Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Simple churching is incredible. Spending an entire Sunday as a Sabbath is the most amazing experience. Rest. Worship. Food. Scripture. Conversation. Prayer. Recreation. (Did I mention food?)

Until you have spent 12 hours on Sunday with people from your church, unhurriedly going about the business of simply being together, for many weeks in a row, you can’t grasp the peaceful joy that is simple church.

We don’t get stressed by the approach of Sunday morning anymore. This is a big deal. Sundays used to be a constant source of bickering and rushing and hurryhurryhurry and “Whew, it’s over.”. Sundays are now a source of joy, and rest and “Aw, do we have to go home?”.

I’ve gleaned more from scripture in the months of simple church than I have in years. I’m seeing the book of John as a whole rather than being split into little chunks by the necessities of sermon topics. Christ is coming alive through the word.

MrMike and MrsVal lived on a few acres just outside of town. He had a long-held dream to build a log home, and they had purchased a large property about an hour away. This year was the year that they were going to move out to the property and live in a small cabin while the house was built.

This was causing a little bit of panic on our part, but heck, only an hour away? We can do that. Church won’t really change. Then MrMike announced that they had found a great deal on a fantastic old house on a great piece of property that will allow them to move into a nicer, larger house now and perhaps rebuild an old log farmstead in the back. It was a better deal all around. But it was three and a half hours away.

God seems to have hit the pause button on our church.

We had been getting used to the one-hour-away move for a few months and we were dealing with it fine, but in the course of 4 days their house sold, the hour-away property sold, and they closed on the far-away deal.

So now what, God? You told us clearly that this was what we were supposed to be doing. This has been the most upbuilding time of my entire life. Now what?

Well, surprisingly enough if you know me at all, I didn’t stress. I wondered what would happen, but I was rather lackadaisically saying “We’ll wait. I’m not going to struggle and stress and try to figure out a plan when this whole thing is way beyond anything we would have planned anyway.”

And we wait. We’ve had church a few weeks now with other families, and a few weeks on our own. I’m not pleased with doing church alone, I know it’s not that healthy longterm.

But we wait. We have the utmost confidence in our God, and we smile and we pray and we wait.

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As we move along on our home church journey we often look at what we’re doing, and look at the megachurches, and look at the community churches and look at everything else that other people are doing, and we wonder if what we’re doing is real.

“Is this really church? Are we just playing pretend?” The doubts can be persistent, no matter how confident we are in our call to do this, no matter how confident we are that the manner in which we “do church” is scripturally supportable. Being different than most is often accompanied by doubt. All you large family folks, and homeschoolers and counter-cultural Christians can attest to that.

John MacArthur has an interesting article on 5 truths that are evident in all authentic churches. Reading through it makes me feel better, and I know it will help me battle those doubts if they surface again.

1. A High View of God - “It is essential that a church perceive itself as a body of believers designed for the glory of God.” Well, if we were out for the glory of men, we sure wouldn’t be churching in a living room with me playing guitar for the music, and 3 year-old LittlestPage taking her turn in the rotation “reading” scripture… (cutest thing ever, btw, but not real “churchy”).

2. The Absolute Authority of Scripture - “[T]he rule by which every other opinion is evaluated.” Home churching has caused (forced?) me to get farther into the Word than I ever have before. Decisions are made based on our common understanding of the Word. We now have to make sure that every single decision is based on solid scripture, because we don’t have tradition to fall on. Every single thing we do is new and needs to be evaluated. It’s fascinating.

3. Sound Doctrine - “You need to be able to read a biblical text, discover what it says, and draw out divine principles.” …which describes our worship time exactly. We read the text and discover it, rather than having it done for us, but I’m sure it still counts. :)

4. Personal Holiness - “We must draw lines when it comes to personal holiness and be careful what we expose ourselves and our children to. We dare not lower our standards to those of the world. Christians are called to live a pure life, and we can’t compromise that.” This is one of the reasons for most of our life decisions, from schooling to church to our parenting style to our chosen friends.

