water for the thirsty
Want to pass on a couple of great resources. Firstly Tim Pynes (as mentioned before) is putting together a series of podcasts of interviews with various travellers on the journey of organic, simple church stuff from around the world. It's a great resource and I think people will find some really helpful stuff there.

Secondly
this guy Wayne Jacobsen. Had seen his name around but never run into him. Check out his site and if you have the time have a listen to this free downloadable series:
It is refreshing water for the soul.

posted by alexander @ 5:20 PM    0 comments

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towards missional communities in europe
Excuse the terrible picture, I only had my XDA with me!

Around 30 people gathered for the Towards Missional Communities in Europe day last Saturday.

It took place in an old people's home! Comfy chairs though!

There were a gaggle of folks, mainly from W Mids area, who are at one stage or another of doing simple church.

Andy White who blogs here kicked us off with a great video and rant about servant evangelism and just getting out there. Passionate stuff.

Then Bernard Sanders who works with Dick Scoggins and others coaching and helping apostolic (in the real sense!) teams all over the world told some of his own story and stressed again how this is NOT about a new model but about real community where Jesus is at the centre and lives are transformed as a result.

After lunch Steve Hill who is based in Holland and helps organic church planters in several former Soviet Bloc countries, shared a bit of their own journey and then shared a few thoughts:

- We should release new believers into their destiny/ministry immediately; don't make them wait! That is how Jesus trained the disciples, and how we make disciples.

- For the good of the group/community/church the leader (or church planter) has to leave at some point, like Jesus, 'it was better that He went.'

- It is far too easy to talk 'new' but keep doing 'old'.

- It's not complicated; follow Jesus' example, He:
1. Ate with people
2. Told stories and
3. Healed people

- To teach new leaders how to lead meetings he gives them three simple questions to use:
A. What’s God been doing?
B. How can we pray for you?
C. What's been going on with the people you're praying for?

This is another adaptation of our own simple ABC model for discipling one another.

posted by alexander @ 11:59 AM    0 comments

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usa - 43 million involved in home church every month
Here in the UK following the report I presented at Mission 21 I was publicly ridiculed by a well known leader for the estimate of the number of people involved in organic, simple, home church stuff which I suggested was around 40,000 (knowing infact that this was probably a very conservative guestimate). In North America similarly some leaders have been saying 'House church? What House church? We don't see any house churches! Ha, ha ha!' (Refering to home, simple, organic churches).

Well now George Barna's research organisation has done some proper research in North America, and lo and behold they discover that an estimated 70 million adults have at least experimented with house church participation and in a typical week roughly 20 million adults attend a house church gathering. Over the course of a typical month, that number doubles to about 43 million adults. In the last decade house church attendance has grown from 1% to 9% of the adult population in the US.

Now we all know there are major cultural and religious differences between us and them but I think this is another good illustration of how much of this stuff, because of its nature and shape, passes totally under most 'existing church' leaders noses. Because it falls outside of what many of them recognise as 'church' they discount it.

But believe me, here in W Europe, we are hard on the heels of the US in this trend and what many would hardly call church now will become increasingly significant in the next decade.
Check out Barna's research here.

posted by alexander @ 8:20 AM    2 comments

2 Comments:

Alexander,

Fascinating information! Thanks for the Barna link as well. As this wave continues to grow, there will undoubtedly be more and more "red flags" raised in concern about this growing trend. It is interesting to me as a missionary that it is OK for these kinds of things to be happening in Asia, Africa, etc. but when they start happening on our own home ground, it becomes a concern!

By  GuyMuse, at 4:19 PM  

Hello,
I enjoyed your blog.
I feel like we shared some similar views, on things.

I'm a musician, and I'd be honored if you'd listen to some of my music. All my music is available for free download on my site. Anyway, just thought that I'd share.

Thanks,
-Sean
________________
www.SeanDietrich.com
"All my music is free for download."

By  Anonymous, at 2:19 AM  

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apostolic migration
I want to go back a couple of posts and include a little more detail on Wolfgang's 5 Steps of Apostolic Migration. Incase you are confused he is talking about the enormous paradigm shift required to move from institutional church (which he refers to as the Babylonian system) to what he would suggest as Biblical church. Whatever your feeliong about that the fact remains that it is not a simple matter of switching paradigms like jackets; in our own setting we have found that it has taken most of the 3 years we have been going to make this transition fully.

Here are the 5 steps or stages that people generally undergo as illustrated by this diagram:
And a link to the full article.

