About two years ago Christy and I by the providence of God found ourselves at the Tribal Gathering hosted by Rock International.  While Christy and I try to make a habit of going to the Tribal Gathering as often as possible, this year God seemed to have something up His sleeve.  A work schedule that should have been impossible to navigate opened up and we found ourselves in the middle of a series of meetings that blew our minds.

The Rock’s guest that year was Wolfgang Simson, a German missions expert who wrote the mind-bending book, Houses That Change the World. To make a long story short, my life was dramatically shifted during that weekend in a way that’s hard to explain.  Wolfgang unveiled his vision for multiplying house church movements being used to win masses for Jesus at the end of the age.  He likened the process to a starfish, which can be multiplied many times over but never dies throughout the process.

Without going into a ton of detail, this “Starfish Vision” called for a gathering of believers to meet in Antioch in 2009 to gather before the Lord and repent for having missionary agendas that were not the Lord’s.  This meeting, however, was only to serve as a springboard to a more significant gathering where house church leaders from around the world would gather to hear God’s plan for gathering in the last great harvest. I think it may look something like this.

Needless to say I was intrigued by the idea of the Antioch meeting and never forgot about it.  Well, two years have come and gone and this meeting finally occurred.  In the last few weeks, several of those who were there have written about what happened.  You can read Guy Muse’s very personal observations here.  You can get Tony Dale’s perspective here.  And last but not least get the thoughts of the guy who called the whole thing together (Wolf) here.

And as if that wasn’t enough at the gathering, Wolfgang and Mercy released the finalized version of the Starfish Manifesto.  The Starfish Manifesto is the culmination of a couple of years of waiting on the Lord, hearing His voice, and pairing apostolic strategy with prophetic insight.  I have not read this version, but the early version I saw was amazing and challenged me to go deeper in the things that God started in me that weekend two years ago.  You can download the final version of the Starfish Manifesto here.

And finally, turning our attention from Antioch back a little closer to home, I want recommend to my readers a new blog “Haven In The Hood.”  The blog features two new friends of ours who moved out of suburbia and into a neighborhood not too far from us.  The blog is their story about creating a little place of refuge where many think none could be had.  You can check them out here.

This post is part of my continuing series which showcases the strengths of other great bloggers.  You can view other “Blogs I Wish I Wrote” by clicking here.

In today’s installment of BIWIW I’m featuring Lex Loizides’ Blog, which almost daily features a short story from the history of the church.  Currently Lex is blogging through the figures that influenced the First Great Awakening here in America: Jonathan Edwards, John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and others.

The BIWIW comes from Lex’s retelling of a several day period in the life of John Wesley where Wesley approaches evangelism only when he felt moved by the Spirit, much like present day Charismatics.  I appreciate people who are moved by the Spirit to evangelize and have seen amazing fruit from the process.  But if the truth be told, I think many Charismatics miss something in this approach.  To find out how John Wesley faired, continue reading Lex’s post here.

A man that I deeply respect who was part of an underground church in another country was talking to a mutual friend lately.  In the midst of that conversation, he stopped and said something that our mutual friend later relayed to me.  There was just too much wisdom in this statement not to relay it to you:

“You know what the problem with the church in America is?  You never know whether a Christian is strong or not.  You can only tell in the midst of persecution.” Selah.

If you’ve spent any amount of time following this blog at all you’ll know that I’m a big advocate for Christians meeting together in house churches.   I’ve believed for some time that house churches and the spirit of organic Christianity are part of God changing the understanding and expression of Christianity in the Earth in one generation.  All of this has lead to me keeping my eyes and ears open for news and stats about house church activity in America.

So it took me, and I think everyone that has a similar heart like mine, by surprise when George Barna came out with a survey a few years ago that suggested that 1 in 5 Americans are part of some type of house church.  Really?  Now, I love a good statistic that supports my convictions but 1 in 5 seemed totally unrealistic.  Statistically, roughly 1 in 5 Americans are Catholic.  I expect to walk into a group of five unknown strangers, ask them about their religious background and have one of them tell me they are Catholic.  I would not expect to walk up to a group of five Christians and after asking each one about the type of church they belong to, have one of them tell me they are part of a house church.  My experience just hasn’t shown that to be true.

