2014--Felicity Dale 070511

           

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  Last blip, I read from the blog of Felicity Dale on persons living on church payrolls transitioning to a more scriptural form of caring for the financial needs of their family so as to encourage other believers in organic worship.  In her blog, www.simplychurch.com, on July 5, 2011 she continued.

(blog, in its entirety.   The way her blog is set up, one has to go back the number of months for when you are reading this to July, 2011 to read, and July 5 will be next to last on the page.)

  You can communicate with me at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or by phone at 757-735-xxxx.  For more information on simple, organic worship in this area, visit www.hrscn.org.

Just a personal note:  As much as it might seem crazy to some persons, I believe that I am soon to be transitioning to a situation whereby it will be no problem in giving out my personal number, even, as this script implies, on the radio.  I just don’t know whether I’ll have the same number by the time I get these on.  Congruent with these previous two blogs, I have been dealing with the problem of employment ever since sensing the Lord’s direction not to move towards vocational ministry many years ago.

2007--on the word preach

     Back in December, 2010, I wrote one hundred two minute commentaries, entitled "Simple Church Minute."  At this time, I am anticipating that when the opportunity is open to air messages, I will have a five, not two, minute time limitation, which gives the opportunity to develop some ideas more thoroughly.  To that effect, below is one on the word "preach", a word whose definition today is unlike what it meant to the persons in the first century church.

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2007--preach

  My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, the definition of “preach” is 1) to deliver a sermon, 2) to urge acceptance or abandonment of an idea or course of action; specifically: to exhort in an officious or tiresome manner.  These definitions truly indicate the modern understanding of the word “preach” and also, to a degree, the negative attitude a significant segment of our society has towards what we call preaching.  Is that what the Bible means by the word?  I know—for me to bring this up implies that I’m going to say “no”, and that is correct.  Somewhere after the recording of the Scriptures, preaching became a Christian form of the equivalent of Roman oratory, a one-way form of communication.  Interestingly, if one looks at pieces of speaking in the Book of Acts and later, one can find that a speech is preceded by words like “said” or “speak”, and not preach.   This does, though, vary by translation.

          The Bible tells us Jesus preached.  What did he do?  His style of speaking was like that of the style common to Jewish culture, in that it was two-way communication.  We are fully well aware that Jesus had to tell the disciples that it was ok for children to be around him, John 3 and 4 tells of Jesus speaking one-on-one to two extremely different persons with regard to their spirits.  The Jewish religious leaders overtly came up to him to ask him tricky questions.  It was the style the rabbis had taught the people with. 

          In Acts and following, we see that preaching was sporadic, unplanned, without rhetorical structure, delivered on special occasions to deal with special problems, and was dialogue, not monologue.  A word found in the original Koine Greek that is sometimes translated preaching is dialegomai, which is obviously where we get the word dialogue from.  In the early days of the New Covenant, ministry came from all believers, and worship in the early church included teaching, exhortation, prophecy, singing, admonishment, speaking was conversational and even the teaching of local elders was normally impromptu. 

          For many years, it was something I noticed, but didn’t understand, that all the times that it seemed that the Spirit taught me the most significant things about following Jesus came through situations that were not what we in our western Christian culture consider regular worship services.  I must now say that the reason for this is that those informal gatherings of believers, whether we call it a home or cell group, Bible study, prayer meeting, or maybe even no meeting, but just believers living and working together,  outside the building walls, are more congruent with what the books of the New Covenant, that is, Acts to the end of the Bible, showed as being church than what we call church in our culture.  Conversely, our ritualistic services, and any regular way of a service that is always or almost always the same way is ritualistic, is not taught in the Word.  A regular order of worship is common for most beliefs in the world, and the Roman Empire forced buildings, paid leaders, and official structures into the church, and those structures have morphed over and over again over the centuries, An unbeliever can understand that structure, as a strong head person structure is used in government, military, and business, but God gave us, the true church, the Holy Spirit for us to follow where He wills.  When we don’t do that, we get messed up.  If there is any official titular office in the New Covenant church, it is in Colossians 1 verse 18 and Ephesians 5 verse 23, which mentions what could be a title, head of the church, which is filled by Jesus.  I believe a further indication of God’s blessing upon living informally and meeting informally as the proper way to honor Jesus in our lives is how we see the church throughout history in persecuted areas see the blessing of growth, where the organizational church in the West has forgotten the Great Commission for centuries and has tied itself up in its bureaucratic complexity, and has not seen such growth.

