When people are used to build up a ministry, rather than the ministry being used to build up people …
It’s no longer ministry.
Category: Simple Church
People with true gravitas make hard things seem easy because they’ve spent years quietly learning how …
By actually doing them.
Trendy “influencers” with media platforms …
Not so much so.
I’m more interested in going and sharing Christ as He uniquely brings life and builds “His church” among you and your friends …
Than always expecting you to come and find Him in “my church” among me and my friends.
Such is the heart of the Great Commission.
Making Jesus all about that one thing,
Which happens to be your thing,
Denies His Lordship over all things,
Including the many other things,
He does through others.
The older I get …
The more I realize how much the Kingdom of God depends on hospitality.
The Great Commission isn’t about coming in for prepared messages …
But going forth as prepared people.
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 and can’t make it work in their own lives and home towns, however …
Seem most inclined, regrettably, to 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 “Insurgence” (Frank Viola); “Subversive” and “Red Letter Christians” (Keith Giles); House2House and Apostolic “Workers” (Milt Rodriguez, Jon Zens and Felicity Dale); “Viral Jesus” (Ross Rohde); and “Houses That Change The World” (Wolfgang Simson).
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 ideologies …
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 among us.
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.
When I stop viewing my own God-given gifts, callings and motivations as being more essential than yours …
We can finally begin expressing – together – the multifaceted fullness of Christ.
I don’t wear skinny jeans and cool glasses .. .
Or have an elevated stage with a smoke machine, a hip band, brass tinged collection plates and comfy pews for the feel-good masses.
I don’t peddle trans-Biblical messages like “deeper life,” “easy believism,” or “seeker friendly” …
Nor have I sought – as is common these days – notoriety through books, blogs and conferences about “how to” on things I’ve not made work first in my own life and hometown.
Instead, my life has been about simply going – without pretense or fanfare – wherever Jesus sends me.
Often it was to distinct, disreputable subcultures near my home, to break bonds of darkness through the raw, unmitigated gospel of repentance and Christ’s Kingdom rule.
So I went to places others feared to go, at the fringes of polite society …
Where those who are lost and know it live broken lives.
And like Jesus commands in Luke 10, I never brought a budget, a branded “ministry,” a title, an agenda or a program.
Instead, I learned to embrace, respect and honor – in their own communities – those who I encountered …
Because “love,” I have found, is such an overused word these days.
So I’d go – simply, just as I am – carrying an unadorned message of grace, forgiveness, repentance and redemption …
But in the authority of Christ’s name and the power of His Word.
It was enough:
Lives were changed …
Disciples made …
And simple, indigenous churches emerged – without building campaigns, ministry teams, sound equipment or marketing plans – in living rooms and coffee shops and other places where relationships otherwise naturally happen.
I’m not claiming total success each and every time I’d go.
Trust me, I made many mistakes. But by doing it, I learned, and despite my shortcomings God nonetheless brought forth amazing fruit and built His church more often than not.
As His Kingdom took root and local leaders emerged, I’d then stay in touch but otherwise recede back to my own local fellowship …
So others could come forth and express Christ in their own, wonderfully unique ways that reached their own communities.
It cost almost nothing:
I gave of my own labor and resources …
Rather than live off of, or peddle for donations, those God sent me to reach.
But this I learned:
Although Christ expresses Himself in different ways in different contexts, and He calls us each to different things …
His Kingdom is never about building our own kingdom.
Forgive us, Lord, for what we’ve done with your mercy and grace …
Because it’s not about us.
Godly unity isn’t about tolerating those who deny Biblical authority …
But calling them to repent of it.
Good stewards of God’s blessings don’t give a dime for the paradigm of “church” as we’ve come to know it …
But give instead as the New Testament actually shows it.
Where God rules …
There are no “selfie” churches.
We deny Biblical authority when we read post-Biblical traditions, meanings, and presumptions not actually found in Scripture back into Scripture.
