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, another conversation spurred some thoughts. It has to do with how our relationships with people is tied in with our relationship with God. Here’s my comment:

Our family is part of a regular gathering (aka, simple, organic, church gathering in a home) of 6-7 families, and over the years we are gradually growing in love, in vulnerability, in trust. It certainly hasn’t happened overnight. We’ve had to hack through some rough waters, offending people, bruising one another (hey, that’s not one of those “one-anothers” is it?!) – and I’ve been one of the biggest offenders. But this is life, eh? Early on we sensed the Lord say he was making love a primary focus – both his for us and the world around us, and his love growing in us for each other. And when we come together, sharing what he’s been up to in and through our lives is a focus, along with times of intimate worship of our King, and times of prayer and his gifts moving among us.

Over the years, what God has been doing in our relationships with him has been very connected with the growth of the relationships among the people. As love and safety grows, it’s like God says, “alright, that’s what I’ve been waiting for, now I’ve got some work to do in some folks here, and there’s gonna be some rough waters, but I’m going to use the environment I created with these relationships to do some amazing things.” And we learn to love people when they aren’t always lovely. And in time, everyone gets a go at being unlovely. And we see what God does through it, both in us, and through us, and we’re all amazed at God again, and find ourselves drawn to him afresh, with a greater faith in him rising up.

So the dynamics of good things among the relationships in the group is directly connected to coming into “more” in our relationship with God. For example, one thing I’m only vaguely coming to realize is that, as I be a mess in the group, people love me through it, I gain a sense of safety among my “hood”, I’m seeing a similar kind of safety in my relationship with God – the one who doesn’t want us to ever question his unending love. It’s beginning to put a fresh lens on “he who doesn’t love his brother stumbles around in the dark” – paraphrased from 1 Jn 2. I’m sure there’s much more to develop on this topic, so will be interested in other’s thoughts.

So, it’s my growing realization that the relationships among us are inextricably intertwined with our relationship with God, whether for better or for worse.

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!

I’d like to say a word of encouragement to those who are wanting to gather with others who are simply wanting to be the church that follows Jesus, but your thinking “I don’t know anyone doing that around here.” A dozen years ago we were in the same boat. We were going around to various venues – traditional church businesses, maybe a conference here and there, or home school groups, or BSF, or this or that – meeting people who, like us, were “on the journey” of leaving the church business, not knowing what to do, but wanting to just be the church that follows Jesus. And someone called a gathering, inviting everyone over to the house. And we talked about the journey. There’s so much to talk about, and swapping stories is invigorating. And then we prayed for each other, and went home. Simple. We liked it, and we sensed God pulling us in to him. Some time later we called another one, and by then there were a few different faces. We brought potluck, we talked, we prayed. One thing led to another and we said, “hey, how about we do this once a month?” So we did, and it was wonderful. Somehow we sensed that God was trying to reach us, drawing us in, and we wanted to respond to him. Much later, someone could play piano/guitar, so we shared a worship song together. Then someone said, “I’d really like to see you all more often, how about twice a month?” So we did. Next thing you know, a few years went by, and someone knew of some nice cabins by a river that could hold us, and there was a pool for the kids. So we went for three days, and it was wonderful. We’ve done that four years in a row now. Over the years we keep turning corners together, just letting one thing lead to another, and working out together what we sense the Lord doing among us. The Lord is teaching us so much about the priority of relationships with him and each other. Love and safety is growing among us. Next thing you know, God is using it as if to say, “okay, now that my presence is among you, you’re ready to face some things and ‘grow up’ together”. And we are. Somewhere along the way we realized lots of other people were doing this around the country/world, and they were calling it “simple church” or other names.

