Guest post by Ed Waken (part 1): Discovering what's been stolen

Are all of us called to evangelize? This series of blog posts has been on simple/organic mission and evangelism. It has provoked a slew of questions. I am blessed to know Ed, an evangelist who is involved in organic churches. Here is his unique take on some of the questions. Ed is a leader in a network of organic churches in Phoenix Arizona. He also serves with Church Multiplication Associates on their leadership team as an Evangelist. Ed mentors and coaches a variety of leaders around the world in areas of leadership, discipleship, evangelism and organic church principles. Ed and...

Twelve reasons why we saw extraordinary church multiplication

Photo credit: James Jordan (Creative Commons) What principles allow rapid multiplication on the mission field? Traditionally, follow up from an evangelistic meeting is done by taking people's names and addresses and asking them to attend church or go through some materials. This is usually remarkably ineffective. In the context I described in the last post this would have been impossible because of security issues as well as illiteracy. Instead, a Luke 10/simple church pattern enabled the harvest to be conserved and then multiplied. Here are some of the reasons (apart from a sovereign move of God) that I believe this...

Can missional, simple/organic church multiply the harvest? A story

Photo credit: williamcho (Creative Commons) Simple/organic church is a great way to not only conserve the harvest, but also to multiply it. We have a friend who is an evangelist in countries that are hostile to the Gospel. We originally contacted him because we were interested in the large healing/evangelistic meetings that, amazingly, he is able to hold in these countries. When he discovered we are involved in simple church, he asked to spend some time with Tony and me because the Lord had told him that he was to be involved in a different kind of church. So we...

Church: No Longer "Business" As Usual!

Paul's Final Journey: an excerpt from Journeys to Significance

Don't follow the Piper with this Tune

A painting of a real organic church in action

Kingdom Causes (one of our Associate Ministries) is Changing its Name

Can Christians show the world how to handle escalating medical costs?

If the "kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ" then you and I have to take the rule of Jesus out into the world around us.  Isn't the present expression of the kingdom of God wherever we see the uncontested rule of Jesus through his people?  For years I have been challenged by what the medical world would look like if it was being run by Jesus.  A simplistic answer might be that Jesus would just heal everybody.  But that has not been my experience.  I…

Where IN THE WORLD are the Apostles?

Years before the simplechurch.com site was ever conceived of, in those antediluvian days when House2House actually published a magazine, I wrote an article entitled, "Where In The World Is The Church."  The drift of the article was that real church needs to be out in the world, in the community, where it actively, daily, naturally impacts the lives of those who do not yet know Jesus.  In that article I remember saying that we probably…

Influencing others in your sphere of influence!

I love a great fairy-tale.  And watching parts of the Royal Wedding on Friday seemed just like the fairy-tales that I loved as a kid.  Whatever I know of their lives so far, and I know very little, I can't help but love the "tale" that is told when such a high profile wedding occurs amid the pomp and ceremony that the Brits handle with such aplomb!  This is a part of my British heritage which I still admire greatly.

 

But at its core I also fully recognize that what we have…

Beyond Evangelical: Part IV

“The desperate need today is not for a great number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.” ~ Richard Foster In this post, I want to provide a platform for the sentiments of those who have moved “beyond evangelical” (or whatever you wish to call them). Countless Christians I’ve met have uttered [...]