renew the institutional church to wholly disassemble it and build something far different. The brittle wineskin of church practice and the tattered garment of ecclesiastical forms need to be exchanged, not just modified. Some may disagree. But this is my conviction based on my experience, and I’m not ashamed to state it.

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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Pagan Christianity

Incredibly researched and written, Pagan Christianity, authored by Frank Viola and George Barna, is a must read. They explore the roots of our church practices and, unfortunately, confirm that pagan practices have had a huge influence on what we do today.

FYI. Pagan C. is not a stand alone volume. The majority of those who read it without the constructive sequels misinterpret and misapply the message. Check out the video-audio at PaganChristianity.org for an explanition. Thx!

Frank Viola, Facebook post response.

Yes, it’s true, you can use the information in the book to hammer away at people but it is not the intent of this book. If the Holy Spirit hasn’t begun the process of revealing truth to a person, no amount of head bashing will work.

Below is an excerpt about the introduction of the pew. It may seem insignificant but you can get a sense of the research that has gone into this book.

The pew is perhaps the greatest inhibitor of face-to-face fellowship. It is a symbol of lethargy and passivity in the contemporary church and has made corporate worship a spectator sport.

The word pew is derived from the Latin podium. It means a seat raised up above a floor level or a “balcony”. Pews were unknown to the church building for the first thousand years of Christian history. In the early basilicas, the congregation stood throughout the entire service. (This is still the practice among many Eastern Orthodox).

By the thirteenth century, backless benches were gradually introduced into English parish buildings. These benches were made of stone and placed against the walls. They were then moved into the body of the building (the area called the nave). At first, the benches were arranged in a semicircle around the pulpit. Later they were fixed to the floor.

The modern pew was introduced in the forteenth century, though it was not commonly found in churches until the fifteenth century. At that time, wooden benches supplanted the stone seats. By the eighteenth century box pews became popular.

Because box pews often had high sides, the pulpits had to be elevated so as to be seen by the people. Thus the “wineglass” pulpit was born during colonial times. Eighteenth-century family box pews were replaced with slip pews so that all the people faced the newly erected high platform where the pastor conducted the service.

So what is the pew? The meaning of the word tells it all. It is a lowered “balcony” – detached seating from which to watch performances on a stage (the pulpit). It immobilizes the congregation of the saints and renders them mute spectators. It hinders face-to-face fellowship and interaction.

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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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The Three Myths

An excerpt from a book by Rad Zdero entitled The Global House Church Movement.

My purpose in writing this book is not to tear down anything that God is doing in and through the traditional church. God has always, is currently, and will continue to use it in drawing people to himself. Of this I have no doubt. It is not my intention at all to throw stones at my brothers and sisters in traditional churches.

However, it must be admitted, traditional churches also perpetuate the unbiblical and often ineffective ‘cathedral’ model of church, characterized by three cardinal myths that prevent individual believers and the Church as a whole from functioning as strategically and biblically as possible. In essence, the ‘cathedral’ model of church used by many today is that of a holy man performing a holy ceremony in a holy building. Let’s look at each of these points briefly.

The first myth is that of the ‘holy man’. Many believe that seminary-trained professional clergy are absolutely indispensible. Biblically, in contrast, the vision of the Church is a priesthood of all believers using their talents for building up God’s kingdom (1 Peter 2:4-10, 1 Cor 12:7-12, 27-30). Make no mistake, there is a biblical pattern of appointed leadership (Mark 3:13-15, Ats 13:1-3, Titus 1:5-9), but this never should result in others believers’ talents and skills withering from lack of use, which often happens in conventional churches. In addition, today’s single-pastor model stands in contrast to a team of co-equal volunteer elders that managed networks of house church in the first century (Acts 20:17-21; Titus 1:5).

The second myth is that of the ‘holy service’. The very word ‘church’ for many conjures up images of a few people performing a ritual – however useful or exciting the ‘show’ may be – in which a few designated individuals perform for a rather passive audience. These gatherings are really one-man shows. Biblical house churches, in contrast, afford open, interactive, and participatory meetings (1 Cor 14:26, Eph 5:19, Col 3:16, Heb 10:25), being an ideal breeding ground for leadership development, every – member participation, and relationship building.

The third myth is that of the ‘holy building’. Most people assume that church buildings, or large rented spaces for corporate meetings, are required to be a legitimate church. Whatever church buildings may or may not be useful for, the book of Acts and history bear our that they are not requirements for rapid church planting movements, evangelism, or discipleship; in fact, they are often a hindrance. Church buildings also breed a ‘temple mentality’, which puts church in a box and, thereby, prevents Christians from seeing their very neighborhoods as mission fields. As well, the massive practical release of time, energy, and money from the elimination of building projects and/or rental payments should challenge us rethink current practices.

Today, God is currently ushering in a monumental structural reformation of the global church that addresses these three myths. Cell churches – with their equal emphasis on home cell groups and Sunday morning services in a church building – and house church movements are growing rapidly in non-Western nations and are being used in startling ways to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission in this genertion. House church movements though, are even more effective than cell churches in eliminating the above three myths and are closest to the apostolic model of church. Therefore, what I am suggesting is that traditional churches are good, cell churches are better, and house church movements are best. As such, one purpose of this book is to call the church in the West to rethink its approach in light of New Testament practice and strategic effectiveness.