So my thought is, let’s just gather, 2 or 3, and touch the Lord together – figuring out whatever that looks like for you. Who cares how big/small it is; who cares if it seems as “established” as the church businesses we’ve all been a part of – that’s business-speak in our heads, not the simple, true, Kingdom of God speak. Somebody, someday, somehow has to simply start with inviting people over to talk, or whatever. One of our early memories is “show and tell” nights – it’s where you bring some object you have that’s got a story about you behind it, that helps people see a little bit about yourself that may not be obvious.

Not sure if others have this happen to them, but I find that all the years in church business can make you think things have to be so well thought out and organized and proper before it feels okay to just gather and be the church that follows Jesus. More business-speak in our heads, not the Spirit of God.

For me, one of the big blessings from leaving the church business model to something more simple is the increased ability to follow the Holy Spirit.  You could always go only so far with being true to God’s voice when you also have a business to run – a motive that cannot be forsaken, or the money won’t come in and the church business would no longer be viable.

There’s a lifestyle formed from living the church business way:  there’s a high focus on being productive.  So much of it is entrepreneurial, and of course, that energy prompts a lot of activity and productivity.  And a high percentage of it was about growing the business, not necessarily about being the church that follows Jesus.

In my view, I’m noticing this “activity lifestyle” is carried by many even into the more simple ways of being the church.  I catch it in myself often, and I’ve needed the church around me to help me see it.  Some people will be better at it than others, but you can begin to smell that flesh energy on yourself or others once your discernment can tell it apart from the flow of the Spirit of God.  For example, sometimes I find it’s an undercurrent of anxiousness to “get something going” so that we feel viable as an entity, we’re being meaningful as a church.  I see this as still that old flesh energy of needing to make the church business viable, even though we may not be doing the business anymore.  Remember how hard it was to have moments of silence in the church business?  How awful it was to have a few seconds where no one seemed to know what to do?  It’s like “dead air” moments on a radio station – which can mean disaster for keeping your audience.  “Oh no!  they’ll turn the channel!  they won’t come back!”  The anxiety was palpable at times.  That’s what it’s like when you’re running a business, because you must always keep in mind the need to fill the seats so the money comes in.

But for us, a key part of the journey to simple church is letting all that energy drain out of us – a journey of it’s own that can have many turns – and getting in touch with the natural flows of how the Spirit of God moves.  And especially how he works to shepherd a group of people – let’s say several families.  The amazing thing about it is, all those desires to truly follow the Spirit of God, no matter what the timing, can finally be explored!  You don’t have to stop singing after 3 songs.  You don’t have to do any special format at all.  You could spend the whole evening talking through something.  You could decide to just worship the Lord for 2 hours and then go home.  We and the Lord get to figure it out together what he’s doing and follow.  And each time we gather, he’s ever alive and doing things in us, and our gatherings are like a living “thing” that won’t look like any other time we’ve gathered.  It’s freedom, but with the freedom comes responsibility.  Now there’s no one telling you what to do – has it’s up sides and down sides, eh?  Of course, the up side far outweighs the down.  Now there’s no limit on where he can take us, because he gets to lead instead of “man”, which will always have limits.

There’s a lot of different ways to look at this, and different words to use that can be helpful.  I’ve only scratched the surface – so I’m hoping others will chime in with your thoughts on how you’ve come into more of “living by the Spirit” since you’ve been on the simple church journey.

Page

Several good web sites on simple church are popping up, and there’s interest in a forum for those of us in the Seattle / Puget Sound region. So I’ve just started one – let’s see how this goes. For those interested, you’ll find it at simplechurchseattle.com.

Page

I had a recent conversation and subsequent email exchange with a friend about having a “leaders” gathering for a couple days sometime in the coming months. The friend is someone I respect, someone who is like us and gathers regularly in a natural, simple way in homes. I’ve mocked up the email exchange a bit to remove unnecessary and personal detail, but kept it true to what transpired between us. I welcome your interaction on this:

Friend: Dear Page, I believe it’s God’s leading to gather “leaders” of the simple church concept in the area together to meet for a couple days. These would be people who demonstrate an “apostolic” gifting, with influence on more than one group in this geographical area. It would be to get better acquainted and come to a place where we can really love and trust one another. The gathering would be a time to get our hearts more together – fellowship, sharing, prayer, worship, etc.