5. Spiritual Authority - “[T]he church must be committed to training and obeying godly leaders.” Many have problems with home church in this point, but I think it’s a non-issue. MrMike and I struggle to make ourselves ready to lead the discussion. We struggle to make ourselves examples and leaders as parents, husbands and church leaders. We lift each other up and we help each other. We’re both growing at incredible rates. Our children are seeing this, and part of our growth is training them. All of the LittlePages are showing more growth spiritually in the last six months than they have in a long time. Our young men are starting to step forward and show that they are seeing and recognizing what a godly man is supposed to be and are trying to reach that goal. It’s quite inspiring.

Wow!

Lookit us!

We’re a church!

I wrote up the following after a request on the MOMYS board (Mothers of Many Young Siblings) to share about our churches. I though some of you might also be interested.

How would you describe your church?

Well we just planted a church, so it’s a little different than what most people might expect. We’re small, meet in homes and are just enjoying building one another up.

Music style?

MrPages and his guitar. We sing everything that comes to mind from classical to acapella to country to contemporary. Everyone is open to make requests.

Teaching style?

We read through the chapter or section we are studying (currently John). Each person who can read, reads a verse or two. We stop whenever it feels right and discuss. Usually a few adults have done some extra research over the week and will share their insights. It is really encouraging and refreshing and challenging. A few times we’ve watched a DVD or listened to a more formal sermon.

Size?

Just two families right now, but we’ve had a few others show some interest.

Church building or someone’s home?

We rotate between two homes - two weeks in one place and two weeks in another.

How long have you been there?

Six months meeting weekly on Sundays, but before that we met every three weeks for about six months on Saturdays trying to discern the will of the Holy Spirit.

Where did you go previous to this one? What was your reason for leaving?

We went to a larger urban church, but really felt the need to look at early church models and try to emulate them.

How often do you get together with people from church?

Every Sunday and usually one other time during the week. We also try to connect by phone or email throughout the week.

What time does your service start? End?

We try to arrive between 10 and 10:30 and start the morning with a potluck brunch together. Then we relax after the meal, clean up a bit, and let the kids run. Sometime in the early afternoon we all join together to sing, read scripture, discuss, pray and sing some more. Then we usually spend the rest of the afternoon doing something together. We’ve been for walks, played scrabble, had a family baseball game, gone to zoo, or just sat around and talked. (Yesterday the men caught a few zzz’s in the living room!) Then we scrounge something up for dinner, enjoy more fellowship, clean up some more, and then head for home, usually about 8pm.

Just yesterday I was thinking how peaceful my Sundays have been the last few months. No rushing around, no feeling tired and drained when we got home. Just several hours being together with our children and friends enjoying God’s presence and Sabbath rest. It’s been good.

That is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. (Romans 1:12)

I was a good Christian.

I was on the Worship Committee. I went to regular meetings. I volunteered to do plenty of things. I spent many mornings rewiring network problems or solving PC problems at the church office. I played guitar and bass at the front of the church every month after attending practices. I even used to lead Worship. I was an elder-in-training, and was close friends with the pastor. My kids were always getting smiled at by everyone on Sunday mornings. My trip to Nicaragua was well-funded by donations from people who were truly interested and sincerely cared for me. I was on the Pastoral Selection Committee. I preached a couple of times, and the pastor was looking to get me to preach on a more regular basis. Our kids are learning Greek so they can read the New Testament in the original language. Scripture covers the walls at our house.

I was a good Christian.

Then we left the our congregation to plant a small house church. There were no more meetings to go to. No more practices to attend. No more smiling handshakes. No more public speaking. No more things that only I could fix. No more people telling me what a great asset I was.

Suddenly, there wasn’t much left. I missed all that, because that’s what I was living for.

I’ve spent the last couple of months realizing that I was too busy being a Christian™ to be a Christian. It’s been devastating to look up to God and feel how shallow and useless I was, and how wonderful I thought I was. I’ve spent a lot of time weeping. I’ve spent a lot of time asking forgiveness. I’ve spent a lot of time receiving forgiveness.

Now I’m responsible for my own faith. I’m reading far more scripture than I ever did before. Not studying to learn more, just reading for pleasure. I keep reading past my “daily allotment” because I want to keep going. I’m talking more to God about His incredible grace and mercy than I ever did before. I’m far more confident in my faith because it’s mine, not something that I use as a front, or something that’s told to me, or something that I feel like I should have, or something that’s expected of me. The great part is that I’m finding that my faith and my knowledge and my worldview are deeper and more solid that I ever knew, because I never needed to challenge them before. I feel like I’ve woken up from a long sleepwalk.