Point - 2: This is where most Christians are today as this new move of God unfolds. This is the point of “happy clappy” churchianity where most people are content with where they are in their church experience. When you talk to them about the need for a new paradigm their response is basically, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Point - 1: This second point or step in apostolic migration represents people who are no longer satisfied with “happy clappy church” as they have known it. These are people who have heard from God about more authentic expressions of church. They have begun to move in their spirits, but their bodies and their money have not yet moved. They are frustrated pilgrims. Some will move to the next step, while others will not.

Point 0: Welcome to the wilderness. This third step represents frustrated pilgrims who have finally left the old paradigm and are now “out of the system,” but they do not yet know that there is a new paradigm to move into. And there is a reason for this. God knows that it is easier to get a person “out of the system” than it is to get the old system out of the person. For this reason God engineers the wilderness as a place of “spiritual death” to the old, a place of “religious detoxification” where God deals with our “baggage.” It is in the wilderness that God seeks to heal our hurts, wounds, bitterness, anger and other personal “baggage” left over from our journey out of the old. Not everyone “survives” the wilderness experience to emerge healthy at the next Point. Some people are unable to “let go” of the past (past wounds, hurts, betrayals, etc.) in order to embrace God’s future plans. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, some long to return to Egypt , while others perish in the wilderness. But for those who allow God to do his work of “religious detoxification” they begin to experience an alignment of their spirits, both with what God is doing and with other people in whom He is doing it. And soon, it’s time for them to emerge from the wilderness and to step into the next stage of their journey.

Point + 1: This is the stage or point at which people choose to leave the past and the wilderness behind and to “cross over the Jordan ” into the new paradigm of what God is doing. This requires both a leaving (of the old) and a cleaving (to the new). It requires us to “uncovenant” with what has gone before, and to make a new covenant with God’s new unfolding paradigm. It is often at this point that a person’s commitment or lack of commitment to the new paradigm is revealed through statements like, “You mean I must do house church exclusively?” Such a response reveals that the person hasn’t yet caught the vision of God’s new paradigm and is still trying to “straddle” both worlds (the old versus the new). It means they aren’t quite ready to emerge from the wilderness because they haven’t yet fully died to themselves and to the old. In the words of psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw, “You either get it, or you don’t.” This refusal to die to the old while embracing the new can be illustrated from the life of David & Jonathan. In 1 Samuel Chapter 20 David and Jonathan entered into a covenant of blessing with one another and their descendants. Jonathan, the son of King Saul, was the rightful and appointed heir to the throne of Israel . Both he and David knew this. But David was the one anointed by God as the next King. Jonathan saw the future and recognized that the future belonged not to him but to David. David would be King and the reign of the “house of Saul” would soon end. For this reason Jonathan covenanted with David for the future blessing of his descendants (1 Samuel 20:42 ). But the chapter ends with this statement, “Then he rose and departed, while Jonathan went into the city.” In other words, even though Jonathan had recognized the future and covenanted with David, he had not “uncovenanted” from Saul and his system. Jonathan returned to the old and died with his father Saul. When it comes to the new thing God is doing, the new paradigms He is raising up, we must both enter into a covenant with God for the future and “uncovenant” ourselves from the past.

Point + 2: Welcome to the house church movement and the new paradigm that God is raising up in our day. At this point you have died to yourself and the past and have embraced the new thing God is doing. Your work isn’t over. In fact, it’s just beginning.

New Paradigms Arising

So, where are you on this “Apostolic Migration” into God’s new paradigm. Can you place yourself on one of these five “Points”? The simple yet profound truth is that a fresh wind of God’s Spirit is beginning to blow, and it is beginning to challenge the “listening and available” church with new paradigms for the future. The “new thing” God is now unfolding is not simple an “upgrade” of the old. It is a radical shift or change from an old wineskin to a new. Welcome to the house church movement, the new channel through which the River of God ’s Spirit is preparing to flow. When this conversion is complete and a new group of leaders has been prepared, then the River of God ’s Spirit will flow . . . and yes, house church will “take off” in ways we cannot yet imagine.

Many thanks to the guys at The Parousia Network for doing this.

posted by alexander @ 9:12 AM    2 comments

2 Comments:

Wolfgang's comments are very similar to points made in Kiwi Alan Jamieson's book: A CHURCH FAITH: Faith Journeys Beyond the Churches. In this very helpful small book, he discusses those who hit the 'wall' in the e(vangelical)p(entecostal) c(harismtic) churches, i.e., that point where it no longer is safe to ask the hard questions, that place where people are told, simply, BELIEVE. His progression is (1)disillusioned followers, (2) reflective exiles, (3) transitional explorers, and (4)integrated wayfinders. The book simply underscores what Barna (and others) are saying: many are leaving the church (as we have known it), not because they are losing their faith, but because they want to keep their faith.

