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LA, do you remember the road to Emmaus narrative and that line about 'our hearts burned within us'? Your simple question has that effect upon me. But to answer the question, I must confess not. I do think about this matter every day but very seldom find any takers. God knows.
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We just started our gathering last Sunday but I am already thinking and hoping for others to start. Is that what you meant? In other words there is a desire in me to see quantity. I hear people say "it's not quantity, it's quality". I agree and disagree. It's better to have quality than quantity almost always except when you want all to come to repentance. A little different spin on your question even though you said to "never mind". I had to look up that abbreviation. Ever learning...
It isn't easy to multiply in the American context. North America DAWN has said that it's strategy has worked in all kinds of cultures, but more or less failed in the US. The house church movement is growing explosively, but it is still by and large a shuffling of saints.
David, I understand that burning you are talking about. I feel as if the "keys to the kingdom" are almost, but not quite, in reach.
Yes, DPoag, I agree we are to aim for both quantity and quality. Jesus died for all, and gave us a command to cast our net widely. Yet, if we do not propagate "the real thing" we ought not to propagate at all. Fortunately, the blueprint from Jesus is very straightforward. It's not either/or but both/and ~
We have been part of the start of two other simple groups, but overcoming the "we-four-no-more" mentality is a huge challenge! Good news is that everyone is taking note of a particular couple as the "next" place to plant, as they have to drive half an hour to join the group. In that case, I'm concerned about what the other leaders consider "ready to start", because they all are from a more theological background. Personally, I think J&J are ready, and that they might be "ruined" by spending too much more time in the company of people who argue about "Reform Theology". But, nobody's asking me. They think I'm a heretic because I won't subscribe to their teacher-centric theology-driven agenda. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit is there, and we can pray He can have His way! So, I'm just staying home to stay out of the way...
I've been looking at the Paul-Timothy net online, trying to grasp the multiplicative nature of the Kingdom.
-------------------- You & Me and Jesus. We are enough!
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DAWN more or less failed in the USA??? Where did you come across that information, sister? Just last year at one of their international conferences, unprecedented "exponential growth" in the USA was announced. Joel News editor thus reported:
quote:The organic church guys from North America broke the rules again: instead of a Powerpoint with numbers they took a collective time-out to model simple church - basically listening to Jesus and doing what He says. It touched me to see three ex-megapastors, one ex-normalpastor and a seminary professor do just that. No program, just Jesus. John White challenged us with what he calls 'the leadership solution', daily praying the Luke 10:2b prayer for laborers, together with a soul mate. Since he started doing this, and teaching this organic principle to other believers, God sent people on his way, one after the other, asking advice on how to plant churches, and he could simply coach them in doing that. This way, the simple church networks in the States are growing exponentially. While 530 simple churches were planned 'in faith' for 2005, they hit the 6,000 mark. While they intended to train 530 church planters in 2005, they saw 1,000 church planters trained in the first two months of 2006 alone. With this kind exponential growth (the current growth rate is 70%) they could reach their target of 4 million simple churches in North America (400,000 networks, 40,000 network coaches, 4,000 lead coaches) by the year 2018. Then they still have two years left to rest from their labors.
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I'm sorry I wasn't clear on that, D. What I meant was "the _strategy_" DAWN had found successful elsewhere didn't quite work here. So, a few years ago, John White called people to be creative and find fresh ways of applying these PRINCIPLES, as opposed to using the same strategy.
I do think, however, the jury is still out on whether radical transformation has happened in America. Until we budge the actual numbers of obedient followers of Jesus in America (I wonder when Barna is doing the next head count? Anyone know?) then I will fear that this is just a fad we are going through, and that believers haven't really broken through.
Not cynical, just cautious. I've jumped on so many bandwagons. This is the first time I really BELIEVED the bandwagon was going in the right direction, however I won't rest until it gets somewhere worthwhile.
Blessings, Laurie Ann
-------------------- You & Me and Jesus. We are enough!
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Had an AWESOME "passing it on" experience on Sunday I'd like to share.
Because of our years in Japan, my son is fluent in Japanese. Through our missions-oriented network, we were invited to a youth meeting with several foreign exchange students, one a Japanese who has been led to the Lord by his Filipino host family. They wanted my son to speak about the faith in T's native language to shore up his understanding.
The hostess of the meeting reported that sing-a-long type worship had not been going well with this group, so we decided to do a "group worship project" instead. This idea came from the frontier missions conference I've been listening to -- the need to get our own ideas of what worship is "out of the way" so the "natives" can find culturally appropriate expressions of worship.
So, our family shared some of our original worship music, just to set the mood, without expecting participation.
Then, we set out rhythm instruments, simple flutes, shakers. I told people they could join in any way they wanted, with instrument, clapping or singing. The words of our meditation would be, "Creator of the Universe, I come to you". I compared it to having a jam session.
Dan set a background on his bass of an original musical phrase, and then people joined in. The first time, only the more mature believers and experienced musicians joined in. But I could see that people were being touched, so we did it again with a more upbeat, Latino type phrase on the guitar. That got people moving. Then finally, we tried a Celtic background, and that time almost everyone joined in, and it began to really sound worshipful.
Three good things came out of that. First, the Japanese student was greatly touched. Second, a Swiss student admitted his family were Christians, but the only experience he had ever had was a German traditional church which had been "boring" , and that this had opened him up to getting involved with Christians, which he had been purposely avoiding. Finally, the youth leader caught a vision for more participatory worship for the group, realizing that the youth wanted to "worship" they just didn't feel comfortable "singing".
We went on to do a slide presentation on our experiences in Japan combined with a presentation on the Unreached, which seemed to speak to people each at their own level in some way. The Filipina mom especially caught a vision for how big hosting foreign students could be as a ministry.
Our family has been praying about how we can use our music outside of institutional venues, and I feel like this may have been a glimpse of what can be done when we do "simple".
-------------------- You & Me and Jesus. We are enough!
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