I’ve been talking with friends again about the hurtful things many have experienced at traditional business-like church organizations. There’s many common themes to it, but perhaps most of them can be categorized as “violation of relationship.” By that I mean that people do things to one another that violate the way relationships are to operate among followers of Jesus. This causes hurt, sometimes deeply, depending on the nature of the violation.

But here’s what I’ve come to believe: it all makes sense when we realize that there’s much more going on in the traditional business-like church organization than being followers of Jesus. I’ve come to see these traditional churches as essentially religious businesses that try to promote the Kingdom of God among it’s members and the community it considers it’s domain. And indeed, there are many wonderful things happening at these places, and there would be a huge void if suddenly they did not exist. I spent over two decades of my life laboring with others to start and expand these religious businesses, and quite successfully in terms of the common measures used. Yet I’ve also walked away in tears from more than one, confused about how/why the relationship violations occurred with me ending up with the short end of the stick. And I’m pretty sure I was on the “relationship violator” end of things more times than I know.

As much as we fantasize otherwise, I believe most religious businesses are businesses first, and doers of God-stuff second, because “Job 1 is to remain a viable business.” There’s government requirements for 501(c)3 “not-for-profit” business (huh? of COURSE they’re making a profit! But that’s a different conversation…), such as roles of president, vp, secretary, treasurer, by-laws, board meetings, blah blah. There’s people depending on their financial livelihood at this business. There’s mortages and utilities to pay, sound equipment and sunday school supplies to purchase. But all this stuff is earthly domain, man’s business, and has nothing to do with being the church that follows Jesus. Most participants probably don’t think of it this way, and rather think of it as “Job 1 is to remain a viable presence of the church.” It was true for me, because like many, the religious business model is what I believed WAS the church that Jesus intended. I didn’t know any better. And within that business model, there are also people’s career identities at stake. Now those are some strong forces.

Clearly there is massive blindness about this, and most people at these religious businesses have good intentions, and have no idea that what they are doing is not what Jesus intended for his church. It was true of me as well. Wearing unintended blinders, we don’t even see the plain spoken truths about this in the bible. But for many in our day the blinders are coming off.

My main point in this post is to say that, as heartless as it may sound, I believe that its pointless to complain about these violations of relationships that happen at these religious businesses. There HAS to be a hiearchical leadership, that HAS to establish direction and boundaries for the business, and that HAS to exert authority over the “members.” This is how business works. Business is man’s domain; and man must lead it or it will fall apart. It’s the same with any business. If an employee does things that threaten the vision/plans/success of their employer’s business, no one is surprised when such a person is reprimanded, or even fired, right? It wouldn’t matter that they had friends who worked there. At the end of the day, the leadership has to do what’s right for the business or its viability will be threatened. And the kicker is, I believe that’s how God intended it. God put it in us to work (Genesis – Adam, the garden) and better our lives if we can (1Cor 7:21) and to enjoy the rewards of our labors (Eccl 5:18-20).

Mixing Kingdom-of-God intentions into earthly business is where it gets all messed up, especially if people start believing that God is the leader of it instead of man. Nope, God doesn’t take charge of our businesses. He gave Adam and Eve the charge of taking care of the garden, the earthly domain.

But when it comes to being the church that follows Jesus – now THAT’s where God is in charge, whether man acknowledges it or not, and where relationships are to operate much differently than they do at an earthly business. For example, Lording over is “illegal” in the church that follows Jesus (Matt 20:25-26), and calling people by special names that put them above others, like “father” or “pastor” or “reverend,” is against Jesus’ commands (Matt 23:8-10).

I’ve come to believe that if we are experiencing the common relationship violations that happen in religious businesses, we really have no one to blame but ourselves. Man’s vision and scope for a business will always be very small compared to God’s vision and scope for his church. So there will always be times when people have grown into as much of God’s kingdom as a particular religious business can support, and to get beyond that the people will be drawn into things outside the scope of where the leadership is comfortable, or able to lead. If the leadership feel that the business or their authority (which again, the business needs) is at risk by the actions of certain people, they will have to do things to resolve this conflict, and proper human relating as God intended among his followers will suffer, because that is not the priority in the business context. We should not expect otherwise.

For those who find themselves in that situation, the good news is that God is taking many into a new journey of being and finding the church that wants to follow Jesus alone, and that wants no part of mixing it with the business aspirations of man.