I recognize that you and some others have emphasized wanting to expand the invite to a broader representation of those currently meeting in groups in the area, but after more thought and prayer, I still feel that the Lord has clearly said “leaders.” So my thought is that we start with a leaders meeting for a couple days, and then this would be followed by a couple days with the broader group of those actually meeting in groups now.

Please give it some thought and prayer and let me know your thoughts.

Page: Dear friend, I hope you wont take offense, but as you’ll see, I am not in favor of going forward with the ideas as proposed. This whole subject of “leaders” has been central to the the very intentional detoxing out of old wineskins, if you will, that we’ve been actively doing for many years now.

For your thoughts:

• How is your use of the title “leaders” any different from what the Lord said not to do in Matt 23:8+? He knew how our flesh loves to be stroked, and I would sugget that it’s impossible for people in such a gathering to NOT feel that flesh stroking sensation which comes from being included.
• Do you see any examples in scripture of the thinking and activity that you are suggesting?
• What would be the anticipated outcome of such a meeting of so-called “leaders”? Personally, as I consider any conceivable, desired, outcome of a broader group of the saints (mutual encouragement, building trust/rapport/relationship among the saints – the main tracks that God’s kingdom here on earth should be running on, clarity in hearing the Lord together, recognizing and fanning into flames that which the Lord is doing among us, the various ministries of the Holy Spirit to and through us, worshipping and ministering to the Lord because he is so worthy, gaining vision for what he is doing in the bigger picture than where we each live, on and on), all of them are better served, and consistent with the new wineskins God is bringing us into, if we gather the whole body.
• You have emphasized that the Lord has given you this guidance, and it would appear that this is at least part of the justification for why you’d like us to be agreeable. If you think this through, in it’s simplest form, that boils down to “I’ve heard from the Lord, so follow me in this” – which is from the old wineskin that the Lord is moving us out of, and which I know you don’t want to perpetuate. So I observe a mixed message.
• I believe that how the Lord leads our lives is part-and-parcel with his gifting in us and purposes for us. We’re not uninvolved, robotic obeyers, but are coming into the fulfillment of his purposes for us as we obey his promptings – it’s all one combined purpose. (I’m sure you’d agree with this) But we always see in part, and it’s designed that we be in the context of the body to know the whole story. Thus, we in our gathering over the years, are learning to come into God’s purposes for us – be they apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral, teaching, etc. – in the context of the loving, collaborative environment of the body of Christ. I believe that God is redefining how the whole concept of leadership is worked out among the church. Who’s leading this? He is. It’s hard not to fill pages with all the ways to say it, but what you’ve suggested – cherry picking a few people from the area to give them special place, pulling them out of the context of the body that knows them best, and suggesting that the kingdom of God is advanced among us this way – is inconsistent with what he’s been showing us.
• I would suggest a fluid understanding of how the Lord raises up his gifts among a group of saints to accomplish his purposes. Any available servant can exemplify any of the gifts, and if one won’t, then he’ll move on to another. And it’s usually several who are moving in an area of gifting, some perhaps more than others, at any given time. Also, the manifestation of the gifting will look different in each, and man may not always recognize it as such till eyes are opened. While some may always demonstrate certain strengths, I’ve observed that the gift mix demonstrated in people can change over time – either as greater healing and wholeness happens to us, or perhaps the Lord’s purposes in us individually and corporately takes new turns. For example, some people who never saw themselves as pioneers are becoming such out of necessity. As we all grow up together in the context of healthy body-life, our eyes are getting opened and people are constantly discovering new ways God wants to heal them, minister to them, mature them and use them for his purposes. New vision and passion is awakened, old promises and desires start to be fulfilled, impartations from the Lord happen among us – all this is the beautiful way the Holy Spirit grows us up together, giving us abundant lives, and accomplishing the work of his kingdom on earth. But this whole picture unravels when man attempts to take the helm by doing the humanly-natural things, such as calling out certain people over others, giving them special place and purpose (from man, not from God), and all those things that are critical for accomplishing earthly purposes (eg, worldly businesses and governments), but confuse matters greatly when mixed with the work of God’s kingdom. It’s my opinion that there is massive blindness among the church in this area, and much of it rooted in “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life.” But something like scales is falling from the collective eyes of the church, and we’re starting to see.
• Another word about gifts – there’s no indication that we have a complete list in the scriptures. There’s no two places where the same ones are listed, no attempt to bound that list, and Jesus clearly indicated that when he left earth and the Holy Spirit came he would take the church on into more of him. While some generalities can be made about what certain gifts look like, each person is a unique work of God, a mixture of various gifts, and constantly being matured into more of their calling. Thus, each person becomes a new definition of a “gift of God.” And it’s my sense that we’re in a time when it’s very helpful to the body if we actively seek removal of boundaries not ordained by God, which is that spirit of freedom that Jesus took everywhere he went, and seek him for the stirring up of all the gifts for the sake of his purposes. In the same way, let’s let go of the old and familiar where God has not clearly instructed us. I’m finding a fresh look at the life and times of the new testament church is quite revealing.

