2006--Simson's 15 Theses

       

Today, I have come to believe that my short term goal is to have 40 of these five minute commentaries.  If you go back through these blogs, I am not close to that, but, for a few, I will totally use a blog of another person who has said what I wished to, and far better than I, sometimes because their experience brings out a point better than I can.  I have a few of these mentioned, but it doesn’t read too well when I have an introduction, a link to another site, and an ending, so I will save the rest for the moment.  Also, even though I believe that such a short thing that is published freely falls within fair use, I won’t get further into that point for now.  I believe I am thinking about that as I ran into a blogger last evening who specifically states that permission is not granted for republishing his writings, which I perceive will be made into a book.  Of sorts, fortunately for me, nothing he wrote quite fits into the train of thought of these series.  I am also attempting to quote a variety of writers on the subject of organic church (unfortunately, there are not that many).  One person’s writing that I have been struggling with is the German writer Wolfgang Simson.  Do I make one, or fifteen, parts based on his Fifteen Theses toward a Re-Incarnation of Church.  For the moment, I have chosen one.

=====================================================================             2006—15 Theses

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  Something I have noticed over the years is how professors of biology consistently refer to Darwin’s Origin of Species, but never assign students to read it.  About a decade ago, I had to take a cross country bus trip, so I got it from the library, and it was obvious.  In my opinion, he wasn’t nearly as hard-nosed about the rightness of what he said as many professors are today.  I bring this up in that, within believers in Jesus, we oftentimes refer to Martin Luther’s 95 Theses as a historical watershed document, but it is rarely read, because if you look it up, it reads like a medieval Catholic theological argument, which it was.  Much of its detail is irrelevant to today.

            One person who is very influential in thought about organic church is the German writer Wolfgang Simson (no p in his last name, unlike OJ or Homer). In his book, Houses that Change the World, and on his website, he has posted a much smaller document than Luther’s, but definitely a parody of it, called 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Simson has theological training, and as such people, sometimes puts his statements in an intentionally provocative manner.  He isn’t trying to irritate you or I so much as he wishes us to think deeply about what he is saying.  To that effect, here are his 15 Theses, with a slight amount of explanation:

1.               Christianity is a way of life, not a series of religious meetings. 

2.               Time to change to cathegogue system.  He made up a word there, jamming cathedral and synagogue together, that, whether accidental or intentional, we have a series of rituals, disconnected from the real life of the society we are called to be salt and light into.

3.               The third reformation.  From this, he is saying Luther’s was the first, the pietistic renewal of the 1800’s was the second, and it is time for a third, a reformation of structure.

4.               From church houses to house churches.  Buildings are a financial and logistical burden God never directed us to bear.

5.               The church has to become small to grow large.  I know some megachurches use this phrase to stress the importance of cell groups, but Simson means something more radical. 

6.               No church is led by a pastor alone.  Almost all traditional churches I know of that have a pastor do not have anyone with the other four ministries of Ephesians 4, and the other four are the ones seen used in the New Testament, which, interestingly, pastor is not.

7.               The right pieces—fitted together the wrong way. Many of our practices are attached to words found in scripture, but not in the way the early church or the current underground church practices these directives.  

8.               Out of the hands of bureaucratic clergy and on towards the priesthood of all believers. 

9.               Return from organized to organic forms of Christianity.  The Bible shows that the apostle Paul generally went from coming into a city, preaching, seeing some come to faith in Jesus and helping a group of new believers into being church in 3 months, when he went to the next area.

10.            From worshipping our worship to worshipping God.  What’s more important —to be real before God or to have our music or talk look slick before each other?

11.            Stop bringing people to church, and start bringing church to the people.  If Jesus will be there when two or three are gathered, what’s the structures adding, besides weight?

12.            Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper as a real supper with real food.  Have you noticed that 1 Corinthians 11 is in the context of a meal?

13.            From denominations to city-wide celebrations.  See Acts chapter 5.

14.            Developing a persecution-proof spirit.  You can’t have buildings and organizations if the government won’t allow it, but no terrorist can stop the Holy Spirit from going where he wills.

15.            The church comes home.  By this he means that it is easy to live fake in a ceremony, but it is impossible in your family, which makes it the most meaningful.