I love this verse from Hosea 6:3:
“So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.”

<Note: this is a continuation of the thought/email mentioned in this post from a few days ago.>

I love Psalm 122.  It’s one that I put to music many years ago and I love to sing it still. 

It’s clear from Genesis to Revelation that God’s passion is for his bride, the new Jerusalem mentioned in the book of Revelation.  Every time I pray for peace among the bride of Christ, I’m praying for the peace of this Jerusalem.  Every labor I put into bringing about the peace he desires for his bride, I’m laboring for the peace of this Jerusalem.  This kind of activity has been a primary focus of my life for about 35 years.

Jesus made it clear that it’s never been about the physical descendants of Abraham, which are an earthly body of people.  The children of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob were all about his plan for bringing salvation to the entire human race, his highest creation, the descendants of Adam and Eve.  Jesus was about his bride, which is a spiritual or heavenly body.  Placing one section of humans on a pedestal above others is sinful, like idolatry.  And I say we should beware the blindness that thinks the current, earthly nation of Israel “can do no wrong.”  That group of people is made up of the same “stuff” that every other group on earth are made up of – human beings with a sinful nature that need Jesus.

There is certainly lots of injustice done in the world, by every nation, against every nation, including lots done against Jews.  I am not attempting to make any comment on what to do about the conundrum of strife in the Middle East.  My point in this conversation is to say that I do not accept that the current, earthly nation of Israel, and the earthly city of Jerusalem, is the same “Israel” and “Jerusalem” spoken of prophetically in scripture, which I believe is focused on the spiritual bride of Christ.

Thus, I do not see David’s prayer in Psalm 122, ”may they prosper who love you <Jerusalem>” (NAS) as involving any kind of promise from God that he will prosper those who love the current, earthly nation of Israel.  This also means that I am not confident that the forming of the earthly nation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophesy or in any way connected to the promises of Christ’s return.  I am not aware of any place in scripture where we are encouraged to go about trying to fulfill prophecy, but I see this in some of the thinking of the church, especially with regard to ”end times” and the current, earthly nation of Israel.  Jesus specifically taught against such thinking in Acts 1 when the disciples wanted to see him restore the nation of Israel even then, and he essentially said, “it’s not for you to know these things” and he focused them on following the lead of the Holy Spirit.  In my humble view, this is where we as his church need to keep our focus still.

On this journey of gathering simply, with the single desire of following Jesus, I’ve been thinking about what it’s looking like to see it expand out to others.  Most of us know the “religious business” model for doing this, where there’s buildings, leadership structure, financial basis, etc.  There are clear boundaries of scope and reach, even if there are many such religious businesses in close proximity.  That model of church life has the ever-present mix of kingdom of God desires with earthly business necessities, so you’re never in the dark about which religious business is sponsoring activities, having both Kingdom of God and earthly, religious business growth hopes.

It’s the focus on “how many” – how many people attend your church, how many church groups are gathering in an area, how many churches have you helped plant, how many groups has your house church spun off.  I had a couple decades of active involvement in so-called “church planting” — on college campuses, in growing small groups within a larger religious business, in starting new religious businesses from the ground up.  It’s amazing how I took for granted this thing of counting church groups, as if that’s what God was doing too.

Over the last 10 years our family has been gathering with several others in the Seattle area.  I can’t tell you a single multiplication event that has happened among us in the vein as described above.  Every now and then I would meet someone who would ask about it, with the obvious hint that, “shouldn’t you have planted other churches from yours by now?”  All I could say was, “well, that just doesn’t appear to be what God is doing among us.”  When someone asks the standard “how many” questions from the religious business backdrop,  “how many people do you meet with?” “how many times a month do you meet?” – my answer sounds something like:

“Let’s see, a couple times a month we get together at our house on Saturday nights.  A couple times a month a few of us guys get together at a local brew pub, and then head over to Don’s house afterwards for more talk and prayer.  A couple times a month some of us – and other folks from other circles – get together at the Doty’s house and dig into the bible together.  Roughly monthly some folks may get together at the Butz home for worship.  Oh yes, and sometimes at the end of the month a few of us get together on a Sunday morning.  Now and then groups of women in the area – beyond those we would see at the other gatherings – do things together. Some are homeschooling moms and get together with others from the co-ops and resource centers for events with the kids.  Some are involved with groups that help the poor in our city.  Some are committed to the regular activity of building homes for the poor in Mexico, which they do with larger extended groups of people across the country.  Some are getting connected online and meet up occasionally with an ever-growing network of families in the area that gather in homes and are helping people find or start simple church gatherings like ours.”

