2004--Measuring the Fruit of Wholeness

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  Today, I'm reading an exerpt from the blog of pollster George Barna, dated May 8, 2011, on "measuring the fruit of wholeness."

(see www.georgebarna.com, posted under Leadership, with the quote being all of the blog except the last paragraph)

You can find out more info on simple/organic church at www.hrscn.org.  You can reach me via my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com or at (phone).
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This may come across as not being specifically pertinent to the subject of simple/organic church, but the underlying point is--in an institutional church situation the type of caring described, above, is impossible for everyone, as some people will not allow others to know them that well, and the institutional situation inhibits such familiarities' growth, in my opinion.

Simple Church Minute 70--calling and social justice

70—calling and social justice

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            The U. S. has a history of many of the earliest settlers coming to this continent for the specific purpose of being free to believe the Christian faith according to their conscience.  Some parts of that history have been p.r. spun in a number of quite variant directions over the past 40 years.  The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines “calling” as 1) an inner urge or strong impulse, especially one believed to be divinely inspired to accept the Gospels as truth and Jesus as one’s personal savior, and 2: an occupation, profession, or career.  Where I grew up, a calling was a vague thing someone who would become an institutional church pastor sensed to become a pastor, or to move from one position to another.  Over time, I have come to learn that a calling is like the definition above—first, every person on earth is called to accept Jesus as Savior and Lord; relatively few will accept this offer, and in a culture with a Christian heritage, some will say they accept this call, but will only show whether they really have when something difficult happens.  Also, some who have accepted this call will only come to take it seriously after they publicly fail at some point.  We humans don’t have the capacity to tell the difference from any distance away.  From accepting the call of salvation, the Holy Spirit calls us to grow in spiritual maturity.  If, at some point, we refuse to go God’s way in a situation, much like the Israelites in the wilderness, we will mark time for a bit, and another situation will come up where we can choose to deal with that same point.  Most of what God’s direction for us is in the Bible.  At a certain point in spiritual maturity, the Holy Spirit in some way can show a believer a thing that he or she is uniquely geared to be passionate about.  This may have to do with showing others the way to Jesus as Savior, may have to do with directing believers in growing in God, and may have to do with showing God’s love by caring for a social injustice.  Some believers have shied away from the latter, as those who are into a theology of unbelief only care for the last of the three. 

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  You can learn more about simple worship at 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 58--altar call

58—altar call

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            In John chapter 15 verse 5, Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.”

Charles Finney taught that the only purpose of preaching was to win converts.  Two of the techniques used were music, and the altar call—a climax to a speech in which people were urged to stand and come to the front of the meeting place to receive prayer.  Finney also introduced praying for individuals in public by name, organizing groups of people to visit people at their homes, and scheduling special meetings every night.

            D.L. Moody also emphasized individual salvation.  He introduced to Christianity door to door witnessing, evangelistic advertising, popularized the decision card, specifically coming to the front to be led in a prayer of repentence, and the idea that the world might end any moment.  Billy Graham introduced the idea of asking everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes before he asked those wishing to be saved to raise their hands.  John Mott is connected to the phrase “the evangelization of the world in one generation.”

            What’s wrong with any of that?  First, it seems the apostles were more concerned with persons truly making a decision to follow Jesus, and those that did to be mature in faith, than with either seeing how many people they could communicate with, or how many persons they could get to agree with them, disconnected from lives truly changed by Jesus.  Second, some of these techniques are psychologically manipulative.  We believers struggle today with the amount of neighbors who have somehow said a sinner’s prayer, but it takes faith, not just saying certain words.  Third, techniques are not a substitute for the Holy Spirit.  Fourth, some have preached the gospel for fame, power, and money.  These problems are symptoms of the unscriptural divide between professionals and everyday believers.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, visit ww.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 47--reproducing leaders

47—reproducing leaders

THIS BLIP NOT ON FIRST RECORDING

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Vince Lombardi was the most successful American pro football coach of the late 1950’s and 1960’s.  Bill Walsh was the most successful of the 1980’s.  History records one notable difference in their legacies.  Walsh had many of his former assistant coaches move on to become head coaches themselves, with about 16* being sufficiently successful to lead their teams to the playoffs.  The only one former assistant of Lombardi became a head coach, and he was Lombardi’s successor who inherited the position as the team descended to mediocrity. 

            I had a friend in college who applied to enter the seminary of the denomination of church he attended on the 100^th anniversary of that church’s existence.  He was the first person from his church to do so, in spite of the seminary only being about 20 miles down the road.  His church may have had the most basic parts of Christian theology right, but desiring to produce leaders was obviously so low on their priority list that it wasn’t even there.

            Conversely, in the Bible, when Paul started a church, he taught new believers how to be the church while staying in the city about 3 months, once as little as 6 weeks, before leaving for another city.  In that time, he taught everyone to share in leading each other towards spiritual maturity, and trusted everyone desiring to listen to the Holy Spirit to be sufficient ongoing day by day direction.

            The current institutional church system has persons in formal schooling for 3 to 7 years, and then accredits the trained persons to take a job where he or she may be as closed off from the world as every person in the early churches was a part of it.  In that closed off situation, such trained persons create lectures under the guise of teaching, but the people taught never take tests, no one expects the teaching to sink in, and there’s no accountability for the teacher if that happens.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic, simple worship, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or (local website). 
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* I say about, as I haven't been able to conclusively figure out the number

Simple Church Minute 24--accomodating bad soil in the church

24—accomodating bad soil in the church

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            In Mark 4, Matthew 13, and Luke 8 appears a parable of Jesus.  We call it the parable of the sower.  The people of Jesus’ day would have found the beginning funny.  Life was hard, and if you were planting crops, you would be careful not to waste your seed—it was your livelihood, just like a person today starting a business must be very careful how he or she uses the initial capital.  BUT, the farmer, in Jesus’ story, starts by spreading seed on hard ground and shallow ground, thorny ground and good ground.  The seed represent the types of people who hear the message of the Gospel. The seed that lands on hard ground are the people who will always reject Jesus’ message.  The shallow ground are like people who like the ideas of heaven, but don’t want anything to do with what looks to them like the hard stuff—letting Jesus run their life, trials, persecution.  The thorny ground people are the ones who accept the life Jesus offers, but get distracted by the worries of the world.  The last group, the good ground, Jesus calls the seeds that bear fruit.  If this was yours or my garden, only the last one would count for anything, and we’d blame ourselves for how the thorny ground turned out.

            Much of the traditional churches are concerned, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly, with how many seeds are on the plot, without regard to fruitfulness.  A small amount of people who truly believe Jesus, gather regularly, encourage one another such that all grow regularly to the maturity of faith, God can move through them.  In such a situation, any people that to us humans seem to be hard, shallow, or thorny ground will show themselves to be actually good ground, or will get out because of not wanting to repent.  That’s OK—the believer does God’s will, the Holy Spirit speaks His truth into the spirits of the people that are truly the church.  To the degree any church concentrates on watering infertile seed, to that degree it is growing a mud pie, not a fruit pie.

            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.