Simson writes in the introduction that while writing notes for this book, he was in, and had discussions with everyday believers, in Columbia, the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, England, Sudan, Egypt, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Korea, China, and Mongolia.  You know the variety of cultures that represents—the West and what is and isn’t going on here, lands of overt persecution, and lands of great revival. Obviously, he writes from an extremely internationalist perspective.  Even if you he is dead wrong, or impossibly idealistic, this book is worth reading.  You probably won’t find it on the shelf of a local bookstore (Christian or secular) as it was originally copyrighted in 1998, but some online places will have it.

        You can read a transcript of what I said here at my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com, in the posting of September 11, 2011.  I will also have a link to his website, which has a long, relatively unusual spelling.  You can contact me at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com  or 757-xxx-xxxx.  You can find out more about house churches in this area at www.hrscn.org.

Wolfgang Simson’s website is http://www.simsonwolfgang.de.  The book’s full title is Houses That Change the World (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic, 2001).  Most books on house church are not carried by local Christian bookstores or cbd.com, but so far I have not had any problem finding books from amazon.com, and, yes, I recognize that comment one can take two very different ways. 

  

Simple Church Minute 87--Simson's Thesis #11

87—WS#13

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            We have been mentioning a writing by German writer Wolfgang Simson, 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today, we bring up Thesis #13, From denominations to city-wide celebrations.  On this idea, Simson writes, “Jesus called a universal movement, and what came was a series of religious corporations with global chains marketing their special brands of Christianity and competing with each other.  Through this branding of Christianity most of Protestantism has lost its voice in the world and become politically insignificant, more concerned with traditional distinctives and religious infighting than with developing a collective testimony before the world.  Jesus simply never asked people to organize themselves into factions and denominations, and Paul spoke of it as worldly, a sign of baby Christians.

            In the early days of the church, Christians had a dual identity: they were truly his church and vertically converted to God, and they then organized themselves according to geography, that is, converting also horizontally to each other on earth.  This means not only Christian neighbours organizing themselves into neighbourhood or house churches, where they share their lives locally, but Christians coming together as a collective identity as much as they can for city-wide or regional celebrations expressing the corporateness of the city or region.  Authenticity  in the neighbourhoods connected with a regional of city-wide corporate identity will make the church not only politically significant and spiritually convincing, but will allow a return to the biblical model of the city church, the sum total of all born-again Christians of a city or an area. Unquote.

            There is a lot in that statement, and you can reread it at your pace, along with the rest of the 15 theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. You can find out more about simple forms of worship at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or for this area at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 85--Simson's Thesis #11

85—WS#11

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            These last few days, we’ve been looking at German writer Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today is Thesis #11, Stop bringing people to church, and start bringing church to people.  On this idea, Simson writes, “The church is changing back from being a Come structure to being a Go structure.  As a result, the church needs to stop trying to bring people “to church”, and start bringing the church to people.  The mission of the church will never be accomplished by just adding to the existing structure.  It will take nothing less than a mushrooming of the church through spontaneous multiplication into areas of the world where Christ is not yet known.” Unquote.

            The idea of bringing people to church is based on the idea that, somehow, each of us believers isn’t competent to direct another to life in Jesus, and that the preacher is somehow more prepared, like people will be wowed by the brilliance of the sermon.  Nothing shows us that that is true.  It our current society, people are hardened to sales pitches and aren’t convinced that ministers are more intelligent than they are.  Many have been sold that secular ideas are more correct, even if that was taught them by smoke-and- mirrors logic.  In Luke chapter 10 verses 1 through 13, Jesus sends seventy people who have been responsive to his words to go to a variety of towns and find people who will receive them and they find peace.  This is the place where Jesus says that a laborer is worthy of his wages.  It wasn’t directed to religious professionals, but towards persons to take the message of Jesus to places that it had not gone before, which appears to align more with the New Covenant’s description of apostles and workers.  This was to be the founding pattern of the apostles, to found a church in the home of a person open to the message of Jesus.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more information on simple forms of worship, visit on the web, www.simplechurchminute.com and locally at (local website).    