It’s a messy answer, and it’s just getting messier.  It’s getting harder and harder to force some kind of boundary around the various gatherings.  It’s a meshed network of relationships that defies clarity.  Sure, some basic patterns have formed – people that you go deeper with on a regular basis.  But then the patterns are also in a gentle state of constant flux as new relationships form.  It seems to happen in waves.  You can’t get your arms around it.  You can’t count “how many.”  Is that a problem?  Not as long as you don’t need to answer the quantitative questions.  And the good news is, I have yet to sense God asking those questions.  I’ve only heard them from man.

I’ve often realized that what I know most about what God is doing comes from looking in the rear-view mirror – at what he’s done.  In our experience, God is not focusing us on the rapid multiplication of small groups of people gathering in homes.  And I don’t see the New Testament church having that focus either.  There’s the realm of what God sovereignly does, and there’s the realm of what he calls us to do.  In my view, a regular error in the church is us trying to take charge of his realm.  God gave Adam the job of “taking care of business” in the garden, and of course, that still happens in the work environments today, as it should.  But when we do this with church life, my experience is we turn it all into a religious business, and there you are right back in the muck we left, eh?

The specifics of what God IS focusing us on is in constant flux, but in general, he seems to be about bringing us into a loving relationship with him, into the community of believers, and together growing us in faith, in hearing his voice, and following his lead in every aspect of our lives.  Of course, that means that we find ways to gather regularly with other followers of Jesus.

So my point is that there’s this matter of keeping the emphasis on the things he’s emphasizing.  I accept that each person and group of followers have to decide what that looks like for themselves.  But I plead, “beware the yeast of church growth energy (entrepreneurial-ism).”  I’ve lived it first hand, and know what it does to your heart, and I’m watching with sadness as it is sweeping up many of the “simple church” gang these days.  If we find ourselves off in the weeds of flesh effort, hardly knowing the Lord’s voice anymore, we can always take time to pause and check in.  His arms of grace will always receive us.

I love this verse from John 3: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (that’s us!)

Blessings,

Page

Some additional thoughts along the same vein as “entrepreneurial energy” after seeing books coming out from the simple church crowd about getting churches to multiply faster with the small, “micro-church” model:

The foundational idea of the multiplication drive, to grow the kingdom of God quickly, is flawed and dangerous. It quickly puts you right back into the seat of today’s traditional church model, and living a script for which there is “no Holy Spirit required” where it becomes all about what man or woman has the clever ideas to carry the day. This church growth energy is not seen cultivated among the new testament followers. There is no scriptural support for thinking that faith in Christ “should be” happening in people at any particular pace, fast or slow. But it’s what the Holy Spirit empowers for any particular time, place, people. It’s not so much that we’ve come to a wrong answer here, but rather a case of asking the wrong question. For example, can you imagine Peter or Paul saying, “how can we get these church groups multiplying faster?” But in the NT we see Christ himself initiating, leading his followers moment by moment. Too often today we are still thinking we need to scheme on how to do his work – watch out that we don’t find ourselves beginning in the Spirit and trying to finish in the flesh. There is great danger in the simple church ranks in seeing all that is happening as a “green field” of opportunity to run with human cleverness among ranks used to working with it. When we dig down to the root of that drive, I have found it to be the flesh, not the Lord. We must be wise today so as to truly find and hold the path of the Spirit-led life, dependent upon his moment by moment leading, and not fall into the scripted paths of man’s wisdom.

With all the “re-thinking” that God is stirring up in the church today, it presents an incredible opportunity, for all who will see it, to abandon the cleverness of man (do we really think we’re expediting the work of God?) and put a renewed priority on hearing and obeying him alone. Apart from him we can do nothing, right? Let’s test the spirit behind the behavior patterns we so easily fall into, and find out what will happen if together, as his bride, we learn anew how to follow the voice of Jesus. Even though we start with baby steps. Even if it takes years to unlearn/relearn. Even though we don’t see the immediate results we’ve come to expect in our fast-food, microwave, instant-gratification oriented society. The alternative is that we keep bumbling down the road of flesh effort, never progressing to the spiritual maturity he desires. We don’t find out how he squares up our obedience till the final chapter.