To sum it up, what you’ve proposed does not align well with the path that we, along with several other families in the area, have been on in recent years. In a previous “leaders” meeting that I participated in – while it was a delight to meet the folks – I couldn’t help feeling like we would come to know people better, and have a more meaningful time among us, if people were in the context of the body of Christ around them who know them.

In our gatherings here, we do not find ourselves using the term “leaders” or setting any gifted persons apart from others. We are finding we all grow into our callings as we do it together, in a setting of loving, supportive relationships. And as we consider next steps, the clearest seems to be reaching out more broadly to those around us and inviting all to come together for mutual encouragements, ministry of the Spirit, hearing the Lord together, prayer, worship, etc. – much like you have proposed, but all inclusive of the body.

For example, what about each area simply expanding to do local gatherings of the churches among those gathering near them? Reach out to all we can find in each of our respective areas. These could be done on a regular basis, and word will start to get out, and it could become a very meaningful venue. Include people who are seeking so that they may get connected with existing groups near them, have a place to talk about it all and ask questions, and get inspired to start their own groups. This seems like the kind of thing that would lead to expanding the kingdom right around us. Afterwards we could send around the good report of all that God did and revealed in the experience. As we do this in gradually larger groupings, the Lord will bring wisdom and maturity to know how best to do the larger areas.

Friend: Dear Page, thanks for your thoughts. Regarding the whole subject of “leaders” I don’t have any problem with not using that word, but I have never seen a group of people that in time did not have “leaders” – those with that gifting arise to the surface. The early church didn’t seem to have a problem with terms like “elders” and “apostles” – Acts 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23, etc. Perhaps we are over-reacting to our time in the institutional church.

I still believe strongly that those of apostolic influence in the area need to come together for some time to get better acquainted and become more accountable to one another. That is not to say what you or others might choose to be part of. In my heart I consider you free to follow the Lord – and I know you have the same thought toward us. And I am also open to some type of gathering of “representatives” of groups as we discussed. Or maybe by regions as you have mentioned – that actually sounds quite good to me.

Page: Dear Friend, I agree that we want all to be free to follow what they believe the Lord has called them to do. Only then is our hearing and obeying perfected. The balance is that we must always be free to share our thoughts among us collectively, with no silencing of true-heart voices. He gave the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to the collective “you” of the body – Eph 1:17. I see no problem here among us, which is great.

