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Re-digging the Well of Roland Allen

Probably most of you reading this blog are familiar with the re-digging of the well concept, made famous recently from the “Healing Rooms” of John G. Lake. A ministry actually moved into the same offices in Spokane, WA used by Lake 80 years earlier. Today there are over 640 Healing Rooms world-wide!

In a similar way, we are hoping to re-dig the well dug by Roland Allen in the early 1900s as he formed a partnership with two other men and influenced generations of missionaries. So wide was his influence that William Danker of Concordia Seminary (St Loius, MO) calls Roland “certainly one of the most seminal missiological and ecclesiological minds of the 20th Century.” Yet many of you reading this have never heard his name before or only recognize him as the author of a few books.

When You Come Together

Video Courtesy of House2House Ministries

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The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church (Roland Allen)

Spontaneous expansion begins with the individual effort of the individual Christian to assist his fellow, when common experience, common difficulties, common toil have first brought the two together. It is this equality and community of experience which makes the one deliver his message in terms which the other can understand, and makes the hearer approach the subject with sympathy and confidence--with sympathy because the common experience makes approach easy and natural, with confidence, because the one is accustomed to understand what the other says and expects to understand him now.

The Last Holdout

In my observation, one of the last "holdouts" that God is dealing with as He changes the shape and forms of today's Church is the sermon. It's the "Alamo." It's "Custer's last Stand," or even worse, the "Ark of Sacredness." When it comes to the things we are willing to adjust, alter, or change, the sacred sermon, the holy homily, is the last to go. Given the reality that the average pastor is  judged, praised, crucified, or deified for his weekend oratory, it is no wonder that he spends most of his waking hours (and sometimes not-so-waking hours) preparing, polishing, and practicing this Protestant performance ethic.

After supper He took the cup.

If you can stand it, I would like to ask you all one more time to look at the Lord's Supper through the lens of the New Testament and see if you would not agree with me that this may be one of the biggest blind spots for the church around the world in the last 2000 years!

It's a supper, stupid!

First and foremost, if you look at all the texts that describe what we now practice and call "The Lord's Supper", you will notice that it was in the context of Jesus and His disciples sharing the Passover meal together.

Detoxing from an Institution

The subject for today is that of detoxing from a system / institution, be that church or missions. What are the easier parts, where are the pitfalls?

Webster's defines detox as: "to remove a harmful substance (as a poison or toxin) or the effect of such".

If you have lived through a "detoxing phase" in your life with God and His church please tell the world...

The Need for a Velvet Revolution

For the past few months I have been working part time as a web designer. This may not seem to be a good place to find parallels to the house church movement but I found some interesting comparisons with how people use web sites and how people “do church”. It seems hard to imagine but when people get "on the web" to search sites or look for something to buy, etc. they don't actually stop and try to figure out how to use the site they are on but rather prefer to "muddle through".

Read it for yourself, from Web Usability expert Steve Krug:

 “We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through..."  

The World Aflame

Many denominations, extra-local fellowships and circles of emphasis will begin disbanding and severing those ties, even those that were ordained by God for a season, in order to take their place in this great net that the Lord is now forming. For some these ties will be just ignored or forgotten until they have passed away, almost without notice, because of the greater intensity and substance of this new move. For others it will be a very painful rendering as they are persecuted and rejected by those who do not understand. Those who are required to leave much behind will soon receive many times that which they have left.

Some leaders will actually disband their organizations when they realize they are no longer relevant to what God is doing. Others will just leave them behind of themselves. In becoming part of this harvest, all circles of ministry or influence with individual identities will ultimately dissolve into a single identity of simply being Christian. Single presbyteries will form over cities and localities... Their unity and harmony in purpose... will become a marvel to the world.

Rick Joyner (1993)

5 Signs of a Healthy Church

   "Since the time of Socrates it has been an accepted part of Western wisdom that, in matters of social organization, it is necessary to know what is right before we can know what is wrong. Insofar as man is reasonable, the intelligent way to begin is to consider first the end. The only reason why a physician can diagnose the nature of an illness is that he already has a vision of what a really well body is." (Elton Trueblood, 1953)

In this e-epistle I would like to list five signs that point us to a vision of what the New Testament church looked like 2000 years ago. I believe that we can measure for ourselves – for better or for worse – against these signs. We can, and should, look for these NT principles and practices of apostolic churches in our modern times to gauge if we meet their standards.

I Am Free!

Dear Church,

Do you know how difficult it is to be a pastor in a traditional church?

I do.  I was one for over 25 years. 

Consider these statistics from an article called "Death by Ministry". 

Pastors

• Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.
• Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
• Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.