(My thanks to Chuck for his help fine tuning this post)

Hanging out with some brothers this week, we came across this portion of scripture in 1 John:

“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

It’s in the middle of a discussion about loving each other in real, tangible ways, such as helping one another in times of need. Pretty relevant today, eh?

But there is definitely an intent here of protecting our sense of freedom and rest in God’s presence. I love the way John validates the reality that there are times in this life when our hearts condemn us. And he is telling us that in those times we need to tell our hearts the truth; tell our hearts to be at ease, at rest, if we know we are his.

And then there’s this line, “For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

What an awesome thought. And how meaningful that John would be saying to us, “Hey, there are times when our hearts are going to lie to us, and try to get us under a pile of condemnation. In those times, dial up to your awareness how God is moving on you to actively live out your love for others, and that this shows you are his. And remember, God is bigger than that part of you that is making you feel condemned right now.”

Other parts of the bible come to mind, like, “speak the truth in love” – and how we need to speak it to ourselves sometimes. And “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ” – so if you’re sensing condemnation, and you’re one of his, then you know the source of that condemnation isn’t him.

I keep coming back to “God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” That’s really an amazing truth. There’s so many things we can struggle with on the inside, and our hearts can really sound convincing sometimes! How freeing it is to know that he’s just so much bigger than all that. He’s above all those things that we feel condemned over; isn’t phased in the least. Didn’t even give them a glance. That stuff isn’t coming from him, and he doesn’t agree with it. And he’s always right.

Nice to know.

Once again, I appreciate the honest blog post here about being stripped of all things churchianity – the Christian subculture – and rediscovering an honest relationship with God, and letting him lead us himself. It has spurred more thoughts of my/our own trek that I’d like to share.

I want to talk more about relationships among people and God. This has been a recurring theme with my wife and I, and I believe this topic is common to anyone truly on the detox journey out of the church business ways to something real. After 20+ years in the church business way of doing relationships, my wife and I came to the hard realization that we didn’t really know how to do them well, and that we had allowed others to do our thinking. It wasn’t good enough anymore to know someone who knew God (or thought they did). God wanted us himself – the thrill of a lifetime!

We didn’t know how to take time with relationships – the years it really takes. Taking time to gradually go deeper rather than rush in head long. And how to recognize good indicators that the risk was going to be a good one, and be in touch with the desires of our own hearts. Did I want this relationship? Was there truly a sense in me that God was doing something in it? David prayed like his desires and God’s desires were one and the same. There was once a season I prayed each day, “Lord, help me feel today.” It seemed like I had spent all my life dialed in to what others indicated was the “right” thing to think and feel, that I had very little idea what God was really saying me, now that I was coming to know he speaks to us mostly through our own guts.

We didn’t know how to have honest, meaningful conflict resolution. Where you say the hard stuff without shredding the other person (though you wanted to). And they get to say the needful things, and maybe you actually come to new understandings together over time. Or maybe not, even after many years. But you don’t violate yourself in this process, yet be as generous as you can toward the other person’s prosperity. So many relationships in the church are based out of a man-made hierarchy positioning, which Jesus banned from the body of Christ. Thus, boundaries were mowed over so much that we had no concept of where they even used to be.

We had very little idea how to be peers, egalitarian, co-heirs in Christ with others in the body. How to truly live like the playing field is level, and only Christ is above the rest.

We didn’t know how to live like the imaginary relational boundaries we had around church businesses were just that – imaginary. To think that we actually lopped off relationships when people left our “church” (business), and felt nothing for it. Ludicrous! Same thing goes for the imaginary relational boundary between the man-made church subculture and those not yet among his followers. What? You can actually have FRIENDS that aren’t saved?! And even allow yourself to learn things from them that Jesus-followers are supposed to own the corner market on – such as grace, generosity, integrity?! Oh yes.