I think it would be revealing to look further into how and when elders in the NT played a role. I believe it’s nothing like what today’s religious systems do, and therefore what most of us likely have burned into our unspoken assumptions. Gene Edwards and Frank Viola have probably written on the subject, maybe you’ve read them. Either way, we need to let the Lord birth again the essence of what he wants to do in every age and location, and trust him to show us not just the “what to do” but “how to do it.” I’m sure you’d agree.

You’ve raised a few value points for a proposed “leaders” meeting such as getting acquainted, accountability, and growing to love and trust each other. In my response to this, I’m likely to read more into it than you meant, but it touches on something I think God’s finger is really on right now, and is very central to our story of detoxing from the traditional church ways.

It’s my view that real accountability is born out of trusting, honest relationships that only happen from investing significant time together where eventually all aspects of each other’s lives come to bear – family, work, spiritual matters, areas of personal growth, the good/bad/ugly, etc. Hopefully, everyone gets the opportunity in this life to have a group of people where this can happen. I would suggest that a once-in-awhile gathering of some people, picked because of a particular bent or gifting, will not breed this in any significance, and is not something I would even try to accomplish. Until we have more relationship maturity among us, my experience is that these times will often breed more “posing” than realness, even among the best of us. This is another one of those areas where I believe there’s massive blindness in the church. All too often we have spent ourselves – pouring enormous amounts of time, energy, resources – into trying to quickly “manufacture” a resemblance of a desired end, such as the experience of true community. But that which isn’t real is eventually brought into the light, and it crumbles to bits. Instead, we should have been paying the price to see the genuine article come to fruition by the Lord’s ways, in the Lord’s timing. The church has done herself and those around her a great disservice. What the world where we live desperately needs is a people who will take time to let real relationships happen under the shepherding leadership of Jesus Christ. We’re seeing it now, but it’s taking time, and it’s taking all the different gifts in all the different people working it out together. But God is not in a hurry.

What I believe God is after is seeing that true, relational maturity rise up among his followers. This is changing our lives, and it will change all aspects of how the church operates when we gather. Until this has good momentum on the smaller scale, group by group, I’m probably not going to have much energy for the larger gatherings where we come away feeling like we lost ground in this area instead of gained it. In our gathering here, it used to feel like we were a tiny blade of grass in this department, poking it’s head out of the ground, quite vulnerable to being crushed if someone was too reckless. Now it feels like we’re a stronger blade and there’s a couple others nearby (there’s probably a lot more than we know). In time, there will be tons of strong blades and you can play football on them. But I don’t care how long it takes, and I’m quite certain I’ll never see the fullness in my lifetime that I envision. But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that Jesus gets the bride he’s after, and that we each do our part. John 17:4 is a life verse for me. I’d rather let things take the right amount of time and let God grow the grass field rather than waste any more years in the “quick-fix” mentality and have nothing but a dirt lot to show for it at the end.

Friend: Dear Page, Thanks for your thoughts – you have certainly given these matters a lot of thought! I agree that there is a tendency to “hurry” relationships and do programs to produce results in the traditional church. And I agree that there are some things that God is after that take time – much time. And I agree that there are some things that only take place when one is “in community.” I have been in several such environments over the years.

But I do not see that this precludes the good that can come out of some of us getting together for a couple of days, which I believe God has place on my heart. We are really talking about two separate items.

One is a gathering of those (apostolic) who have influence with more than one group in the area – to get better acquainted, come to a place where we can more fully love and trust one another, and be more accountable to one another. (I believe that apostles need to be accountable to other apostles). This is the gathering that I believe God has placed on my heart.

The second is a gathering of house church groups or representatives of groups. I like the suggestion that this might best be done by each area. This is not what God has put on my heart but something you and others may want to follow up on.

Page: Dear Friend, I appreciate your tenacity . And while yes, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on these things, I do appreciate the opportunity to articulate the thoughts, which is forcing me to package them up in some way that makes sense to someone else – so thanks for that!