          You can contact me at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or by phone at 757-735-xxxx.  If you wish to review what I just said, a transcript is posted at my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com, at the entry dated June 12, 2011.  You can find out more about being church without corporate structure in this area at www.hrscn.org.

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          Almost all of what I said here comes from Frank Viola and George Barna’s book, “Pagan Christianity” page 88.   That, in turn, has seven footnotes for the person looking to verify the historicity of what I said.  As most bookstores in this area, Christian and secular, will not have this book on the shelf, one can obtain it quickest from www.frankviola.com or www.amazon.com.

For reference, the Greek word dialegomai appears in Acts 17:2, 17:17, 18:4, 18:19, 19:8-9, 20:7, 20:9, 24:25.  None of the other words translated “preach” imply a speech, oration, or rhetoric, either.

Simple Church Minute 92--public wrongdoing

92—public wrongdoing

THIS IS NOT ON FIRST RECORDING

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            I’m not telling you what I am about to say is correct, although I certainly believe that it is.   I am asking you to listen to what I am about to say, and search the scriptures for yourself for whether what I say is more in alignment with the Word than the practice of the vast majority of traditional Bible-believing churches today.

            If David was a singer today, at a certain point in his life, most of it actually, his personal life would have gotten him dropped from the artist roster of any Christian label and some secular ones, and I wouldn’t argue for a moment that those companies would be in the wrong.  If one sins, God is willing to forgive.  Over time, a person who has done even a great wrong can reestablish a good character among a small group of people who truly know him or her.    In our instant reporting 24-7 news cycle culture, a public wrong probably can never be overcome among those who only know one as a media silhouette, except via something miraculous.  When I say a small group of people, I don’t mean 2000 or even 200.  Neither you nor anyone else has the time to really know a great amount of people really well. 

            A huge amount of the power of the witness of the early church was among the people nearby a person.  Those people saw the change for the better in a person who went from being just one more neighbor to a believer in Jesus who desired to care for others as Jesus did.  The word Christian originally meant “little Christs”.  While each believer knows that term is a far greater honor than any of us deserve and can live up to, by the Holy Spirit, we can fill those shoes, sometimes unknowingly, never outwardly intentionally, for a few people as we walk through life.  The thing we struggle to grasp is that, that’s what laying up treasure in heaven is.  Almost all of us will never have enough stuff that CNBC cares who you are, but that’s not what is important to Jesus.

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

Simple Church Minute 74--edify

74—Edify

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            In First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 11, Paul tells the church to “edify one another.”  One can see that the English word “edify” comes from the same root as the word “educate.”  We can easily get the idea that to edify has to do with teaching our intellect.  In many flavors of the church, we have been told that sermons are for teaching us.  There is a problem with this idea.  The first one is that if sermons are edifying, only one person is doing the edifying.  First Corinthians chapter 8 verse 1 tells us God is love, and that love, in this case, agape, God’s love, is edifying.  From the original Greek, a more literal translation of edify would be “home building.”  Edify or edifying appears 15 times in Paul’s letters, and in almost all cases appears in a sentence with love, comfort, or grace.  We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus has adopted us into God’s family.  God is building us into his family, and that has more to do with loving him and doing his will, caring for our brothers and sisters in Jesus, than intellectual learning.  No matter how highly intellectually trained, how gifted in leadership and imparting God’s vision, no one person can fulfill the 58 “one another” directives of scripture for a group of people.  That highly trained person cannot grasp the insights of the 80 IQ brother or sister who can basicly handle the idea, “Jesus loves me.”  Edify means all believers contributing their share. Not 20000 not 200 possibly not 50 can do this together—that’s too many people to know and be known to one another.