I think in part others must have been asking the same questions I had been asking because the Barna Research Group just released a new study showing that the number of Americans who claim to have participated in a house church depends on how you ask the question.  It seems that if you ask a person if they have experienced God in a house church or simple church gathering in the past six months about 1/3 of adults will say they have.  This, according to Barna, is because of participation that many have had in a house church, a small group, or some other Christian gathering in a home.  But if they were asked if they experienced God in a non-traditional church that was self-governing and had no ties to another congregational church, the number falls to somewhere between three to six percent.  This is most likely because this is the strictest and most specific definition of house church listed in the survey. This seems to more accurately confirm my experience with believers in the nation.

In response to Barna’s survey, Ed Stetzer at Lifeway Research Group recently posted about his experience polling Americans about their involvement in house churches.  According to Ed, he found a similar response.  When asking if a group of 20 people or less praying and studying the scriptures was a person’s primary form of spiritual gathering, Ed reports the following result: “Remarkably, 26.3% of the 3600 Americans who were asked that question indicated that they did– as their primary form of spiritual or religious gathering.”

But because that could include a small group or Sunday School class, Ed and his team “cross-tabulated” those answers with those who said that they “rarely” or “never” attended a larger church worship service.  The result? “…[W]e found that 50 out of 3,600 adults attend both a group of 20 or less and “rarely” or “never” attend a place of worship. If extrapolated, this is almost 1.4 percent of the American population and may represent the purest measure of those who are not involved in an organized church…”  According to Stetzer that’s about 4 million Americans.

So the answer is probably somewhere between 1.4% and 6% of the American population is truly part of a house church of some kind.  That is somewhere between 4,300,000 and 18,420,000 Americans that are part of some type of house church.  While that is not nearly one in five of us, it certainly is shocking.  The Assemblies of God in America, a fairly prominent Pentecostal denomination in the United States, lists their current membership at 2,900,000.  That means there are more house church members in the United States than members of the Assemblies of God (see footnote).

There’s a lot that you can take away from this discussion (and I would love to see what you take away from it in the comment section below).  But for me, the following things become apparent: 1) God is moving among house churches in America in a way that is reaching a segment of the population no one else is reaching.  2) The house church movement, however, is not growing as quickly as previously thought. 3) While numbers can be a good way of detecting what God is up to, they in no way reveal everything that God is doing.  Does 4 million house church members make house churches less legitimate than if there really were 70 million as originally supposed?  Not really. 4) It will be important for us to keep our eyes focused on Jesus and Scripture as our plumbline for what is right and necessary, and not the numbers of those around us.

As an aside, this discussion also confirmed something else for me: House churches are incredibly segmented and cut off from one another.  If you read the comments in Ed’s blog, there were two different guys that were part of house churches from Kansas City who didn’t really know each other. I know of at least two or three other house church movements in Kansas City who don’t know about these guys.  With so many house church members out there, there must be better ways to support and encourage each other. I believe what God is wanting to do through the house churches arising in this nation will require a greater level of communication, interaction, and connectedness.  But that’s for another time.

So, I’m curious.  Given these, facts, what are you thinking?

——————-

(No offense to the Assemblies, I love them.  I just used them as a fairly well-known denomination to compare membership by.)

“The gospel that the first century apostles preached was one of Christ’s lordship and God’s pure and unfailing grace in Him.  Paul of Tarsus, for example, did not forge people together with rules, religious duty, or legalism.  Instead he preached a gospel of grace so high and so powerful that it kicked down the gates of hell–setting the Jew free of religious duty and the Gentile free of immorality.  His was a double-barreled, two-fisted gospel.”