Indeed, this epidemic of relational violations is the primary driver for us getting off the church business merry-go-round to rethink all things church, which led to rethinking all things Christianity. A frightening, yet invigorating journey! I think a serious detox from the church business way brings you face-to-face with the horrendous handling of relationships there. In the end, I came to believe that, as an adult, I had no one to blame by myself. I mean, what was I thinking doing these things? But that’s the point, I wasn’t thinking. Hardly anyone in my Christian circles was. I guess we just didn’t suspect the violations there, but it was the same for the Lord and his first followers. We’ve had to essentially learn from scratch how to do relationships with God and people.

I would say we’re seeing two things these days: one is that as we’re learning, in the midst of safe, “go-slow” relationships with 5-7 other families, how to do healthy boundaries with relationships, we’re finding new boldness to be appropriately vulnerable again. The other thing, of course, is we’re sensing the Lord leading us to take more risks, gently nudging us beyond our comfort zones. It’s like so much of the kingdom of God revolves around relationships, so pressing in to them appears to be important to him.

I’m doing ice skating lessons with my daughters (5 & 7). I never had a lesson before, had no clue what I was doing, and it showed. So I’ve been avoiding ice skating all my life. My wife, however, is pretty good at it and takes our girls now and then. Lessons came available nearby, so it was my chance to have Father-daughter time and try to eliminate some embarrassment on the ice so I could skate with the family. About the 2nd or 3rd lesson they taught us how to stop. It’s kinda like a snow-plow action, and with some practice, it works! The unexpected result was that I was finally bold enough to risk some skating moves because I knew I could bring myself to a stop without having to fall down or slam myself into the boards. I see a correlation to doing just about anyting in life, including relationships.

I read a nice blog post here about how God’s accepting love of us, over time, brings us to trust him with more and more of our hearts. As I read it, it inspired thoughts that I commented there, but wanted to post here as well.

I see a correlation in that story to what God is revealing to us among human relations as well. Or better said, among the mix of Jesus and his followers.

For the first few years of our gathering, with about 5-6 families, we were still fresh from the church-business model, and I think we carried some of that habit of trying to prod others to do the things we thought a group of Jesus followers should be doing. You know, the “shoulds” and “ought-tos”. We’re so good at directing this business, with all our strategies and methods, with “No Holy Spirit Required.”

Gradually, that kind of stuff seems to be dropping off, and in recent years, without consciously intending it, but now realizing in reflection, we’re seeing that we’re mostly just “being” together, with our loving Father, accepting each other where they are the best we can, screw-ups and all. Not that it’s always a piece of cake, and certainly not perfectly done. But what else can we do? Where else can we go? We’re ruined from going back to anything, so all we can do is press onward. It’s like we realize how much we appreciate and need this life-together-with-each-other-and-Jesus.

God is getting his way with us, and safety is growing. And an interesting thing is happening to nearly every one of us over the last year: God is bringing us to the growth points he wants for us, right in front of each other, where it can’t be hidden. Messy sometimes. But I think we’re starting to “get” what some of his design is for his followers – as we keep gathering in Jesus, year over year, we can become a host to his healing presence and power, and he shepherds the growth and change all on his own, with “No Human Intervention Required.” It might be early to say, but it would seem that “scrapes and scabs, that were all over his body, are disappearing” (a quote from the above referenced blog post).

Thank you, dear God. May you raise up small, simple gatherings of your followers everywhere, and would you fill them with hunger for your presence, that we might become houses of refuge in the midst of these stormy days.

As I’ve mingled among fellow followers of Jesus who are getting detoxed and unplugged from the ways of church business, there’s the ongoing issue that we are still carrying in our bones a lot of the church business ways. I certainly have my own stuff to deal with.

Let’s not over-think this. We don’t have to have it all figured out. In fact, we don’t have to have ANYthing figured out. Jesus called us to follow him, right? The key for me becomes getting as good as I can at day-by-day, year-over-year, following Jesus. Having “eyes to see” and “ears to hear” what he is doing. In many ways, if you haven’t had years of church business, the art of following him in this may be much easier for you.

Clearly this life of following Jesus is not a solo act, but we’re part of a body, family, army – pick your metaphor. So together, in some local, collective fashion, we figure out how to follow his lead. If you’re by yourself, it’s just the natural thing as fellow human sojourners on the earth to find others who want to go the same direction and walk togther. Simple. Who cares what it looks like, where you do it, who you go with, what you do together, etc. etc. It’s about simply following Jesus together, right? I believe there’s a ton of freedom here, we just need to ask him what he’s doing, and follow. One of the challenging things about striking out in something new is allowing yourself to even entertain an unfamiliar thought or idea.

