House Church Talk - House church or simply church wherever people are

[Dan Beaty]

Dan G,

Thanks for hearing me out and your honest response. We are in a tough
position when it comes to challenging the legitimacy of someones livelyhood.

But first of all I am thinking of our communications in this forum and in
our meetings. We need to  affirm the true gift of shepherd in the church
while we reject the right of a man to dominate the gathering of saints.

Therefore, someone in this forum or visiting a meeting would have not cause
to think that we believe and live contrary to God's clear plan and purpose
for His church. What I fear, however, is that some in HC, in their reaction
to the ceo/pastor, have actually rejected ANY kind of pastoring or
leadership in the Body of Christ. Hey, some have even rejected the idea of
any kind of regular meetings!

Getting back to your dialog with people in the IC and those in the HC that
continue in the old system mentality. This is very difficult. In my
experience, everything I try to express to them is usually taken the wrong
way.

A paradigm shift is necessary, I think. Passages in the Old and New
Testament are easily seen by them to confirm the existence of the single
pastor system. Even the the post NT documents can be used, because the
concept of single bishop over each church was being developed by then.

Maybe the most convincing argument we can offer is the Lord's work in our
midst as we strive to live and worship together under His Lordship?

Dan Beaty
Columbus, Ohio
www.livingtruth.com



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DanG" <dan.dgordon at gmail.com>
To: <House Church Talk  at housechurch.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: House Church Talk -  House church or simply church wherever people are


> Dan Beaty wrote:
>
> <SNIP>
>
> > The brother saying this could not have been referring to our local
> > situation, for we have never had the single pastor system in our HC. I
> > suspect he was thinking about churches in general, who have ceo type
> > pastors. This kind of cliche' can lead to much confusion IMO.
> >
> > How we communicate what we see and understand is important, especially
if we
> > hope to enlighten others to what we see. Do you agree?
> >
> > Dan
>
> That is entirely true, really.  I speak the same harsh way, really.
> So, now that you have focused on bad language/communication skill, go
> on further.  How do we get heard in a place where any implication of
> what we say means the fellow is out of a job?  This is his job - that
> ceo position.  Will he or his parishoners care to entertain any dialog
> on these matters?
>
> Last week I was speaking with my brother.  He does not like the ceo
> status in the meeting he is attending, but he does not have an
> alternative that he wants.  Also, about a year ago he visited a friend
> in CO and attended their housechurch and saw ceo position there, and
> worse.  The guy was evidently a control freak - in a manner of
> speaking - don't take the image too far, just generically noticebly
> controlling the group as pastor/ceo.  He is retired, I think, so it is
> not the income/job thing.  What I am getting at - there are bad
> homechurch practices in existence also - we all could name names -
> let's not, btdt.  And these examples flavor others in understanding or
> speaking about what they can do toward meeting more simply.  I wonder
> if house church/home church is becoming another non descript
> denomiination?  Of course as soon as we coin the phraseology simple
> meeting, the same will happen...
>
> Carry on, Dan, with some ideas how we interface with others instead of
> "in your face" type of rhetoric.  How to lead the horse to water?  How
> to salt the oats? so to speak...
> DanG ChicagoArea
>
>
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