By Frank Viola, Finding Organic Church, p. 29

Lately, I’ve been picking up a little steam in updating this section of the blog.  My hope is it’s helpful.

I just finished up “The Cry of the Harvest” by Chad Taylor.  I was looking for a book to stir up a passion for reaching lost souls and give direction in how to do it.  I found that and more.  Chad is probably one of the most radical American evangelists that I’ve read about in recent history.

What I love about this book is that Chad is profoundly set apart to reach lost souls in this culture.  He is not impressed by charismatic Christianity that is obsessed with God’s power but never touches the lost.  He calls for a reformation in the church that looks a lot like house churches, but is quick to point out if they forget they are for the harvest they have lost their way.

Chad’s voice echoes the Lord’s heart for us to no longer be complacent about the lost that are dying around us. In many ways, Chad’s writings were a gentle, fatherly rebuke to not forget part of the purpose for which the church exists.  Here’s a warning: This book will challenge you. If you’re interested, you can pick the book up here.

It became really obvious to me last week when I was writing “Stuff I’m Reading…Err…Listening To” that my little breakdowns of the books I’m reading are becoming more like reviews and less like short run downs on the books I’m reading.  And, while reviews are great, I’m thinking that in the interest of me actually writing one of these more than once a year (which has about been my track record) I’m going to write shorter, more promo-style blurbs for my “Stuff I’m Reading” page in an effort to keep things short, interesting, and more timely.

With that said, I’m moving my behemoth of a blurb to the “Stuff I’m Reading” Page to take its place in the pantheon of books that I’ve read.  I’m also kicking around the idea of sponsoring a communal reading of a certain book over a certain period of time and posting thoughts and comments about content here and on my Twitter account.  A good example is I just started reading Watchman Nee’s “The Glorious Church” and I think it would be really interesting to either here or on Twitter discuss things we’re reading as we’re finding them in a common book.  Let me know in the comment section or by tweet if you’re interested.

Until then, that’s all for tonight, folks!

We just finished celebrating the 1st birthday of my son, Joel.    We did all the typical stuff…the party with presents, the much anticipated “first birthday cake smushing,” family came over, we sang…everything you would typically expect for a one year old. And we had a great time.

All of this, however, has got me thinking about Joel and what he means to Christy and I and to the larger body of Christ.  We gave our son the name Joel because the Lord had spoken to us about a move of the Spirit that would come at the end of the age.  The birth of Joel was going to be a sign for us about an outpouring of the Spirit described in Joel 2:28-32:

“And it shall come to pass afterward,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

your old men shall dream dreams,

and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female servants

in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.  The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. (Joel 2:28-32)“

I’ve written about this before, but I want to stick this thesis the door of my blog for the whole world to see: There is coming a move of the Spirit that will trump anything we have seen before. I’m not saying that just because the Lord told us to name our son Joel.  I’m saying that because God declares in His word that He will pour out His Spirit in the last hour of human history.  It will happen.  It is as sure and as fixed in Scripture as the coming of the Anti-Christ and and the second coming of Jesus.

Beloved do not forget the coming outpouring of the Spirit!  It’s not some pie-in-the-sky fantasy.  God wasn’t just trying to motivate us with a promise that He never intended to fulfill.  Weariness and dryness tend to shrink our faith. It’s hard to believe for an outpouring of the Spirit when you look around and see an Earth suffering from a shortage of God breaking through! But remember that just because we have not seen the outpouring does not mean it does not exist.  When Noah built an ark no one had ever seen a flood, but that did not make him foolish for preparing.

So tonight, while I’m celebrating the life of my son, I want to call us all contend for the breakthrough of the Spirit of God wherever we are.  There will be a day when we all cry out “come” together and a tidal wave of presence of God floods the Earth like never before.  Our job is to continue to call out “come” until the crescendo in Heaven builds and God cannot hold Himself back any longer.  The result will be signs in the sky, miracles on the Earth, and a flood of souls coming into the Kingdom like never before.  May the Lord help us to be found faithful and waiting in that day.