I propose we, as his bride, do the 1-step dance with Jesus. Especially if you’ve had a lot of history in church businesses, if you’re thinking more than just the next step, I bet you anything you’re already over-thinking it – meaning you’ve gone past what he’s really saying. And if you feel all that entrepreneurial energy surging within, “hey! we can do this! we have the technology! the harvest is ripe!!” – whoa, steady cobra. I recommend caution, hard-hat required. Things might start falling down all around you. All too often we go down those same old paths of crankin’ out church like we crank out American business – and we don’t even realize it. Especially if we think about it mostly by ourselves (“sole proprietorship”, “start your own business”) in our own world of thought, instead of out in the open with trusted relationships of the body of Christ in our world (but someone might steal my idea!).

Let’s do the 1-step: just get together with others in the body, and take 1 step together. Gather, have a meal, go home. Then do it again, and take it 1-step more – together. Talk about it, let your ideals melt into something that becomes everyone’s – and no “ones”. Meaning no “one” can say “look what I thought up”, because it has a little bit of everyone’s thinking in it, and it becomes clear that Jesus is Shepherding it. And then you don’t care so much if you need to chuck some or all of it, and redo. If you’re like us (really, we’re pretty normal!) you’ll probably end up in a WAY different place than if you rushed in headlong. And you won’t birth another Ishmael – you know, man’s idea, that causes a lot of grief, and that lives on right along with God’s idea, that will indeed come to pass. And if you go slow, as a group, our experience is that you have a much higher likelihood of ending up where he’s in charge and you are not carrying the burden to keep things going under your own flesh steam. Which is where we really want to be, right? So in a very real sense, this way is much quicker. The fast-track, don’t-go-together, don’t-wait-on-God ways seem exciting for awhile, and lots of cool stuff seems to be happening…but then there’s the carnage, the fallout, and all the stuff that has to get unraveled, and relearned. Again. Yuck.

Here’ s the 1-step program in Isaiah 42:

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”

I believe blindness describes what most of us in the church are really dealing with today, even though there are things we are starting to see. And unfamiliar describes our path, even though much of it feels like we’ve “come home.” It’s not the home we’ve known, and it doesn’t always seem intuitive how to live there. The emphasis I like in this scripture is that God is the one doing all the work, and he’s putting the focus on lighting up the path “before them” – just the next step.

I definitely see that God, by his Spirit, is leading many to think his thoughts, to have dreams and visions of what he’s doing, and to follow his lead. The deal, of course, is turning away from the flesh and following after the Spirit. May we be strong, courageous, and wise!

I’m cleaning up a personal web site where I had the following story posted from April, 2003. I wanted to keep it as a reminder for myself, so I’m re-posting here. This was from the earlier years of our journey in rethinking what it means to simply, truly, follow Jesus, and I apologize up front for sounding a little “know it all” – ha! It’s kinda like the 17-yr-old who thinks he knows so much (naw, I didn’t do that! ), and then he gets into his 20′s and realizes he’s not so smart. This post runs along similar themes as others, but I’m coming to believe the encouragement to “just gather” is worthy:

Christine and I are rediscovering the beauty, challenge, and adventure of being part of God’s church. We gather with friends in homes. We worship God, pray to him with others, and see his power change us. The words of the bible are read with fresh simplicity. We are finding ourselves walking through this life with newfound intimacy and dependency on God, ever growing, week after month after year. And we are learning the patient art of building loving, trusting relationships with others.

If you find yourself longing for these things, I encourage you to begin gathering with people and doing them. I have come to believe that if we are not experiencing the allusive sense of “community” with others, it may be that we have only ourselves to blame. All too often we willingly sign up to spend countless hours, energy and resources on activities that are not taking us where our hearts have been leading us. And many times as believers in Jesus we give incredibly to building church businesses, only to find that the really important things (above) are missing from our lives. I spent about 20 years doing it myself (starting ministries, churches, small groups, etc.) before finally stepping off the merry-go-round long enough to seek answers to the deeper longings in my heart. God is doing many great and wonderful things through church businesses, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is his endorsement of that model for gathering with other believers. He’ll use us imperfect humans any and every way he can, and there is no mandated model for gathering with believers in the New Testament. When you start taking an objective look at the popular church business approach, you’ll find it quite difficult to support much of any of it from scripture. And worse, many parts of the generic design are working against the essence of what God’s church is all about.

