Your "Simple Church" Story: How did it all begin?
Hi, I am beginning the first steps at starting up a simple church with an organic approach. I would like to know from those who have a simple church your story of what first steps you took to forming your church...I have questions like, Did you meet with like minded families? what is your leadership form? what takes place during your meetings?...thanks, just hearing your stories I know will be encouraging...Bob
Tags: leadership, services', starting, up
Views: 5
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bob on -
Hi Ron, I was encouraged reading your story as many elements in it confirmed for me as to the "why" I am here, at this place and seeing the road ahead. I appreciate hearing your journey, I am beginning mine and it is important like you say to hear from these who have gone before me....God bless, Bob
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Permalink Reply by James Coates on -
Well, sounds like you are well on your way...one book I would recommend for your reading is "Leaving The Church To Find God" by John Fenn...this book is such a blessing to me.... go to www.ifaithhome.org
God bless,
James
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Permalink Reply by Stephen (steve) Cornell on -
I have a simple church story, but it begins with a denom, institutional, pastoral background. Much of my story consists of leaving behind layers of thinking and practice which hindered what the Father was desiring for me and my part in the life of the bride of His Son. So I was looking, desperate to find, something within the traditional structure which would not leave my life in too much chaos. Eventually, the Father denied me a place in traditional pastoring by giving me a moral dilemma.
I had to take care of my aging Father in law which would put me in a place where I could not travel to the churches who needed pastors. Eventually, I was in the place where a traditional pastor introduced me to someone who was already involved in a network of simple churches and who was hosting meetings in his home. In our case, we have a lot of ex-pastors, ready to change paradigms and scrap a lot of traditional thinking. So much so that Ben, my friend who hosted our meetings, and myself are now helping other leaders who are starting up simple churches.
I had to read a lot, Barna, Simson, Viola, Dale, etc..., and be willing and frustrated enough, to make radical leaps into new forms or no forms at all!
Other pastors had no idea what I was doing, except for a minority, who later contacted me for help in their journey.
So tell your story and you may receive friends later on!
Our meetings, for Ben and I, a picnic at a beach is meeting enough, but for the groups we are helping, the people are in the "honey I shrunk the church" stage. It's still a traditional meeting in someone's living room. The real question for me is, did Jesus show up and were the people cogniszant of it?
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Permalink Reply by Don Underwood on -
Wow. All I can say is Ron's story is quite similar to mine. And I believe, based on what I have seen and heard, that Ron is not far from the Kingdom of God. We started meeting with like-minded families in a fellowship time. We do not desire to copy anything done in our previous IC meetings, because we do not trust those things. But we do desire to experience God in a true and meaningful way. We do not want head knowledge about God; we want to KNOW God and experience Him. We have 4 families right now. And there is no leader to our group other than Jesus.
I have learned that very little I experienced in the IC will help me to KNOW Jesus. There is so much richness. We are striving to seek first God's Kingdom.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Queen on -
Hi Bob. Here is the 30,000 foot overview...
2001 - resigned staff position at a 2,000 member church; brief rest, then wife and I pioneered an independent traditional/institutional church
late 2002 - a good friend strongly recommended "Houses That Change The World" by Wolfgang Simson; i absolutely loved the book, and I came within a hair's breadth of resigning and telling our church board that my family and I were going the house church path. However, I did not...
2003 - 2006 - doing everything I could imagine to NOT be like "all the other churches" out there, to be true to the gospel no matter what, to reach the 'fringe' in our society... You ever been in hardcore/metal or punk rock worship? We did it. We had people brought from homeless shelters. We looked into starting a drug recovery center. All the while in quiet moments alone... I'd reflect on passages from HTCTW, and the life I saw in scripture where believers were active in their faith, turning the world upside down. Instead, we had debt, loads of stress and only some fruit to show for it.
Early 2007 – met with our board and said my family and I were going the house church path, period. It took 11 months to sell the property we owned! That was a looooooong and awkward period of time to say the least.
Feb 08 – closed our IC
*** took time to breathe, decompress, etc. ***
May 2008 – began meeting on Sunday AM with some friends of ours as seen in the Simply Follow book. http://www.livewickmedia.com/simply_follow/
The rest is yet to be written, but for me and my family, we will forever simply follow Jesus… no religious machinery, no complicated church politics, very focused on our relationships with God and each other.