I’m going to differ with you regarding the downside of certain types of gatherings (and activity in general) that are too much of the old wineskin. As mentioned earlier, I do believe that we can actually lose ground this way instead of gain it.

To your last point, my response is to reiterate that people of apostolic gifting, like any other gifting, are best held accountable in the context of the whole body of Christ around them, who know them, and have developed the kinds of relationships where real accountability happens. And I’m unconvinced there’s good from pulling out a “VIP” crowd from the rest of the body. These “leaders meetings” are certainly an old phenomenon, but they just aren’t what we see God doing among us here, and I see mostly trouble in them until God brings more wisdom and revelation to how he’s perfecting his way of leadership among us.

I agree that there’s some kind of larger-area gathering that will happen among the body that will bring great encouragement, and I have longed for this too. But I’m not willing to forsake what we’ve gained at the smaller level, that I believe is critical for the broader body to get to where God is taking us. So I am compelled to stay the course.

Let’s keep the love and relationships going!

I’ve been thinking about relationships among the church. If you’ve been in a typical, institutional-type church (like most of us) for any length of time, you’ve probably had some relationships implode, self-destruct, blow up – pick your metaphor. My wife and I certainly have. And one of the things we came to see is that in these environments it’s easy to cast aside good wisdom on growing meaningful relationships in the spirit of doing a task together, seemingly for the Kingdom of God. The ironic thing I see now is that good relationships are the foundation to the Kingdom of God thriving on earth. This is yet another one of those places that the “church business” model has gotten us into trouble.

Here’s how it often goes: We get involved in a church and, going along with the flow, commit ourselves to various large & small group gatherings with perfect strangers, or maybe we know a couple people. Before long we’re signing up to help with various tasks to help the business grow. With the best intentions we are usually quick to put ourselves in very vulnerable situations relationally. There’s the sense that, “hey, we’re all part of the Family of God, right?” And true, openness, honesty, humility – these are core values in the Kingdom of God. We all naturally hunger for relationships that have these qualities. But this whole business is often going way too fast for the proper development of the relationship “container” where these things naturally happen. And sooner or later, either you don’t measure up to someone’s expectations, or someone else doesn’t seem to be the person you thought they were, and a relational crisis happens.

What usually follows is some mixture of fear, anger, blaming, desires for revenge, and many other intense emotions, and it becomes really difficult to sort out what really happened, why it happened, how to fix it, or if it even can be fixed. Depending on how far the vulnerability went, how long the charade had gone on, how relationally vested people were to those involved or the activities you mutually participated in, my observation is that most of the time, the relationships are not fixed.

I’ve been through situations like this a few times. When I finally got off the “church business” merry-go-round long enough to think and pray reflectively about all this, I realized that I was my primary problem. I chose to relate to people at levels far beyond where true trust and rapport had brought us. It was inappropriate for me to place such levels of trust in people so soon. Sure, 20+ years of active participation in growing churches and para-church movements had encouraged bad relational habits. But blaming others only prolongs the necessary steps of growth – I had to learn new habits.

The good news I found is that it really wasn’t that difficult to come into better relating habits as I have allowed God to take me through “detox” out of a church subculture, and the ways of church businesses, and into a simple, more natural, Spirit-led approach to following Jesus. For many years I had to deal with not having very many relationships at all among other followers of Christ because we didn’t have regular times to gather with them – this was when we were first getting started in simple gatherings with other followers. Truly, there were years of despair from the lack of meaningful relationships. But this, too, was formative in helping me detox from bad habits. Even as we started gathering more regularly with others, it took years to see people more than once or twice a month. Tough going relationally, but now I look back and realize God was shepherding me into new, healthier ways of forming long-lasting, meaningful relationships. It’s not so much that I’ve learned how to deal with “blow ups” better, but it’s now very rare that I even find myself in a situation where that can happen. We’re generally not getting ourselves committed beyond the true trust levels. I’ve still had times of unfortunate misunderstandings, and not every situation has come to the desired end. But I’ve come a long way on this path of healthier relating. I’ve been blessed to have special people around me who are either better at this than I, or have had their own years of relationship churn among the church, and God is shepherding them to new places as well, so the commitment levels to “go slow” are mutual.