For the last several years my wife and I have been seeking God’s direction in this, and seeking out others with the same passion. We discovered something that we weren’t prepared for: God is quite free with encouragement on the topic, and the people are everywhere! We gather locally several times a month with them, and we even “gather” periodically with remote friends through planned phone calls who are also on this incredible journey of rediscovering the meaning of being the church as opposed to going to church. It didn’t happen over night, and in fact has taken several years to get to this point.

If you are at all inclined, I hope you begin such a journey. Or maybe you just need to get back to it. Either way, I’m convinced you’ll never be the same – for good! If you’ve spent a lot of years involved in the common church businesses of today, and you have many friends there, be prepared for a bit of a wild ride for the first few years. It can be downright frightening to seriously re-evaluate something you’ve held dear for so long, especially when it comes to the things of God. Our fellow believers will not always be kind, so you’ll have lots of opportunities to practice forgiveness. But press through till you get back to the core basics of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and part of the family of God. And you’ll see what I’m talking about – that God is putting this on the hearts of many. I won’t say it’s for everyone. In fact, if you have no inclination for this, and you feel God has put you in the midst of the life and times of a particular church business, then may you continue to prosper there in all that God has for you. But for the others, join us in going back to our bibles and taking a fresh look at the life experienced by the New Testament church – and seek it with all your heart! The rewards are deep and lasting – like coming home.

At first it can be tough to find resources on this, but they are there. We’re interested to know how others are finding success in this journey, such as:

• how church gatherings and structure are becoming simpler and more true to the message of the gospel
• how the emphasis on good relationships is being lived out
• how leadership hierarchies are being stripped away to reflect a truer image of the church as Jesus and the first church modeled it
• how the trappings of church businesses (buildings, equipment, payrolls, formalities, traditions, by-laws and non-profit requirements, fund raisers, over-busy evenings and weekends – all the stuff that has everything to do with growing a business, but nothing to do with being the church) are being avoided
• how believers are experiencing worship, prayer, bible study, the power and gifts of his Spirit – in “new” models of simple structure with freedom (new to many of us, but not new under the sun)
• how believers are getting freed up from a so-called Christian sub-culture and integrating more in the lives of those outside the church

In the grand scheme of things, we’re on the early stages of our understanding, but are very encouraged to press on as God keeps disclosing more. And when God brings you new life in some aspect of this journey (expect it often) – share it with us!

Blessings on you,
Page Hamilton

Over in facebook I saw the question: “What advice to you offer for starting a simple church movement from scratch?”

I responded there, but wanted to post it here as well:

I say, “beware the yeast of church growth ambitions.” It’s a slippery slope from those passions to the “can do” business structures we are so good at constructing in our sleep, and there we are again – a very twisted mess of business and church together. I don’t see the NT church talking about church growth, multiplication, etc. like we hear so much in our circles, but rather the focus is hearing and obeying the voice of the Lord. And the simple church crowd I’ve seen is no different here. In fact, to many it feels like a “green field” and it stirs our business entrepreneurial energies like nobody’s business. We need good discernment here regarding the flesh vs. the Spirit of God. After so many centuries at building all shapes and types of church businesses, I believe we can’t help but have significant blindness here, but God is helping us.

Our business growth abilities are wonderful and God given (Eccl 5), but I believe should largely be kept in the realms of earthly doings. Sure, I think the Lord can use our abilities, but I find in my own journey that they need to be completely slaughtered sacrificially at the alter, surrendered to the Lord, and left to die when it comes to application to his church. And then be very careful if/when to apply them to church life ever again. As I’ve observed the simple church crowd that I too am a part of, I see those same energies getting stirred in such a way that the “church business” approaches are simply being repackaged in new structures – but will nodoubt result in the same undesired end. Good, mature relationships among the church around you, who know you and the Lord, are an important “check” for us. It’s being incredibly valuable for us to move as a church body, rather than an individual, in this department.

Jesus only did what he saw his father doing. How much more do we need to “see” and know what he’s doing in our midst, and simply follow. We don’t need to have a master plan. He’s already got one!