Category: faith

Looking back at the House of Prayer

I was thinking back today after several things were said this morning by folks in my tribe.

I posted this on March 25, 2006 ::

Richard, Phil and I met this morning at the Waxahachie IHOP for coffee, fellowship and discussion on this “new thing” we’ve begun.
I don’t know if any of us are sure on how we should classify it. Is it a house church? Emergent church? House of prayer? It’s so fluid right now and exciting.
I jotted down a few notes and thought this would be a good place to keep track of them and maybe get some feedback.
Here are some ideas/visions we discussed:
No building – the church is not a building, its the people. We want to think out of the box with meetings in homes, not a big spacious auditorium.
A heart of ministry and worship – maybe self explanitory, but we want to have a heart that’s reaching out and ministering to people while we worship God.
Relational – we don’t want anyone to feel like a number, or just a dude sitting in a pew, seat whatever. We want to build relationships and in that fellowship, learn from each other and grow together.
Constant communication – we want to build a community where people feel comfortable sharing ideas, prayer requests, concerns, needs.
Diverse.
Smaller groups – in each house church group we invision smaller groups that meet outside the typical “community meetings.” Such as women’s groups, mens groups etc.
Christ seekers – we don’t claim to know everything. We’re just souls seeking God and a Christ-like life.
Multiplication – we invision the community growing and multiplying. How great would it be to know that every Saturday or Sunday people are getting together in a house in each neighborhood in Waxahachie, or Dallas, or Texas or the US to pray and draw close to God.
Ministry – we need to be involved in doing ministry in our community regularly. Whether we have 3 people or 30 people, we need to be out working in our community and sharing God’s love.
10-15 people ideal – each house group will grow till 10-15 people are gathering weekly. From that, smaller groups will split off and start their own house groups in their neighborhood.
Monthly corporate meetings – each month all the house groups will gather for worship, sharing and testimony to share how God is working in their lives/groups/communities.
Ownership of faith – group members take ownership in their faith and put it to use.
Tithing – each person should be responsible for tithing to the church/community. This brings up a whole other topic of issues that we’re not familiar with. Non-profit organization, bank accounts, etc. Something to study and look into: what is tithing? Is 10 percent scripturally required, or is that “man’s standard?”
So those are some of our thoughts and ideas we discussed this morning. I’d love to hear other ideas and thoughts. Especially from those of you already involved in the emergent/house church movement.

So many thoughts, dreams, visions, imagining etc. More to come.

Question for today

Posted this question on Twitter today and my other social networks.
Figured I’d post it here (without the 140 character limit) and see what response I get.

question :: Two men are running for president of the United States. Both men claim to be strong Christians and/or followers of Chirst. Can you trust that claim, if they also claim to put country before God?

See the image above and this quote from Obama’s speech last night:

“So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.”

Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? If any of you is embarrassed with me and the way I’m leading you, know that the Son of Man will be far more embarrassed with you when he arrives in all his splendor in company with the Father and the holy angels. This isn’t, you realize, pie in the sky by and by. Some who have taken their stand right here are going to see it happen, see with their own eyes the kingdom of God.” – Luke 9:23-27

Prayer for today life

Tim and/or Rebecca (probably the former :-)) share this on their family blog today. I think its a fitting prayer for me right now.

The prayer comes from John Piper’s book Taste and See

O Lord, by the truth of your Word, and the power of your Spirit and the ministry of your body, build us into people . . .

Who don’t love the world more than God,
who don’t care if they make much money,
who don’t care if they own a house,
who don’t care if they have a new car or two cars,
who don’t need recent styles,
who don’t care if they get famous,
who don’t miss steak or fancy fare,
who don’t expect that life should be comfortable and easy,
who don’t feed their minds on TV each night,
who don’t measure truth with their finger in the wind,
who don’t get paralyzed by others’ disapproval,
who don’t return evil for evil,
who don’t hold grudges,
who don’t gossip,
who don’t twist the truth,
who don’t brag or boast,
who don’t whine or use body language to get pity,
who don’t criticize more than praise,
who don’t hang out in cliques,
who don’t eat too much or exercise too little;

But
who are ablaze for God,
who are utterly God-besotted,
who are filled with the Holy Spirit,
who strive to know the height and depth of Christ’s love,
who are crucified to the world and dead to sin,
who are purified by the Word and addicted to righteousness,
who are mighty in memorizing and using the Scriptures,
who keep the Lord’s Day holy and refreshing,
who are broken by the consciousness of sin,
who are thrilled by the wonder of free grace,
who are stunned into humble silence by the riches of God’s glory,
who are persevering constantly in prayer,
who are ruthless in self-denial,
who are fearless in public witness to Christ’s Lordship,
who are able to unmask error and blow away doctrinal haze,
who are tough in standing for the truth,
who are tender in touching hurting people,
who are passionate about reaching the peoples who have no church,
who are pro-life for the sake of babies and moms and dads and the glory of God,
who are keepers of all their promises, including marriage vows,
who are content with what they have and trusting the promises of God,
who are patient and kind and meek when life is hard.

reminds me of this litany from Shane Claiborne:

may they both ring true in my life.