Before I go any further, don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming the organized church for that. I can see some of the issues that we’ve had with the church affected me personally more than I thought. The combination of my personality and the opportunities for participation without depth let me cruise along riding high. But the issue was that I used the system to get along, rather than using God.

I’m not encouraging Lone Ranger Christianity. Christians need churches. However, I think that stepping back and having to detox from the system has opened my eyes and my heart to a whole new level. It’s time to rethink what church means. It’s time to rethink what prayer means. It’s time to rethink what faith means. It’s time to rethink what service means. It’s time to rethink what giving means. My answers may end up being the same as those I had before, but at least I will have thought about them and prayed about them and struggled with them, and I’m not sure how many people that I know have done that. Where to from here? I have no idea. I’m still waiting for orders from headquarters.

So, how would your faith fare if you left your church tomorrow? You don’t have to quit (I know I’ll get nasty mails if I suggest that). What if you went to a country where there are no Christian churches? How’d your faith hold up?

Comments welcome.

We just planted a church.

The “simple church” model is one that has appealed to us for a long time. We look back and see so many of our convictions growing towards planting a simple church. Small groups. Authentic, heartfelt worship. Family integrated church. The importance of local outreach. Authority by relationship. Evangelism by relationship. They all point to this, the culmination of all that we’ve been building in our lives.

We’re meeting with another family that lives near us. We’re meeting whenever we can. We’re sharing our lives. We’re sharing meals, burdens, joys, worship, prayers, songs, housework, and whatever else we can. We’re wide open to whatever God has for us.

Roger Thoman at SimpleChurch Journal has a beautifully worded answer to the question that I’m sure we will hear many times in the near future:

Why Are We Doing This?

I believe in gatherings that are small, because we need the support, encouragement, and deeper growth that comes from this type of community.

I believe in gatherings where everyone is known so that no one gets lost.

I believe in gatherings where we can learn from each other’s personal lives and stories (not just head knowledge) so that growth and discipleship takes place in the context of genuine, healthy relationship.

I believe in gatherings that are participatory because this involves and engages the entire body of Christ.

I believe in gatherings that are simple so that we are free to spend time with nonChristians and have the time to invite them into our lives.

I believe in gatherings that are easily multiplied, so that we can see people released to reach people anywhere, disciple people everywhere, and start “churches” at any time in any place.

I believe in gatherings that are inexpensive so that money is freed up for apostolic workers and the needs of the poor.

What more can I add to that?

I am seriously desiring this yet-unpublished book, The New Conspirators by Tom Sine.

In a preview that makes me scream for more, Roger Thoman quotes from the book and then goes on to add his own thoughts

That we would be willing to be the unseen, unheralded ambassadors who heroically refuse to walk in the ways of this world for the sake of demonstrating a love that throws money-changers out of temples, loves sinners, and forgives those who nail us to a cross.

Maybe, the moment we are no longer underground (unseen) nor insurgent (counter-cultural), we are no longer really the church.

Maybe, the moment “our movement” is recognized, written about, or even blogged about, it no longer has the characteristics of the true church.

Maybe, the moment we receive an accolade or an applause for what we are doing, it is time to look to see if the recognition has come because we have begun to agree more with our culture than the radical kingdom that Jesus preached and demonstrated.

I’ve spent so much of my life wanting to be a big fish in little ponds. Now I just want to be a little fish. I’m finally starting to see that the accolades I so desperately crave aren’t from this world, and I’m starting to care less and less for the ones that are.

Further to my original post.

The information and conclusions that this book provide mesh well with Willow Creek’s recent admission that the modern church model isn’t very good at dealing with people’s growth once they become believers. The primary source of life-transformation that they found was not church-based at all, but “God-centered endeavors taking place outside of a congregational connection”.

You are probably connected to some of them, or to people involved in them, without realizing their significance. Some of these mini-movements include homeschooling, “simple church” fellowships (i.e., house churches), biblical worldview groups, various marketplace Christian ministries, several spiritual disciplines networks, the Christian creative arts guilds, and others.

