The One Key Skill in Simple Church Life

One of the main paradigm shifts within this movement of simple churches is the belief that ordinary men and women hear God.  They can be entrusted with the affairs of the Kingdom.  It does not need specially trained people to manage the church.  The Holy Spirit is able to run the church by speaking directly to His people.   He will do a far better job of it than our organizations and denominations ever can.

Within simple church, we like to say that church is as simple as knowing God, hearing His voice and responding to what He tells us.  Jesus is head of His church, and if we believe that we are to take this literally, it means that both at an individual and at a corporate level, He desires to communicate with us.  It also presupposes that we have the ability to recognize His voice when He is speaking to us.

Imagine the adventure of hearing God speak and recognizing His voice.  We might hear Jesus say to us, “Go and sit down next to the person on the bench and get chatting with him, He needs to hear from Me today.”  Imagine a community of God’s people that knows when God is communicating.  God might tell them to get involved in a certain apartment complex.  He would tell them where their finances were to be spent.  They would know what they were to do with their children during the times they meet together.

I know the photo accompanying this blog as "His Master's Voice."  To me it says that God is speaking loudly and clearly.  Are we listening?

Comments

[Stan Meador]

You wrote, "Within simple church, we like to say that church is as simple as knowing God, hearing His voice and responding to what He tells us."

This is so true! I remember many years ago seeing the title of a book about prayer written by Henri J.M. Nouwen. The title was The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life. I never read the book.

I saw the title and I thought, "No way! What about obedience? What about witnessing? What about...?" And the list of my objections went on. In retrospect, my reaction was nothing more than a revelation of my own misunderstanding of what prayer was, and is.

True prayer will include speaking to God, hearing from God and obeying what God tells me to do.

Thanks for bringing this lesson back to the forefront. I look forward to reading your upcoming posts about the ways God speaks to us.

[Bruce G.]

Felicity, Once again, you put your finger on important and
overlooked aspects of living in Christ, not 'just' simple
church. Thanks for this reminder, and for the time and prayer
you put into this blog.