Simple Church Minute 84--Simson's Thesis #10

84—WS#10

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Lately we have been examining writer Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today we come to Thesis #10, From worshipping our worship to worshipping God.  On this idea, Simson writes, The image of much contemporary Christianity could be summarized as holy people coming regularly to a holy place on a holy day at a holy hour to participate in a holy ritual led by a holy man dressed in holy clothes for a holy fee.  Since this regular performance-oriented enterprise called worship service requires a lot of organizational talent and administrative bureaucracy, formalized and institutionalized patterns developed quickly into rigid traditions.  Statistically, a traditional one- or two-hour worship service is very resource-hungry but produces very little fruit in terms of discipling people, i.e. in changing their lives.  Economically, it is a high input low output structure.  Traditionally, the desire to worship in the right way has led to much denominationalism, confessionalism and nominalism.  This not only ignores the fact that Christians are called to worship in spirit and in truth, rather than in cathedrals holding songbooks.  It also ignores the fact that most of life is informal, and so too is Christianity as the Way of Life.  Do we need to change from being powerful actors and start acting powerfully? Unquote.

            My experience has been that the times that I’ve seen the Holy Spirit actually do powerful acts has been in the informal aspects of everyday life—conversations, reading by myself, challenge situations, when myself or others have erred.  Even when things have happened in an institutional church situation, preparing moments happened previously elsewhere.  John chapters 3 and 4 are excellent opposing examples of how important moments happen.

             The 15 Theses can be found on the web at www.simsonwolfgang.de.  You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more info on simple worship, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally, (local website).

Simple Church Minute 83--Simson's Thesis #9

83—WS#9

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            We have been looking at German writer Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today, we look at Thesis #9, Return from organized to organic forms of Christianity.  On this idea, Simson writes, “The ‘Body of Christ’ is a vivid description of an organic being, not an organized mechanism.  Church consists, at the local level, of a multitude of extended spiritual families, which are organically related to each other as a network.  The way these communities function together is an integral part of the message of the whole.  What has become a maximum of organization with a minimum of organism has to be changed into a minimum of organization to allow a maximum of organism.  Too much organization has, like a straightjacket, often choked the organism for fear that something might go wrong.  Fear is the opposite of faith, and not exactly a Christian virtue.  Fear wants to control; faith can trust.  Control, therefore, may be good, but trust is better.  The body of Christ is entrusted by God into the hands of steward-minded people with a special charismatic gift to believe that God is still in control, even if they are not.  Today we need to develop regional and national networks based on trust, not a new arrangement of political ecumenism, for organic forms of Christianity to re-emerge. (Unquote)

            In another place, Simson wrote that if nothing can go wrong, nothing much can go right either.  Personally, I’ve seen that not only does it take letting go of the agenda for the Holy Spirit to work most powerfully, but when something does go wrong, that recognition, and how mature believers deal with it is used by the Spirit to bring everyone to greater maturity.

            You can examine these 15 ideas at your own pace, on the web, at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on house churches, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or  with regards to the local area at (local website).

                                                                                            

Simple Church Minute 82--Simson's Thesis #8

82—WS#8

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Recently we have been speaking about German writer Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses for Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today, we look at Thesis #8, Out of the hands of bureaucratic clergy and on towards the priesthood of believers.  On this idea, Simson has written, No expression of a New Testament church is ever led by just one professional holy man dong the business of communicating with God and then feeding some relatively passive, religious consumers, Moses-style.  Christianity has adopted this method from pagan religions, or at best from the Old Testament.

            The heavy professionalization of the church since Constantine has been a pervasive influence long enough, dividing the people of God artificially into an infantilized laity and a professional clergy, and developing power-based mentalities and pyramid structures.  According to the New Testament (1 Tim. 2:5), ‘there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’.  God simply does not bless religious professionals to force themselves in between Himself and His people.  The veil is torn, and God is allowing people to access Himself directly through Jesus Christ, the only Way.

            To enable the priesthood of all believers, the present system will have to change completely.  Bureaucracy is the most dubious of all administrative systems, because it basically asks only two questions: yes or no.  There is no room for spontaneity and humanity, no room for real life.  This may be all right in politics and business, but not the church. God seems to be in the business of delivering His church from a Babylonian captivity of religious bureaucrats and controlling spirits into the public domain, putting it into the hands of ordinary people whom God has made extraordinary and who, as in the old days, may still smell of fish, perfume, or revolution.