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Permalink Reply by Katie Mather on -
Hi Bob,
Our story started in 1993. It was a combination of things. Husband Tim was co-pastoring with his Dad in a new AG work. We were really looking for what God wanted to do with the church. Then almost the perfect storm happened. I went through deliverance and started recovery for past abuse. This caused husband and I to scrutinize the dysfunctional institution. Also we brought the renewal home (from the same meeting the Toronto pastors were in) and when Tim's Dad cut it off after flowing in it for four months, the church people noticed that something was wrong.
We started home groups to minister to the people after sharing about my recovery and trained house leaders.
Tim's Dad did a 6 month teaching on Servants of Righteousness, Every member ministry and the people actually believed it.
By Resurection Sunday 1994 we had our last Sunday morning meeting and broke our church into 15 different house groups. We gathered at our house on Friday evening for worship in music and prayer. It was the renewal.
But Tim's Dad had to preach so he started the IC again and it began a 10 year civil war in the family that has only been resolved just a few years ago.
When we started, we had no books on house church. We were following the leading of the Holy Spirit. Then a friend handed us Jim Rutz' book, The Open Church and said it sounds like this is what you are doing.
In the years that followed we have done every kind of open church, cell church, house church...
We have a ministry of deliverance and inner healing and do go to IC's to speak. But personally, we are as organic as you can get. We don't even schedule a regular meeting because of the appearance of "institutionalism." It has been a detox over the years for my ex-clergy husband. He has written on the process in Escaping Church: A Guide for Life Outside the Institution. (see our website: www.bearcreekportal.com).
We are in community with believers that consist of our grown children and spouses who also serve with us in ministry (non IC). We also have several families that serve with us in our deliverance retreat ministry. We are also in fellowship with several across the nation who we keep in contact via phone and internet.
We gather now and then for a meal, and a time of sharing or music or whatever comes up. When I announce a "family dinner," lots of people come a running with a dish to pass and we share. Or we have another couple over for a meal and we share. We do what ever we do. Like I said, we are very organic.
The most "organized or formal" thing we do are our Deliverance Retreats where up to 15 people come for deliverance ministry and inner healing coaching over a weekend. But that is a small group setting and functions in yeshiva style or support group like. As a result of folks who have attended our retreats, there are now several small groups functioning like house church (or deliverance recovery) around the Atlanta area.
Katie
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Permalink Reply by David Evans on -
Katie
I think that there is some very good fundamental learning that has gone on in your lives. I know that for us giving up the idea of some type of stereotypical IC looking family helped prepare us for some of the rocky roads that our family (extended but close - brother and sister in laws, nieces and nephews, step sons and daughters etc etc) has had. Out of wedlock pregnancies, drug abuse, sexual abuse, divorce, physical abuse, bankruptcies, etc etc have all happened.
I grew up in the IC, was ordained in the IC and left the IC in 1991. (Thats all old news). Your experience seems somewhat similary except that we do meet pretty regularly but very informally.
I cannot say that we have handled everything perfectly but we have been very open, honest, and loving in the process. Some of the issues are still not resolved, but I know that the issues and the people involved would have either been shut down or pushed aside in the IC traditions that I came from.
(For Bob)
We first started meeting because we could not find an IC that the original group of us (3 main families with grown children and one grandchild) felt comfortable meeting at. Our leadership form is - those that have a gift of leadership should lead. (our idea of leadership is that it is like the skeleton of the body - it holds it together when you are alive but you do not really see it unless its dead) We meet on sunday mornings primarily, the men cook, serve and clean up breakfast and then we just move from sharing over food to sharing in the living room and then sometimes we sing 1 or 2 songs, share testimonies, ask questions, bring up thoughts, read a passage of scritpure, then share prayer requests pray for them and our community and the leaders of our country. Anyone can share anything, and we never decide to do anything unless it 100% agreable to everyone. Even the youngest can share, lead or disagree, because we never know who the Spirit is going to use.
It took many years of start and stopping, going back to IC's and then trying to meet ourselves and then about 3 years ago we just starting doing it ourselves. There are about 10 regulars and sometimes we have as many as 16 people. We are not really concerned about who is or isnt there as much as we want to experience the realness of Christ and each other when we gather together.
