Those with the Biblical commitment and personal humility needed to actually function together as part of a simple, participatory church in their home or other hospitable local gathering place …
Do.
Those who don’t have the requisite Biblical commitment and personal humility to make it work in their own lives and home towns, but nonetheless try and repeatedly fail …
Seem most inclined, regrettably, to then write books and blogs – and travel around – telling everyone else how to.
Unfortunately, great has been the wreckage they’ve caused.
Such “organic church” writers and “itinerants” peddle what they themselves don’t do, under a plethora of misleading titles and slogans like:
“Beyond Evangelical”, “Deeper Life” and now “Insurgent” (Frank Viola); “Subversive” and “Red Letter” Christians (Keith Giles); House2House and Apostolic “Workers” (Milt Rodriguez, Jon Zens and Felicity Dale); “Viral Jesus” (Ross Rohde); “Houses That Change The World” (Wolfgang Simson); and “Unchurching” (Richard Jacobson).
When it comes to them and their mutual promotion networks, be discerning …
Because you can’t get to authentic from phony.
Nor can you get there with their general distain for God’s plenary authority of Scripture as His written Word …
Or their competing, trans-Biblical existential ideologies.
Please hear me:
For the health of God’s people, it’s time for those of us who are actually making simple, participatory churches work in our own lives and home towns – through a firm commitment to the apostolic foundation already laid in Scripture as God’s authoritative written Word – to begin looking towards each other for mutual encouragement.
If we refuse to be discerning and instead continue to look to – and promote – those who peddle other agendas, pretenses and foundations …
Then their persistent pattern of failed lives and failed churches will continue to be a hindrance to our own churches and what God wants to do elsewhere.
Their bad fruit and inability to make their own books work in their own lives and home towns – or consistently and sustainably anywhere else – should be a clear warning which we all heed …
No matter how deceptively charming and misleadingly enticing they otherwise may seem.
Healthy churches and healthy lives deserve no less.
