emerging church, emergent, simple church, house church, home church.

Tuesday, April 24
 
18 month review of simple church in the uk
Fancy a bit of bed time reading? Interested in what has been happening amongst those doing organic, simple church stuff over the last 18 months in the UK?

Then download this review report by clicking here.

For those with too much to read already, here's a quick summary:

  • Against a background of continued decline in the existing churches, there are steadily growing numbers engaging in organically shaped church life.

  • To date most of this growth is from the dechurched rather than from new believers.

  • The vast majority of those involved in OC are still submerged in the process of apostolic migration – transitioning in their thinking and practice from institutional to organic church.

  • Although there are some encouraging signs from a few who are further down the road, on the whole these new churches are not miraculously unlocking the non-churched population.

  • Starting and sustaining these new churches is not a walk in the park.

  • In order to survive, organic churches need a clear vision and some strategic input. The likelihood of survival might be greatly increased with outside ‘apostolic’ help, particularly from the outset.

  • This could also be provided by generous, non-controlling sending churches. Although input from individuals who themselves have been immersed in small, relational church life seems vital.

  • We are not staring into the face of an imminent church planting movement here in the UK – yet.

Labels: ,



Wednesday, March 28
 
what is organic church?
I have to be honest I get a little tired of answering the question "What is organic church?" So I reckon I've come up with the solution: give people a copy of Frank Viola's answer!

Here's a bit of it:
Organic Church. I’ve been using this term for around fifteen years now. Today it’s become somewhat of a clay word, being molded and shaped to mean a variety of different things by a variety of different people.

T. Austin-Sparks is the man who deserves credit for this term. Here’s his definition:

"God's way and law of fullness is that of organic life. In the divine order, life produces it's own organism, whether it be a vegetable, animal, human or spiritual. This means that everything comes from the inside . . . function, order and fruit issue forth from this law of life within. It was solely on this principle that the New Testament came into being. Organized Christianity has entirely reversed this order."

By "organic church," I mean a non-traditional church that is born out of spiritual life instead of being constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grass roots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meetings (as opposed to pastor-to-pew services), non-hierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gathering. Put another way, organic church life is the experience of the Body of Christ. In its purest form, it's the fellowship of the Triune God brought to earth and experienced by human beings...

To put it in a sentence, organic church is not a theater with a script. It’s a lifestyle—a spontaneous journey with the Lord Jesus and His disciples.
The full article is here. It forms part of Frank's April 2007 Newsleter.

Labels:



For more posts check out the Archives or for a specific topic use site search tool.








Something is happening across Britain today: a new kind of church is beginning to appear; increasing numbers of christians (recent research suggests between 40 & 100,000) are starting to gather in homes, colleges and work places. Living out a 24-7 faith, they are missionally focused with a 'go to them' dynamic instead of a 'come to us' invitation. These communities are small, fluid, organic, reproducible and most of all simple; so simple that any believer would respond by saying "I could do that!"

The aim of this site is to connect, report and resource these new groups. If you'd like to know more check out the vision page.

Catch the:



previous posts | : :


search this site | : :

Google




contribute | : :

As an encouragement to others we want to collect stories of how new Simple/Organic Churches were started.




rss feeds:

Subscribe with Bloglines

Or
atom/xml feed



blog archives | : :



credits | : :