Katie Mather said:Hi Bob,
Our story started in 1993. It was a combination of things. Husband Tim was co-pastoring with his Dad in a new AG work. We were really looking for what God wanted to do with the church. Then almost the perfect storm happened. I went through deliverance and started recovery for past abuse. This caused husband and I to scrutinize the dysfunctional institution. Also we brought the renewal home (from the same meeting the Toronto pastors were in) and when Tim's Dad cut it off after flowing in it for four months, the church people noticed that something was wrong.
We started home groups to minister to the people after sharing about my recovery and trained house leaders.
Tim's Dad did a 6 month teaching on Servants of Righteousness, Every member ministry and the people actually believed it.
By Resurection Sunday 1994 we had our last Sunday morning meeting and broke our church into 15 different house groups. We gathered at our house on Friday evening for worship in music and prayer. It was the renewal.
But Tim's Dad had to preach so he started the IC again and it began a 10 year civil war in the family that has only been resolved just a few years ago.
When we started, we had no books on house church. We were following the leading of the Holy Spirit. Then a friend handed us Jim Rutz' book, The Open Church and said it sounds like this is what you are doing.
In the years that followed we have done every kind of open church, cell church, house church...
We have a ministry of deliverance and inner healing and do go to IC's to speak. But personally, we are as organic as you can get. We don't even schedule a regular meeting because of the appearance of "institutionalism." It has been a detox over the years for my ex-clergy husband. He has written on the process in Escaping Church: A Guide for Life Outside the Institution. (see our website: www.bearcreekportal.com).
We are in community with believers that consist of our grown children and spouses who also serve with us in ministry (non IC). We also have several families that serve with us in our deliverance retreat ministry. We are also in fellowship with several across the nation who we keep in contact via phone and internet.
We gather now and then for a meal, and a time of sharing or music or whatever comes up. When I announce a "family dinner," lots of people come a running with a dish to pass and we share. Or we have another couple over for a meal and we share. We do what ever we do. Like I said, we are very organic.
The most "organized or formal" thing we do are our Deliverance Retreats where up to 15 people come for deliverance ministry and inner healing coaching over a weekend. But that is a small group setting and functions in yeshiva style or support group like. As a result of folks who have attended our retreats, there are now several small groups functioning like house church (or deliverance recovery) around the Atlanta area.
Katie
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Permalink Reply by michael on -
I was an American Gentile Christian ministering in evangelism and discipleship with a Messianic Jewish congregation in Jerusalem, Israel (1998-2003). A friend of mine in Indonesia invited me to join a HC listserve he co-moderated. I had already developed HC leanings because of my Restoration background and this same friend's earlier influence. After a few years of viewing the strengths and weaknesses of those on that listserve, and after already starting a home fellowship related to the Messianic congregation I was affiliated with, our family felt impressed of the Lord to move to the Philippines to pursue a vision of evangelising Israelis via Filipino Christians (the most effective evangelists in Israel right now). Although this vision kept us involved with an established building-ed Manila church, we also immediately planted an affiliated home fellowship that became our real "church." Our home fellowship meets on Friday nights, at various homes in particularly the Quezon City area of metro-Manila. We are lightly liturgical, although most people would not notice it much. Things flow quite naturally. Fellowship revolves around Jesus...and the dinner table. Our group of between 15-25 people (depending) -- of all ages -- discuss previously assigned biblical passages (we follow the reading schedule of synagogues around the world, supplimenting those readings with related passages from the NT writings) at a Bible College/Seminary level. We emphasize praxis, we share what's going on with our lives, we sing songs (often in Hebrew and Tagalog, but also in English), we exercise Spiritual gifts, we contribute materially to the tanglible needs of fellow group-mates as well as unbelievers (usually local Muslims being influenced by the gospel), we pray for each other and for the peace of Jerusalem (and we take up collections to send to believers in Israel, particularly the poor Jewish beleivers in Jerusalem), and we share communion together. Our group has "spun off" at least five other local house fellowships no longer affiliated with any building-ed churches. We are excited to see where the Lord will take us from here... :)
Shalom from Manila,
--Michael
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