            The early church, being an underground group, did not have buildings, real estate, special corporate status, bank accounts, leaders with quasi-governmental roles, and scripture speaks nowhere of these qualities which are what an unbeliever is this culture would find most noticeable about what is called churches in our culture.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more info on simple forms of worship, 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 64--order of worship

64—order of worship

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            How is church supposed to operate?  In the Bible, the church is a number of persons connected by their mutual belief in Jesus as savior of mankind, Lord of their lives, God became man as perfect sacrifice for their sins.  In the Bible, it is never an organization, corporation, franchisor, building or tax shelter.  The church, that is, believing people, met to worship together, although in everything each believer does, the desire is for that also to be worship to honor God.  Singing songs to honor Jesus can be worship, but worship is not just singing, or even having any singing involved.  Worship does not demand talent, spiritual maturity, intellectual training, or skill (although that may come out of it).  Whether worship is music, speaking, prayer, silence, or anything else, it is not entertainment.  If it is music, God has no stylistic preference.  He does prefer an attitude, a desire to honor God and openness to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.  The Holy Spirit can speak to you through other believers, but that does not come from another person forcing their agenda or attempting to lead out of their talents or abilities.  The church encourages each other; nowhere in the Bible does it indicate that one or a few do all the encouraging, and everyone else does all the receiving.

            Conversely, most traditional churches, Protestant, Catholic, even Pentecostal, follow this order:

1.  Greeting

2.  Prayer or scripture reading

3.  Songs

4.  Announcements

5.  Offering

6.  Sermon

7.  Song or prayer

Why?  That order may have come from Greek drama, Roman pagan ritual, or Babylonian synagogues.  New Covenant characteristics of worship include every member ministry, spontaneity, unpredictability, vibrancy, open participation.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic 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 38--orator

38—orator

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute        

            You know how some death metal bands describe things in their music that, if they really did those things, they’d be in jail or a mental institution?  Why are some people attracted to that?  At the least, its an emotional charge.  Back in the time of Christ, in the Roman Empire, a rough equivalent in their culture were some orators.  The man would come in and give the crowd an experience through their words.  There were various types.  Like some musicians, attorneys, politicians, and actors today, the orator may not have believed what he was saying, and probably there were times that some in the crowd knew it.  But, the good ones did it with talent and skill.

            The modern sermon descends from that.  Some orators came to faith in Jesus or at least said so for a regular gig.  Clement of Alexandria, in the 2^nd century, commented on how little Christian growth came out of believers listening to sermons.  The Bible directs believers to build up each other, as opposed to one-directional communication.  In an open sharing situation, everyone in the church can grow through the wisdom God has placed among various believers, young and old, male and female, rich or poor, highly educated or having learned at the school of hard knocks.  From my experience, even someone getting up and saying the absolutely wrong thing, when the group is being guided by the Holy Spirit, becomes a learning experience for all.  The church was not built by the Holy Spirit having people relate to the back of other believers’ heads.  During the Vietnam War, George Carlin joked that a certain amount of money had been spent for every person in the country, and that we could have bribed them cheaper.  Sometimes it looks like the traditional church is trying to do the same thing, so the Holy Spirit is touching lives at a record pace in countries where you can’t spend money in many ways, much like the early church.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic 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 36--single bishop

36—Single bishop

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            God’s ways aren’t our ways.  In the Old Testament, in Numbers chapter 11 verses 26 to 28, Eldad and Medad began to prophecy.  Moses was urged to silence them, but Moses replied that he wished all God’s people would prophecy.  In the days of the Judges, Deborah, who would have seemed to be the least likely to be a good judge, was the best, and Samson, who would have seemed to be the best, was the worst.  Then, the people of Israel wanted a king, God warned them they wouldn’t like it, they persisted in asking contrary to God’s warning, and God gave them what they wanted.

            In the New Covenant, with the sending of the Holy Spirit, God instituted a new people, a people of faith, not ethnicity, and a belief with every person a priest, no temple, no officials, with the Old Covenant fulfilled, as Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice.  There were leaders, according to spiritual maturity, maybe Jewish in ancestry, maybe not, maybe male, maybe female, maybe upper class, maybe lower, this appearing in a male- dominated, class stratified society.  There were elders, apostles, pastors, teachers, not by human appointment, but by gifting, wisdom, experience.

