Monday, 05 May 2008

I just finished Organic Church by Neil Cole.  It is an outstanding book which speaks to what I have been hearing and seeing from many very different places; go into all the world and make disciples.  Neil tells a powerful story of a small church church started by his daughter , 15, and her friends.  After they had been meeting for a few months he visited them and saw a great church.  He ask everyone what other churches they had been to and they were mega-churches or Godzilla churches as he called them.  He ask how many feel they could start a Godzilla church and no one raised their hand, but when he ask who thought they could start a church like they were in all hands were raised.  He then made a powerful observation, “This scares the devil to death”.

This story made me question two things.  First is why do we set the bar for fulfilling the great commission so high by imposing a man made goal of getting people to come to our traditional churches?  We are told that those in darkness will not come into the light because they fear it so should we not follow the example of Jesus and take the light into the darkness?  The second question is what is keeping me from fulfilling the great commission? 

My prayer is that I will follow the Lord in such a way as my actions will result in, 18 Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 Listen, I have given you power to walk on snakes and scorpions, power that is greater than the enemy has. So nothing will hurt you. 20 But you should not be happy because the spirits obey you but because your names are written in heaven.”, Luke 10.

Tuesday, 22 April 2008

Lectionary Thoughts on Acts 17.22-31: What did Paul think of his preaching in Acts? « Ramblings from Red Rose

Today I read from Acts and 1Corinthians.

If you follow the link above you will see Will’s post and my comment below.

I am very bad about wanting to study rather than doing.  It comes more naturally and is less risky to my pride.  I think Jesus picked fishermen instead of church scholars so they would have less of a tendency to analyze and would be more likely to get to it.  Lord, please help me to “Just do it” more often.

Yes, I realize the irony of drawing that comclusion from the theological disection of scriptures.

Sunday, 20 April 2008

Today I read Psalm 104 again and “Organic Church”.

God is huge.  If I am following Him there is nothing to fear.  This must mean the fear does not come from His Spirit.  God just looks at the earth and it shakes.  May I act like I serve such a God.

Thursday, 17 April 2008

Please see these links and then consider below.

http://www.cornerstonesimi.com/media_player.php?f=2008%2D04%2D06%5FFrancis%5FChan%5FThe%5FChurch%2Emov

 http://www.cornerstonesimi.com/special/building_project/why_have_church_outside.html

 

 

This church gets it.  I do hold out hope for older mainline congregations.  If we look at the problem and solution in the 1700s.  The Anglican church looked very much like we look today and look what the early Methodist societies did for those people as a platform for the Holy Spirit.  I do not see any reason the resurrection of a model similar to the societies would not work today.  We have the tools; all we need is the courage.  Consider the following:

 

1.        If one family (seed) would be willing to sacrifice a little comfort and buy a duplex instead of a single family home

2.       They let another family (graph) live in the other unit rent free while watching over them in love for two years

3.       At the two year point family seed moves on to another duplex while graph starts paying the rent

4.       The empty unit in each duplex is now filled with a family who will be watched  over in love and the cycle continues.

5.       At the ten year point the seed will have produced 32 graphs, been the church to 32×4=128 people

6.       If the church would kick in at the beginning where the start could be a quad-plex then the  128 jumps to almost 500 lives

7.       The small sacrifice (talent) sacrifice made by only one family has been increased one hundred fold, that is the stuff of biblical fairy tales

This is were I get chills.  The heart of each of the 500 people has been shaped by the example of love; being fed when they were hungry, clothed when they were naked, and housed when they were homeless.  They then have had the experience of doing the same for others.  To these 500 Christians this behavior this behavior is not radical, but normal and expected as they have known no other.

Lord give us faith and courage.  I love you.

 

Saturday, 12 April 2008

Today I did a lot of jumping around in the bible.  I have been looking for trailmarkers if you will. Below is what I found.  Please forgive the long post.  All verses come from Bible Gateway and are New Century Version.

 

Love your neighbor

Mark 12: 29 Jesus answered, “The most important command is this: ‘Listen, people of Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’^[a] 31 The second command is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’^[b] There are no commands more important than these.”

Go out – Make disciples

Mathew 28:19 So go and make followers of all people in the world. Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Why:  because I love them and so should you

Ephesians 1:5 Because of his love, God had already decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. That was what he wanted and what pleased him,6 and it brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely, in Christ, the One he loves.7 In Christ we are set free by the blood of his death, and so we have forgiveness of sins. How rich is God’s grace,8 which he has given to us so fully and freely. God, with full wisdom and understanding,9 let us know his secret purpose. This was what God wanted, and he planned to do it through Christ.10 His goal was to carry out his plan, when the right time came, that all things in heaven and on earth would be joined together in Christ as the head.

Remember who we are fighting

Ephesians 6:12 Our fight is not against people on earth but against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this world’s darkness, against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly world.

We must be on the offensive: go to them

John 3:20 All who do evil hate the light and will not come to the light, because it will show all the evil things they do.

If we love God then we do what He says

Ephesians 2:2 Yes, in the past you lived the way the world lives, following the ruler of the evil powers that are above the earth. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to obey God.

Remember, God planned this

Ephesians 2:8 I mean that you have been saved by grace through believing. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.9 It was not the result of your own efforts, so you cannot brag about it.10 God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.