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This Thing

In a continuing effort to keep the world updated about my reading habits, I now bring you the newest finished book in my collection.  Before I go into the book, I have to say that I actually did not read this book, but I downloaded the audio version from Christian Audio.  They make a free audio book available for download once a month and this was July’s freebie.  You may see “Stuff I’m Reading” books corresponding to their free book of the month more often.

I just want to go on the record by saying “Crazy Love” was a lot better than I expected.  I’ve seen it on the bookshelves of Christian bookstores for at least a year or more and had sortof written it off as the kind of book that would last a few weeks and fade in everyone’s memory.  The whole book looked like it was written to get a sale but not change anyone.  It took a recommendation from (I think) Frank Viola before I would actually read the book.  Who would ever believe that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover?

The first thing I loved about this book was the time that Francis Chan spent delving into attributes of God at the beginning of the book.  Most modern books present a problem and then tell you how to fix it.  Chan takes us into the character of God before he takes us anywhere and I believe that is part of the reason this book is so successful. In a way, this section reminded me of the book “The Knowledge of the Holy” by A.W. Tozer, but it’s written in a way that would move the heart of any college student.  Because the remainder of the book calls the church to action, Chan spends the first three chapters describing a God worthy to act on.   The book succeeds because it’s not a response to a problem but a response to God as He really is.

Chan then spends the next several chapters looking at what it looks like to not be moved by God in an appropriate manner.  Unfortunately, we find more of ourselves in these chapters than we care to admit.  The chapter entitled “Profile of the Lukewarm” was probably the hardest chapter of the book to listen to because it challenged me at a very deep level. Chan takes a look at a number of “religious people” in the Old and New Testament who thought they had it all together but really had no relationship with God.

I think a lot of people who read/listen to this chapter and the following chapter could very easily get offended because in a lot of ways it challenges what most of us feel satisfied with in our religious lives.  But because Chan packs these chapters with biblical truth and an unfolding of God’s character from the earlier chapters, his observations make sense.  There will still be many who will be offended as they read and my hope is that their offense will lead them to go back to the Bible and decide if what Chan is saying is true.  This may be the beginning of some of us, including me, waking up.

From there Chan begins to unpack what it looks like to be moved by love for the God he described in the first few chapters.  This is the “practical” section of the book where he begins to describe his journey and the journey others took to change their lifestyle to match what they see in scripture.  My favorite chapter of this section is “Who Really Lives That Way.” Most books like this one leave you feeling like you could never do what the author suggests. But  Chan introduces you to person after person who has lived radically for Jesus.  Some of these people are from a century or so ago but most of them are still alive today.  The beauty of this chapter is that most of the people he describes are not famous.  They don’t even think they are special.  They are all just changing their lives to respond to the God they have fallen in love with.  If you want to get a picture of what that looks like, I highly suggest you read this book.

If I have one beef with the book, I would have loved to see more of Chan’s personal story to see how these things have been worked out in his life. While he doesn’t give us the whole story, he does give us quick glimpses.  They are helpful, but I think readers would profit from a more personal perspective to encourage them that they can live whole-heartedly as well.    I’m convinced from his writing that his life has significantly changed… I was just looking for more than a snapshot here or there.

But the book was a great read listen and I would highly recommend that if you have a chance, you pick up this book.  I have to say I was moved by this book and am seriously rethinking some different aspects of my life, especially how I relate to the poor of the Earth.  Chan provides one of the most balanced arguments for Christians living their lives differently that I’ve seen in a book in a long time.  It will challenge you for the better.  And, if you want more when you’re done, you can hop on over to Christian Audio and listen to his new book “Forgotten God” by clicking here.

[Btw, if you've read "Crazy Love" and have thoughts of your own, either leave a link to your review in the comment section or leave your thoughts in the comment box below.]

I was on Google Reader today & found my blog http://ping.fm/2PYnG in the most obscure list. Guess I need to update more. Coming Soon.