This is especially true with our current concepts of:
“Church”
“Worship”
“Communion”
“Tithing”
“Pastor”
“Ministry”
“Leader”
“Submission”
“Covering”
“Preaching”
“Teaching”
The meanings we give those words today are not found in – and often are at odds with – the original language, meaning and context of the New Testament when written in the first century.
Let’s be like the New Testament Bereans and once again begin “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
Only then can we truly say we have begun to accept the plenary authority of Scripture over all traditions and opinions to the contrary …
Including our own.
Using others as pawns in the vision, mission or purpose God’s given you …
Never turns out well.
For you or for them.
Unfortunately, the biggest hindrance to church as the New Testament shows it …
Is church as we’ve come to know it.
Hollow existential ideologies distort Christ and His Word to appease prevailing sensibilities …
And lack actual spiritual power.
I really, truly do love the Church.
I just don’t like what typically masquerades these days as the Church.
“Church,” “pastor,” “preach,” “teach,” “tithe,” “worship” and “ministry:”
Although you keep using those terms …
I do not think they mean in the New Testament what you think they mean.
Yet you claim to follow the New Testament as God’s written word.
How can that be?
It seems their “apostolic worker” gigs ain’t been turning out so well, with failure after failure to sustain local organic church in their own lives, home towns and elsewhere …
So from the ashes of their prior mutual promotion networks like House2House …
Frank Viola, Milt Rodriquez, Jon Zens and their buddies announced today that they will seek to revive their itinerant ministries through a new marketing alliance called:
Higher
Existential
Revelation
Elevated and
Transformed
Into
Christ
In a joint statement issued April 1st, Frank Viola, Milt Rodriguez and John Zens explained:
“We hope this will allow us to extend our influence to even more organic, simple churches around the world, with similar results.”
New books, blogs and seminars to follow …
😉
Never underestimate the power of people – including Christians – to perceive and believe what they want to perceive and believe …
All evidence, logic and morality to the contrary.
Which is why God gave Scripture as His external standard of truth on those issues where He wants to hold us accountable …
To Himself and each other.
And why those who reject God’s plenary authority of Scripture as His written Word become stuck in existential quagmires …
From which healthy churches and healthy disciples never seem to emerge.
You will never experience viable organic, simple, participatory church …
If you fall prey to books, blogs and seminars promoting “how to” by those who “don’t do”.
Seriously, when it comes to “itinerant” authors like Frank Viola, Milt Rodriquez, Jon Zens and other self-styled “apostolic workers” who promote themselves as “church planters” …
You can’t learn to be the church from those who consistently fail to make it work in their own lives, home towns and elsewhere.
Break free of their extraneous existential agendas; their disdain for the plenary authority of Scripture; their cookie-cutter “deeper life” visions; their post-modern “beyond” ideologies; and their history of abuse, sexual predation, infidelity and cover up.
Because you’ll never learn to authentically be and do what we see in the New Testament …
Until you leave phony behind.
It’s easy to have simple church, community, mission and discipleship all figured out …
And tell others “how to” through books, blogs, seminars and online posts …
For those not distracted by actually doing it.
We need more people humbly living it and making it work in their own lives and home towns …
And fewer peddling it everywhere else instead.
Thinking the Great Commission says come find Christ in my new church …
Seldom produces real disciples or real community.
Go express Christ in existing community, however …
And real disciples and real church often happen.
In authentic church, there’s no single ministry or leader around whom everything is organized.
Instead, Scripture says that God bestows diverse gifts and callings among His people.
That’s why His mission for me should look very different than His mission for you …
And why there’s no mono-church in the New Testament.
Until we understand:
That the Gospel preached by Jesus is the good news of His Kingdom;
That “Christ” isn’t His last name but means “the anointed King“;
That “church” in the New Testament means the local representative assembly of His Kingdom in each community; and
That He never surrendered His authority in any sphere of life or culture …
Then we will not understand His command to make disciples of all who choose the blessings of His rule – including not just individuals, but also nations.
Plumbline Faith 