            You can read back or ahead about Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  On the web, you can find out more about simple forms of worship at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 80--Simson's Thesis #6

80—WS#6

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Recently, these blips have been discussing Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Thesis #6 is “No church is led by a pastor alone.”  On this idea, Simson says, The local church is not led by a pastor, but fathered by an elder, a man of wisdom and engaged with reality.  The local house churches are then networked into a movement by the combination of elders and members of the so-called fivefold ministries (apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists, and teachers) circulating from ‘house to house’, like the circulation of blood.  Here there is a special foundational role to play for the apostolic and prophetic ministries (Eph. 2:20, 4:11,12).  A pastor (shepherd) is an important member of the whole team, but he cannot fulfill more than a part of the whole task of ‘equipping the saints for the ministry’, and he has to be complimented synergistically by the other four ministries in order to function properly.” (unquote)

            The whole idea that a healthy church has a balance of ministry from the five ministries mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 and 12 and with more than one person with each of these giftings is an idea that I, personally, have not heard of being examined, period, but there it is in scripture as a direction for the church.  Much of the church in the west is stuck on one person given the title pastor, without regard to his or her actual gifting, if any, as the end all in ministry and a title within a hierarchy which has words found in scripture as an excuse for the hierarchy’s existence.  Leadership in the church is not to be militaristic, but a structure for the purpose of helping everyone higher up and further into Jesus.

            You can read back and ahead about Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can make a comment or ask a question of me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com , and you can find out more about simple church at http://www.simplechurch.com/ and locally at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 79--Simson's Thesis #5

79—WS#5     

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            We have recently been visiting Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Thesis #5 is “The church has to become small in order to grow large.”  About this Simson says, “Most churches of today are simply too big to provide real fellowship.  They have too often become fellowships without fellowship.  The New Testament church was made up of small groups, typically between 10 and 15 people.  It grew not by forming big congregations of 300 people to fill cathedrals and lose fellowship.  Instead, it multiplied sideways, dividing like organic cells, once these groups reached around 15 to 20 people.  This then made it possible for all the Christians to get together into city-wide celebrations, as in Solomon’s Temple court in Jerusalem. The traditional congregational church as we now know it is, by comparison, a sad compromise; neither big nor beautiful, an overgrown house church and an undergrown celebration, often missing the dynamics of both.” (Unquote)

            A couple of phrases in what Simson says above are easily misunderstood.  The phrase “become small to grow large” is used in megachurches to introduce a small group system.  Oftentimes, such groups are made to fulfill a need to be known by a few people while reinforcing the previous sermon.  No megachurch senior pastor, no matter how gifted, and all I know of are exceptionally gifted individuals, can replace the Holy Spirit. Also, with all our church divisions, a citywide celebration such as the one in Acts is rarely attempted, much less even achieved once.  Those two types of meetings are represented in scripture; the midway point, the congregation, somewhere between fellowship small and citywide big, is not in scripture.

            For more info on the 15 Theses, visit www.simsomwolfgang.de. If you have a question or comment for me, email simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more info about simple church, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).    

Simple Church Minute 78--Simson's Thesis #4

78—WS#4

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Last blip, I mentioned Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses Towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today, we discuss Thesis #4, which is “From Church Houses to house churches.”  About this Simson says that (quote) “From the time of the New Testament there has been no such thing as ‘a house of God.’ At the cost of his life, Stephen reminded us: God does not live in temples made by human hands.  The church is the people of God. The church, therefore, was and is at home where people are at home: in ordinary houses.  There the people of God share their lives in the power of the Holy Spirit, have ‘meatings’, i.e. they eat when they meet; they often do not even hesitate to sell private property and share material and spiritual blessings; they teach each other in real-life situations how to obey God’s word-and not with professorial lectures but dynamically, with dialogue and questions and answers.  There they pray and prophesy with each other, and baptize one another.  There they can let their masks drop and confess their sins, regaining a new corporate identity through love, acceptance and forgiveness.”(Unquote)

            We are beginning to see some of the centuries old denominations begin to collapse from the weight of having accepted leaders who do not believe the historic faith in Jesus.  Believers have left to where they can receive life, and unbelievers who were there for societal reasons see there is no longer a social approbation holding them there, resulting in a lack of income in such organizations.  Further, as believers learn more of what is going on in the church in persecuted lands, one can notice that a church doesn’t have to have a name, building, and academically trained individuals to be real and a real force to stand against a sinful society.