My ears perked up of course, because we’re strongly involved in two of the examples he mentioned.

So, why does this whole mini-movement thing change lives?

These people have made the faith orientation of the mini-movement the pivot point of their existence. They want more of God in their lives, so they invest themselves in the workings of the mini-movement, focusing on the distinctive emphasis of the group, whether it is all-out worship, heartfelt prayer, developing a Christian mind, or whatever the driving motivation of the group may be. It is that single-mindedness of intent and the intensity of their focus on God that enables the Lord to build them into Revolutionaries.

The danger inherent, I think, is that tight focus makes for lopsided people. There is so much “Yes, but you have to go further…” in this. As a reader of this book, one has to realize that what he is pointing to is one facet of a life devoted to God. Barna does a reasonable job of pointing out that these focus-creating mini-movements are like gateway drugs. They get people’s lives concentrated on God and change people’s attitudes and spirits, and then the other aspects of their relationship with God and other people change too.

A big danger for MrsPages and I: We just have to make sure we don’t love our little niche so much that we stay there.

1986 - I’m 16 years old and an acquaintance invites me to a bible study around the corner. A young university student has opened his parent’s home so we have a place to “hang out.” I start going to church because then we can “hang out” even more. We meet for many years in some form or another.

1990 - I attend Urbana 90 and feel a definite call towards becoming a teacher so I can eventually do tent-making mission work.

1991 - I meet MrPages and lose focus a little.

1992 - MrPages has a lightening moment when he realizes that God is real. He makes many changes, some of which include quitting the bar band, buckling down at school, and taking a wife!

1994 - The local youth pastor invites us to a home bible study saying, “We can just hang out and get to know each other and study our bibles.” For the next 14 years they will teach us, disciple us, guide us, influence us, mentor us, and finally become some of our very closest and dearest friends - family made by God.

1995 - Mr Pages and I pack our little Colt 100E and head east to a new life in Ottawa where we know no one. We go because we have “put out a fleece” and feel the answer is to go. We visit church after church. We get locked out of one, and locked into another. Finally in desperation we call a number we have been given. The young youth pastor on the other side of the line is a passionate man with wild ideas who doesn’t wear socks. We gather together with him and a bunch of other wildly crazy young adults. We eat and talk and hang out together, into the wee hours of the morning. We join the local neighbourhood church and within a week have started a youth group. Every Wednesday a motley crew of young teens hang out in our home. We go to their games, their graduations, their houses. We spend time hanging out with their parents. We start a city-wide “post modern” service. A Godly elder tells us he has a vision of MrPages pastoring a church. We laugh. MrPages willingly admits that he does not have the gifts to be a pastor.

1997 - A job opens up back at home. We pack a truck and the new baby and head back to be with family. We return to our church. We start a worship team with a bunch of university students. We spend most of our time hanging out in the basement and playing out of the Red Book. We begin travelling around to other churches and playing when we can. We return to our former bible study. We spend every Thursday night together, for years. We eat, we pray, we read the Word, we fast, we cry, we laugh. We begin hanging out on other days at other times.

1999 - We begin discussing with our pastor the idea of a different kind of worship service - smaller, perhaps not in the sanctuary, maybe around tables, with food and small groups. We pray. We research. We talk. We plan. We joke about planting a church. MrPages says we have enough going on in our lives - we have three children under three. We’ve decided to home school. Where would we find the time to plant a church?

2001 - An opportunity comes to join a worship team at a downtown church that is going in the direction we have been longing for. We feel it comes from God. Our pastor agrees. Our church sends us to the new church with a commissioning service. We continue to worship at our old church in a fellowship ministry for mentally challenged adults (you don’t really know worship until you’ve worshiped at Rainbow Walk). We begin learning first hand about church worship and church politics. It’s painful, but it’s good. We join a new small group, once again with young people; although the young people are getting older as we age. Now we, the parents of three-small-children-with-one-on-the-way, are hanging out with the young-marrieds.

2005 - The pastor at our new church feels it is time to move on. It’s an opportunity for us to pause and reflect. We receive an email from one of our Ottawa youth. She’s becoming a nurse so she can do mission work in Africa. It’s partly because we let her hang out on our couch. MrPages and I begin asking questions. The answers are disturbing. We push them aside.