            After the passing of the apostles Jesus mentored, history indicates that the world’s organizational patterns began to creep into the church.  Ignatius was the first person we see in history who appears to be elevated in status above the typical believer.  He taught that, to resist heresy, one person needed absolute power, like a government.  It took until the 3^rd century before this idea had moved across the church.  At that time, this person was called a bishop, be was, in authority, more like a contemporary pastor.  Eventually, the name was changed to priest, and presbyters were designated to serve the Lord’s Supper, which over this time had changed from a meal to a ceremony with a small amount of food.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more information on organic church*, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally (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 34--Sunday School

34—Sunday School

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            A Christian parent is responsible before God for the upbringing of their children.  The world accuses believers of sheltering our children.  That is absolutely true.  Error can come from TV, school, library, books, or peers.  It is totally illogical to expect unbelievers to shelter our kids from falsehood or age inappropriate things, and it is totally logical to expect them to deliver it and believe they are doing a good deed.  The life of Horace Mann, the first state public schools head, is a prototypical example of this.

            Sunday School is a totally insufficient and unscriptural counterbalance.  If you sent your kids to public school, they would spend approximately 30 hours per week being taught by adults who have specialized in communicating to your child’s age group, with the training of most filtered through an anti-Christian bias.  Modern Sunday School is taught by a volunteer who usually has been given a book to look over, written so that the lesson can be presented with an hour or less preparation.  The larger the church, the less likely that you or your child has known the teacher.  I’m not implying Sunday School doesn’t mean well, but it doesn’t come close to leveling the playing field.

            You are responsible for your kids’ education—moral and otherwise.  We also know that values are caught, not taught, and that is a real challenge in our culture.  This is one more reason why we need to deeply know some other believers.  I have been in a tradition where there was an occurrence called baby dedication.  At the conclusion, everyone is asked to vow to support the new parents, and everyone, in unison, is expected to say “we will.”  The problem is, if I don’t know these people, have just heard their names, or at worst are in a place so big I can’t even see their faces, can I really support them?  Of course not.  God always deserves more than my lip service.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic 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 32--priesthood of believers

32—priesthood of believers

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            First Peter chapter 2 verses 4 to 6 say, “…coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed among men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are buing built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  After that, Peter quotes a number of places in Leviticus. “Behold, I lay in Zion, a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.”  These verses speak of the church.  That is God’s people; according to scripture, that is not a building or special type of not for profit organization.  Nowhere in that part of scripture describing the goings on of the New Covenant people are the words “church”, “temple”, or “house of God” used to refer to a structure that believers in Jesus used to worship in.  Believers are the house of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is the cornerstone.  Revelation chapter 1 verse 6 says, “To him (that’s Jesus” who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father to Him be glory forever and ever.”  In this world, I may feel more like a prisoner than a king, but he has made me and every believer in Jesus a priest—I can pray to God directly,, without a human intermediary, and I am to pray without ceasing.  I have to understand that as an attitude of desiring constant communication with God.  I can’t do my job, drive to work, care for my family with my eyes closed and hands folded.

            No buildings were built for Christian worship and meeting together until the Roman Empire made Christianity legal, and forced many political and pagan customs into the church.  They had churches built over the tombs of the apostles, and named churches after apostles, like paganism named temples after pagan gods.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more info on organic church*, see 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 29--leaders and shepherds

29—leaders and shepherds

NOTE:  I originally wrote a segment for each of the 61 points Frank Viola and George Barna make in their book, Pagan Christianity, about traditions in the institutional church not based on scripture.  After writing it, I chose to not include this segment merely as I felt that in wouldn’t be an interesting radio commentary.

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Why are there so many analogies between leaders and shepherds in the Bible?

We humans cannot read the mind of God to say why he chose to use that idea so often, but it is clear that He did.  Moses, the adopted son of Pharaoh, after the murder of the field manager, hid for 40 years as a shepherd.  There is clearly the contrast of his being born low status, raised to high status, only to flee and hide in a job of low status, to have the humility to be placed by God in the position of the leader of God’s people at a time they would need direction and protection.  David, in Psalm 23, shows how God is the ultimate shepherd to his people.  In John chapter 10, Jesus told us that he is the Good Shepherd, the shepherd knows his sheep by name and defends them.  In the New Covenant, a type of ministry is called pastor, a synonym for shepherd.