I could summarize the lessons as:

• God is not in a hurry, and it’s best if we aren’t either. Go slow with relationships. Let the pace be natural, easy, peaceful. Pay attention to warning signs, where something feels inappropriate or rushed. I think one of the biggest factors contributing to relational crisis is going too fast in the initial trust-forming years. Don’t allow yourself to be coerced to go faster than what is right for you. When in doubt, wait.
• Let the relational risks you take be small at first, and appropriate to allow both you and the other to gain levels of confidence in each other. Don’t inappropriately invest yourself in a relationship beyond where the trust levels really are.
• Allow yourself to have a certain amount of thick skin. We all do and say things we regret later. And sometimes communication is presented and received such that the end result is nothing that either party intended. If the relationship is worth it to us, I think we’ll all have times where we’ll have to simply overlook the offense and move on, choosing to love the other person and forget the offense.
• Don’t pretend. Don’t pretend to be at a different level of trust, appreciation, rapport, etc. with someone than where you really are. Don’t pretend you feel fine about participating in a level of activity with people that you really don’t feel right about. Be completely honest with yourself. God leads us through our guts most of the time. Pay attention to your guts.
• When the void for relationships is strong in your life, and you’re doing all the things you know are right, I find the best thing to do with the loneliness is to let it drive you deeper into your relationship with God, who is always present. At the right time he will bring us meaningful relationships if we are steadfast and wise in our growth. By then our vision and understanding of right & wrong in this area will be all the more precise.

I’ve come to believe that doing well in this area of relationships is foundational to our quest to “be the church.”

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I’d like to say a little more on my thoughts on being a missionary today. It’s really tied up with how my wife and I see the bigger picture of spreading the kingdom of heaven throughout the earth. We don’t have every angle covered here – far from it. But it’s something we’ve recently been thinking over again.

If we felt God leading us to be in Vietnam, China, or any other country, I would assume that I would take up work there and we’d become like normal citizens and contributors back to the community where we lived, then let the Lord reveal himself through us living our lives right along side others in our domain. Our first inclination would be to do exactly what we’re doing right now, only in another country. We’re being the church, and continue growing into being the church, in every way he leads us. God has us here in the pacific northwest of USA, but we don’t have a different understanding of what it means to be the church for different places of the planet. I’ve written elsewhere on this blog some related thoughts on this topic.

A fundamental belief of mine is that people everywhere need to see what the loving Father in heaven is like, and they see it by interactions with us of many kinds, a primary one being watching is go through the same life they go through, yet consistently, day after month after year, there’s something different in our lives. It’s the kindness of God poured out on us, and since we’re living under the same life burdens as others, they see a gospel that they can embrace. It’s essentially the message of Jesus’ life, who humbled himself and became like us, was tempted in the same ways yet without sin, and seeing this we are further enabled to embrace his Father as our own.

As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” In my own words, God wants to dump his kindness on us, in front of others, to show everyone what kind of Father he really is, so they’ll want him too, and he’ll get the chance to have relationship with them.

Now, we realize many followers of Jesus have chosen to try living in other countries on a long-term basis with a different approach than finding gainful employment in a community there. This usually amounts to some form of raising financial support from the generosity of others who are employed, and thus is similar to the concept of “full-time Christian work.” We have dear friends that we love and respect who do this. We don’t have to all agree on this stuff to stay side by side in the Kingdom. But the way they are going about trying to live in the foreign country is not the first approach we would naturally take ourselves, and so it is not aligned with the natural flows of our faith and passion for being the church in our world today. It’s in these situations that we often find the best we can do to support them is simply pray that God make his way clear to them and bless their faith and obedience to him.