2007 - A new pastor is found. He’s charismatic and visionary. The excitement is palpable, but we feel lost. We begin asking our friends to pray for us. Our marriage is suffering. MrPages goes on a mission trip. He comes back a different man. We feel separated from each other and from God. We cry out to God. We pick up the uncomfortable questions again. We begin asking “What is worship?” and we end up trying to figure out, “What is church?” We stumble on the blog of Brant Hansen. He’s saying the same things we’re thinking. We ask for more prayer. We begin meeting regularly with other people who are thinking the same things as us. We pray and study. MrPages meets with the new pastor and tells him what we’re thinking. We know what we’re supposed to do, but still we resist. This is a crazy idea. This will never work. People don’t just do things like this. MrPages loses the use of his hand. Suddenly all our commitments at church are eliminated. We look around and realize God is telling us to move.

2008 - We plant a church. We’re going to sit around on couches with other believers and eat and pray and talk and read the Word and laugh and cry and grow and become more like Jesus. We’re going to spend lots of time together. We’re going to try and grow our faith where our lives happen.

And so begins a new chapter. Looking back it seems that everything was pointing to this moment. God had a plan. And we are trying to be faithful to follow.

For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

As MrsPages alluded to earlier, we’ve been going through some scary stuff. “Scary”, as in “changing everything we know and understand about church”. We’re planning on documenting it here, but it’s rather complex and it might take a while. Stick around and don’t write us off if we’re unclear about something. Feel free to comment, but also realize that anything we’re not too detailed about will likely be discussed later.

We’ve always thought that evangelism should happen in your own living room, over the back fence, and through your day-to-day relationships. We’ve always believed that one of the best ways to evangelize to someone is to serve them. We’ve always been of the mind that if you live your life in a Christ-like way, people will ask you why and how they can do it too.

It works. It’s a simple, effective, proven method. Be a light on your street, or at your workplace, or at your gym. I’ve noticed that many testimonials include the phrase “That person had something special about them, something that I wanted…”. Our job as Christians is to be “that person”.

Until earlier this year, we had still been trying to reconcile the concept of “personal, small scale evangelism” with the concept of “large church”. Like Willow Creek, we had begun to ask ourselves about how spiritual growth happens, and how to develop a deep personal faith that depended only on God, not on programs. We kept feeling that so much of our money and effort was being directed to things that did nothing but perpetuate “the church” rather than reach people and help them grow.

We stepped back and looked at the organized church, the concept of building and services and programs and meetings and outreach programs and all of that. If you step back and look at the church as a whole, it’s easy enough to see places where you can work to fix it, or make it work better, or how to fine tune the process.

But then we took one step further back, one step too far. That was where the problems started. We stepped back far enough to evaluate the concept of the organized church as a whole. Everything started to look strange. We started to ask questions about everything.

The answers to the questions are coming, but they are not what we want them to be. Church as it is is easy. It’s great to write cheques and sing songs on Sunday mornings and volunteer and stay really busy and think we’re doing all the right things.

But what happens when the answers start leading in the direction of simple church? What happens when the “church” starts to become a few families gathering together to worship and teach the children and support each other and pray together and study the Word? What happens when the Outreach Committee is you and you’re talking to your neighbours and the people at the coffee shop? What happens when you start thinking that your tithe could support a lot of kids at Compassion and a lot of neighbourhood barbeques and bible studies instead of 28,000 square feet of air conditioning?

You get scared, that’s what happens.

Several months ago MrPages and I started a WonderfulWorship discussion, and then it dwindled off. We feel we owe an apology of sorts to those who joined in.

We started off asking what worship in the Sunday morning congregation should be. The discussions were awesome. We began to passionately search out information that would help answer this question.

What we found was an answer that has completely terrified us.

We wanted to know what worship should and could be.

God asked us, instead, what His church should and could be.

The answers we’re finding are disturbing.

The ramifications could change the very nature of our comfortable suburban lifestyle.

And we are scared. And excited. And scared.

[[MrPages note: to see the end results of our quest, check out the "Home Church" category!]]