exploding church
In Megashift, Rutz reports on the significant increase of reported resurrections over the past 20 years. He has collated reports of hundreds of occurrences from 52 countries. Here’s just one;



Arjun Dass,
New Delhi, India
Dead at age five: Arjun Dass of Delhi, India, was electrocuted in April, 2001. A team of five led by Savitri prayed for him, and God resurrected him ten hours after his death.
Full Story!

In 1960 there were 24 nonbelievers for every believer in the world. Now there are only 6.

In 1960, even the strongest part of the church was growing as slowly as the rest of the world. Now we’re growing almost seven times as fast.

Around the world the family of Jesus is growing at a phenomenal rate.

In the West we still think that we are basically “it”, and that because our churches are declining the whole world must be in decline. Wrong. We are the odd ones out.

But that is changing.

posted by alexander @ 4:57 PM    0 comments

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core apostolics

It's easy to become so focused on what is happening close to home that one misses the bigger picture of what God is doing. To better grasp what God is wanting to do here we need to lift our line of vision and look at the nations. There are some truly astounding things happening around the world in our day; each is a sign of what God longs to do here in the West, if we'll allow Him.
With this in mind then I am going to begin a series of posts recounting some of the facts, figures and stories from around the world.

'Core Apostolics' is a term coined by Jim Rutz (see Megashift on the books page). Included within this group is a powerful mix of Charismatics, Pentecostals and Evangelicals whose main distinction is that they are in expanding, connected, easily countable networks.

Before the mid-1980s Christians were growing about 2% per year. For large parts of Christendom that reamains the case. However among Core Apostolics the growth rate is a remarkable 8% a year. There are now more than 707 million within this grouping.

Numbers of course can be employed to suggest anything and Rutz humourously points out that at the present growth rate there would be more Christians than people by the autumn of 2032!

Joking apart what these figures make clear is that something very significant is happening around the world right now.

Up until 1960 Western Evangelicals outnumbered non-Western Evangelicals by two to one. As of 2000 non-Westerners had shot ahead by four to one. By 2010 it will be seven to one!

This is our world, today.

Sent from my XDA2.

posted by alexander @ 4:03 PM    0 comments

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what do you reckon?
How many people do you think are now gathering in small/organic/home/simple type settings here in the UK? I heard someone recently (I'm checking up on this before I say who) saying there could be around 45,000.

I'm currently attempting to make some guestimates based on what I have discovered in a number of towns and cities across the country. So far I am working on a low estimate of 10,000 people and a high estimate of 100,000. With apparently over a million believers now outside the existing church structures this represents just 10% of those.

What do you reckon? Any suggestions welcomed.

posted by alexander @ 4:55 PM    2 comments

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I'm playing around with those figures; I know you can make them say anything, but this is interesting:
Lets say that just 5% of the 1 million who have left the existing church structures are now meeting in small organic groups; so there are 50,000 meeting in 3,333 'churches' (average of 15 per church); then say that just 5% of those churches (166) carried within them the DNA for multiplication. What would that look like after 10 years if each church only multiplied itself just once a year? There would be almost 85,000 churches with more than 1.2 million people involved!!

By  alexander, at 5:14 PM  

It was Alan Hirsch who used the 45,000 number. Where did he get it from? A mutual friend. Where did the mutual friend get it from? Me! Now that's scary!

By  alexander, at 8:37 AM  

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Baptist church planting
Met yesterday with Derek Allan head of the Baptists department for research and training in mission. Encouraged to hear the level of commitment to church planting throughout the denomination. Head office don't get to hear about every new intiative as not everyone asks for help along the way but their estimate is that over 90 new churches have been started in the last 15 years. Among these have been a number of Afro-Caribbean congregations one of which has now grown to 2000 members. Somewhat more discouraging is the fact that about 80 churches have been closed in the same period.

posted by alexander @ 9:51 AM    0 comments

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church after christendom
Have added one or two more books to the Books page.

A meatier read than some may be used to but Stuart Murrays "Church after Christendom" is worth a read. Not everyone goes along with his historical interpretation of Christendom and the negative effect it has had on the existing church but some of the questions he wrestles with about what sort of church may emerge or evolve in this very new world we live in are vital.


He identifies churches that people feel are worth joining as those which:

- Cultivate an earthed spirituality
- Nuture authentic friendships & healthy community
- Hold deep convictions but unfazed by questions & doubts
- Open edged & engage with surrounding culture
- Stimulate faith development at every stage

He makes a strong case for co-operation, conversation and mutual accountability between the existing and emerging church.

He is emphatic about the need for existing churches and training institutions to undergo a fundamental re-orientation in order to become missional, resulting in a whole new mindset and systems story (paradigm).

He ends the book with a call for a simple and sustainable pattern of church.

posted by alexander @ 2:30 PM    0 comments

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incarnational versus attractional
Hamo (with 1 'm') puts the case for incarnational rather than attractional church:

"The theory goes that the more professional the service is, the funkier the music, the better the coffee, and so on… the more likely the punters will come, hence the term ‘attractional’.

I would argue that this ‘attractional mission’, while effective for a few, is actually a case of putting the cart before the horse. Deciding on a form of church and then trying to make it so that people want to come is mission in reverse.

Perhaps the question we ought to ask ourselves is ‘why do we think they would want to come to church?’

Little Bo Peep evangelism (leave em alone and they’ll come home) is fast running out of steam as the Christian story ceases to be the dominant framework...

By contrast the incarnational approach to mission is refreshingly simple. It requires us to live amongst the people in our communities, love them, share the good news of the kingdom both in action and in speech and then as people become followers of Christ to form up indigenous communities of faith that reflect the specific context."

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posted by alexander @ 4:12 PM    0 comments

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convert and control or disciple and disperse?
More from Roland Allen:

"Without further words we should have proved to all men that we do not preach Christ in order to extend our dominion as our enemies assert: we should have proved that we really mean the words which we now too often use without any demonstration that we really know their meaning--that we desire to be helpers, not lords over other men's souls.

Spontaneous expansion must be free: it cannot be under our control; and consequently it is utterly vain to say, as I constantly hear men say, that we desire to see spontaneous expansion, and yet must maintain our control. If we want to see spontaneous expansion we must establish native Churches free from our control."

posted by alexander @ 10:52 AM    0 comments

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unlimited expansion
The research I'm doing continues to gather pace (see About page). It is a priveledge to be able to meet and talk with so many key people and gain an overview of what is happening accross the UK. Again and again in these conversations it comes back to a few fundamental issues. Perhaps the key one is what it will take to see (in Roland Allens words) a spontaneous expansion of the church here in the UK?

Here's one of RA's observations on this theme:

"Many years ago my experience in China taught me that if our object was to establish in that country a Church which might spread over the six provinces which then formed the diocese of North China, that object could only be attained if the first Christians who were converted by our labours, understood clearly that they could by themselves, without any further assistance from us, not only convert their neighbours, but establish Churches. That meant that the very first groups of converts must be so fully equipped with all spiritual authority that they could multiply themselves without any necessary reference to us: that, though, while we were there, they might regard us as helpful advisers, yet our removal should not at all mutilate the completeness of the Church, or deprive it of anything necessary for its unlimited expansion."

Do our 'legacy church' leaders have the courage for this?

posted by alexander @ 9:32 AM    0 comments

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