            I’ve heard some traditional church pastors say, in sermons on Psalm 23, that sheep are dumb.  We humans are dumb in comparison to an all-knowing God.  If you want a sheep to do a human’s job, they are dumb, and no good at public speaking, either. Sheep are appropriately intelligent for what they are to do—eat, sleep, reproduce, get sheared and butchered, and put up with being around humans.  Wild sheep can hide in steep mountainous areas people and most of their predetors cannot get around well in.  Modern shepherds, like other farmers, differentiate large numbers with ear tags.

            How can spiritual shepherds know a large amount of people?  Farther, Son, and Holy Spirit have no problem.  Humans gifted for a leadership position are a different story.  Ear tags? No. A church phone list?  That’s not what I mean, either.  You, nor I, can lead another much further in faith than where we have already walked, and we can do so better when we know each other.  One person can only know so many people, and it isn’t measured in hundreds.  Jesus intensely mentored 12, and Luke 10 seems to indicate, at a less intense level, another 58 or 70. And that was Jesus!

            You…

Simple Church Minute 21--supporting Christian workers

21—supporting Christian workers     

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            In the early church, people like Paul, Priscilla and Aquila had skills that allowed them to travel to other cities and cultures to teach people about Jesus.  It appears that Paul was born into wealth, which is why he was a Roman citizen, and would have had no need of the tentmaking skill except that it was a requirement of being trained a Pharisee.  Only after his conversion did it become clear that even that was God’s hand on his life, as it helped make possible his missionary journeys.  There is no place in the New Testament that condoned local religious professionals.  There was money specifically raised to send persons to places where it was questionable that one could obtain a livable skill for that culture.

            Our culture is a lot different.  In Paul’s day, just being literate was a prized skill. Part of what brought Rome to its knees was that people got saved, learned to read so they could read the Bible for themselves, and then were qualified to work in the Roman bureaucracy.  When Diocleatian’s last general persecution happened, so many believers fled, the Empire could not function.

            Today, one of our society’s problems is that in too many businesses and other organizations, the people they want to hire and promote are not the hones, not the best trained, but the most easily corrupted people.  It is a natural, but difficult, part of our commitment to living for Jesus to desire to do work that is honest and ethical by God’s standards.  How do we give our best to honor Jesus in work?  1. Work as unto God, not as unto man.  2. Get a skill.  One of six in our society with a college degree is not using it in his or her job.  Further, I know what I am saying about leadership and every member ministry threatens the jobs of many Godly people who are in the status quo church system, but it is not scriptural.  3. Desire work from an ethical employer.  Our society is overrun with employers whose only honest jobs are the bottom line ones.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, see http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally, (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 18--leadership scandals

18—leadership scandals

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

Any of us who have been believers in Jesus for any period of time have felt embarrassment of Christian leaders who have been caught, usually by the world’s media, doing things—sometimes illegal, sometimes legal but unethical—but not close to God’s standard of what living righteously is.

This is totally interconnected to the idea that the church is to be a place where every believer is allowed to and does build each other up in the faith.  A corollary to that is that a church needs to be small enough that every person can know one another.  There were, and still are, persons like Paul, who work to see people come to faith in Jesus, help them and experienced believers to form into a church, and support them as a mentor.  Scripture directs believers to support these persons financially, as these persons need to move from location to location in a way that precludes normal work.

Personality driven scandals have had one or more of the following problems:  1. The person was directing their work at individuals, then asking for money, and the money cannot be accounted for.  2. The person’s life cannot be accounted for, except for those moments in public, when he or she controls the agenda.  3. Many leaders, famous or not, use manipulative techniques.  4. Such persons set themselves in a position where they cannot accept correction.  5. Almost all are directed at the parts of the church where the most money is obtainable.  I fully understand that the areas of the world where the least time and money is directed are also the most dangerous.

One reason for doing this program is to say some things I believe are scriptural but are not being said in our part of the Christian subculture.  I ask you to consider, compare to scripture, in cultural context and in comparison to what God has blessed and not over the history of the church.

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