By  ZooMuse, at 11:10 AM  

Hi Alexander

I responded to your Apostolic Migration post with a few comments on my own blog describing my journey of Paradigm Shift.

I was at St. Tom's in Sheffield on Friday and they have managed to radically restructure church there to be a flexible new wineskin.

I am in a place where I want both to restructure / reform the old along the lines of what they are doing in Sheffield and to plant new churches which have no real constraints from the institutional churches of the past. Both will be doing Kingdom stuff, but I recognise that the latter has the greatest potential for movement to develop.

By  Ross Garner, at 11:14 AM  

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our vision

To see organic church planting movements of small, multiplying, simple, home churches right across the UK and Europe.

We do not believe that these movements can or should be organised. Our suspicion is that human interference will only lead to a quenching of what God is doing. Therefore we have no interest in attempting to form official networks or 'owning' others by encouraging them to sign up to 'our thing'.

We have no name, no agenda or organisation. Our desire is simply to serve this Spirit led movement by connecting, reporting and resourcing wherever needed.

posted by alexander @ 10:52 AM    2 comments

2 Comments:

Amen! We are some in Norway sharing your vision.

By  Are Karlsen, at 10:33 PM  

Thanks Are, good to make contact. love to hear more about what's going on there in Norway. email me via the contact page.
Alexander

By  alexander, at 11:04 AM  

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Jim Montgomery in hospital
Heard yesterday on the grapevine that Jim Montgomery, founder of DAWN International
is in hospital diagnosed with Thyroid cancer.

posted by alexander @ 5:41 PM    1 comments

1 Comments:

it was thyroid cancer 5 years ago. something more this time and probably more serious.

let me know if you want more info

By  andrew jones, at 9:27 AM  

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wolfgang simson podcast
Here's a podcast of Wolfgang Simson,
author of 'Houses that change the world', talking to Tim Pynes about his own journey into home church.

Tim has put a great series of interviews together with key people in the simple church movement, which he is slowly posting onto this site.

On this podcast, as well as giving a little insight into how Wolfgang ended up in non-institutional church, he unpacks his 'theory of apostolic migration', which gives some good understanding of the journey people have to take as they leave the existing/inherited church life and move towards the organic church.

posted by alexander @ 11:18 AM    2 comments

2 Comments:

Hi - I know this is late, but can you still link me to this podcast?
thanks, Dave

By  dave, at 6:53 AM  

sorry dave Tim's website has gone!

By  alexander, at 4:22 PM  

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big simple church?

Just discovered this fascinating book from over the pond.

Not, as you would first assume, about small, reproducible, organic churches but actually about what it takes to make your BIG church even more successful!

Click on the picture to go to their web page where you can download the first chapter and see a video of the author talking about the book.

"Church is done best when it's kept simple. Rainer's and Geiger's research in their new book, Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples, offers this insight — Churches with a simple process for reaching and maturing people are expanding the kingdom. Complex churches are struggling and anemic.

The authors have observed the simple church in action and they want others to see it, too. Simple churches are thriving, and they are doing so by taking four ideas to heart: Clarity. Movement. Alignment. Focus.

"We compared growing and vibrant churches to non-growing and struggling churches. Church leaders from both groups were asked to complete the same survey which was designed to measure how simple their church discipleship process was. We anticipated that there would be a relationship between a simple process and church vitality, but the results were greater than we imagined. Our statistical consultant told us that we had found something big."

"The vibrant churches were much more simple than the comparison churches. The difference was so big that the probability of the results occurring with one church by chance is less than one in a thousand."

The simple church revolution has begun. Are you in?"

Well this is very interesting! It seems to me that they have identified something of what God is doing and then attempted to shoe-horn it into their existing paradigm of church. Maybe they need to pull back a bit and see how God is using this concept of simplicity through a whole different shape of church - a shape which itself works with the simplicity rather than against it. And this is how most christians around the world are experiencing church now.

Also it is fascinating to see that once again when you strip everything else away you find simplicity and the disciple making process lies at the heart of church. Won't we ever learn? It takes a highly educated, trained, professional to complicate things.

BTW guys - like the book cover design.

posted by alexander @ 8:51 AM    0 comments

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