It’s hard for me to imagine that I could have walked with Jesus for over 50 years and not seen how badly I was missing the mark. Jesus was pretty clear in His last words to the disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, “(NIV) 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.“ I look back now and realize that I’ve been disobedient to this command to make disciples. Because making disciples means making disciples who make disciples who make disciples . . .
Organic Church? House Church?
Maybe 10 — 15 years ago I began wondering about the difficulty I was having with the way we “did church.” I read Neil Cole’s books on the house church movement, I read as many books as I could find on “organic church.” We visited a couple house churches and never quite found the right niche for us. This was also the time we were going back and forth to Africa and the Philippines. We spent ~4 months in SW Uganda in 2005, 2 weeks in Burkina Faso in 2007, ~4 months in South Sudan in 2009. Sherry was 4 months in the Philippines, and I was ~4 months in Bolivia in 2010, and then we were ~6 months in NE Uganda in 2011. After our return from Uganda in 2011, we settled back into “normal” life here in Huntington Beach.
they looked just like us
We were attending a local church that was made up mostly of people who looked and lived an awful lot just like us. Prior to our trips, we’d attended a church in Long Beach that was more diverse, but it was out of our community, and having experienced a significant amount of true community in Uganda, we longed for that here as well. Over the course of several years, I’d been involved in the local church’s men’s ministries and various discipleship endeavors. But it felt like something was missing. I couldn’t really point to but a handful of men who were continuing on in the faith and having an impact in their spheres of influence. Why?
I didn’t know what was missing until a friend from our Long Beach church called and asked me to meet with him to talk about a book he’d read called Acts and the Movement of God by Steve Addison. Then, he invited us to a house church called “Zeal.” The few house churches we’d visited were small and very informal. Walking into a home in Huntington Beach where Zeal was meeting blew our minds! There were somewhere around 50+ young people (almost all 20’s and early 30’s), all of whom were intentional and aggressive about sharing their faith and walking closely with Jesus! Most of our experience with the generations behind us regarding faith issues were at best apathetic and at worst agnostic or atheistic. This was a new thing . . . To see young men and women not just excited about, but thriving in their walks with Jesus, and committed to sharing that faith experience with everyone they could!
Who were these people? How did they find such joy and motivation to live out the Gospel like Addison talked about in his book? Check back for my next post . . .
Rick, I know we have had in depth discussions on this subject. I also believe the “church” is made up of people that look, talk, and think similar to us as you mentioned in your post. That’s because we as humans (and as Christians) want to be around people we can agree with and who share our same thoughts and opinions on life including politics, money, status, faith, etc.. We just don’t seem to want to be around those who think differently than us. I believe this is the reason why we now have sooo many
“Flavors” of churches today. It is truly a sad state of affairs. I was once very much this way because I hated confrontation with those in the church who thought differently from me. It has only been in the last few years that I have been able to be open and embrace those who think differently than myself. Not that I necessarily agree with them but I have been more open to try to understand why think differently about things than I do. Our opinions seem to always go back to our own personal experiences in life. Our pasts have always been our main influencers of how we think in life today.
I truly believe the church has steered off course from Jesus’s original plan. His plan for the church was very simple as you have stated above. I believe the Acts church was the way Jesus intended the church to be. I think the church became what is is today because when the house got too full, they found a bigger house to meet in and thus became more inward focused than outward focused. The question we need to ask is how do we reverse this trend that appears to be getting worse with every generation?
I’m sure you will speak into this (as you always do) with your next post 😁.
Thanks Rick for posting thought provoking topics about our faith…….
Amen, Steve! And yes, that’s the question. We’ll talk more . . .