            You can read back and ahead about Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de .  You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info about simple forms of worship at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website) .

           

Simple Church Minute 77--Simson's Thesis #3

77—WS#3

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Today, we will again visit Wolfgang Simson’s  Fifteen Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  His Thesis #3 is The third reformation.  About this idea, Simson writes, “In rediscovering the gospel of salvation by faith and grace alone, Luther started to reform the church through a reformation of theology.  In the eighteenth century, through movements of pietistic renewal (such as the revivial centering around the preaching of John Wesley, the holiness movement, and the pre-pentecostal movement, for three examples), there was a recovery of a new intimacy with God, which led to a reformation of spirituality, the Second Reformation.  Now God is touching the wineskins themselves, initiating a Third Reformation, a reformation of sctructure." Unquote.

            Personally, the Third Reformation of structure that Simson speaks of here is more obvious in parts of the world in which the church is under persecution either governmentally or socially, which prevent the church there to do anything other than follow the scriptural form.  Here in North America, it is more difficult to accept, given that we are used to forms of church structure we have inherited over the centuries.  Conversely, as our society becomes more multicultural, there are more persons from groups that for various reasons will not enter a church building, have had bad experiences with the old structures, or even are legally forbidden to be around the old structures.  The flexibility of simple church structures allow us, the church, to more easily share the life of Jesus with people who find the structures a spiritual hurdle that is unnecessary.

            You can read more about Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de . You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  You can find out more info about simple church at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 76--Simson's Thesis #2

76—WS#2

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Last blip, I mentioned Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today, we proceed to Thesis #2, which is, it is “Time to change the ‘cathegogue system.’

            The historic Orthodox and Catholic church after Constantine in the fourth century developed and adopted a religious system based on two elements: a christian version of the old testament temple—the cathedral—and a worship pattern styled after the Jewish synagogue.  They thus adopted, as the foundational pattern for the times to follow, a blueprint for Christian meetings and worship which was neither expressly revealed nor ever endorsed by God in New Testament times; the ‘cathegogue’, linking the house of God mentality with the synagogue.  Baptized with Greek pagan philosophy, separating the sacred from the secular, the cathegogue system developed into the Black Hole of Christianity, swallowing most of its society-transforming energies and inducing the church to become absorbed with itself for centuries to come. … Luther reformed the content of the gospel, but left the outer forms of ‘church’ remarkably untouched.  (Various moves of God made some corrections)…, but until today nobody has really changed the system.  The time to do that has now arrived.  Unquote.

            The Bible shows us two types of meetings of believers on earth:  the meeting of all the believers in a city in Acts, one time, and meetings of groups of believers in a home.  How did the early church come up with this?  The apostles were taught by Jesus. Where did Jesus come up with this?  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit lived as a community before the founding of the earth.  We would be wise to learn from them.

            You can read back and ahead on Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de.

You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on simple church, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website) .

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94

Simple Church Minute 75--Simson's Thesis #1

75—WS #1

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            In a style that mimic’s Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, which he used to point the church back to orthodox belief, German writer Wolfgang Simson has written what he called “Fifteen Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church”.

            Simson’s Thesis #1 is “Christianity is a way of life, not a series of religious meetings.”  On this idea, Simson wrote in his book, “Houses That Change the World,”

"Before they were called Christians, followers of Christ were called ‘The Way’.  One of the reasons was that they had literally found the way to live.  The nature of church is not reflected in a constant series of religious meetings led by professional clergy in holy places specially reserved to experience Jesus.  Rather, it is the prophetic way followers of Christ live their everyday life in spiritual extended families, as a vivid answer to the questions that society asks, and in the place where it counts most—in their homes.

Unquote.

Even if you have never heard it said before, it is self explanatory to a believer in Jesus that the easiest place to fake being a believer and act like a religious fake is in a ceremony, and the place where one’s faith may be most difficult, but most real and powerful, is in totally informal situations, of which at home is the most common.  The meeting in a house, whether it is actually called a house church, or is called a Bible study, or just believers meeting together at a spot naturally without agenda, is potentially where the Holy Spirit can move most powerfully, without warning, and without our supposedly intentionally helping.

            You can read ahead on Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de.  You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  More info on simple worship is at http://www.simplechurch.com/ and locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.