45 years later we’re still fighting for it

Today will be an historic day. Last night the Democratic Party officially nominated Barack Obama as their party’s presidential nominee. Tonight, he will accept the nomination with a speech in Denver — exactly 45 years after Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Today will be a great day in American history – and yet a sad day as well. Just this week, men were arrested in Colorado for plotting an assassination attempt on Obama – simply because he’s black.

It amazes me that we’re still fighting this battle.

A VP in our office just walked through excited about Obama’s nomination but also noted, “looks like its going to come down to black vs white (in November).”

It amazes me that we’re still fighting this battle.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” – the American Declaration of Independence

It amazes me that we’re still fighting this battle.

And whatever happens in November will already be historic. The downside though is that no matter what — we still have a long way to go.

It amazes me that we’re still fighting this battle.

“America has given the negro a bad check. A check that has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.'” – Martin Luther King Jr.

It amazes me that we’re still fighting this battle.

And this goes beyond just white and black. It goes for red and yellow, black and white. For all are precious in His sight.

It amazes me that we’re still fighting this battle.

“I remember reading the stories of white Christians telling King to be patient. Black Christians were told over and over again, black and white alike, to wait for God’s kingdom in the arena of racial justice. The right to vote was not the end. It was seen as a means to participate in democracy, to work alongside fellow citizens to aide our society to fulfill its own sense of calling.

I live with a tragic history that remembers the failure of churches to be more determined by color than baptism. A reality we still wrestle with today. But a part of that tragic history is how fellow Christians, on this continent, refused to let people of color in on the conversation called America. What they didn’t know was that we already had our own conversation, and we wanted them in on it. Even though we had our own conversation going since the beginning of sojourn, we still wanted to join in as fellow citizens and broaden the conversation. We wanted to bring out gifts to the table. We wanted equity along racial lines. A piece to the puzzle to achieving such equity was the practice of voting.” – Anthony Smith (aka Postmodern Negro)

It amazes me that we’re still fighting this battle.

the good news according to Mark

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I woke up quite early this morning.

Around 3 I pulled myself out of bed and opened up my copy of The Message to finish reading the good news according to Mark.

As I read through it, several things crossed my mind.

  • Matthew seems to write from the mindset of proving to the Hebrews that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the prophecies within the Hebrew Scripture
  • Mark seems to write from a mindset of encouraging his readers to give all they’ve got for the cause of Jesus

Along the way a couple passages really jumped out at me and stirred my heart and soul.

In the 4th chapter of his letter, Mark writes:

With many stories like these, he presented his message to them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity. He was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, sorting out the tangles, untying the knots. (mark 4:33-34)

I’ve always heard and known that Jesus used stories to relate to people, but Eugene Peterson really makes the language/idea pop when he suggests that Jesus presented his stories according to each group’s experience and maturity.

The NIV translates it this way: Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand.

It seems like we could take a lesson from Jesus when we’re trying to explain Biblical principals to people. Tell it like we would a story. Don’t try to impress people with your big doctrinal words. Don’t try to overdue the theological ideas. Break it down and tell the story in a way that makes sense to your audience.

The second passage that really grabbed me was a few pages over, in chapter 6.

Jesus wasn’t able to do much of anything there—he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them, that’s all. He couldn’t get over their stubbornness. He left and made a circuit of the other villages, teaching.

That jumped out at me and really comforted me this morning. It helped me to realize that even Jesus, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Son of God couldn’t force people to change. Their stubbornness won out sometimes – even in his hometown.

I can often get frustrated when I see a lack of change in people I may be ministering with/to. But it’s really not up to me — it’s up to the Holy Spirit to convict hearts. I’m just called to continue living the life.

What do you think? What are you reading this week? Anything you really like in Mark’s telling of the good news?

Donald Miller at the DNC Convention

Emergent Village shares the video and text of Donald Miller’s (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What) prayer of benediction at the DNC Convention in Denver last night.

Here’s the video:

The full text and background story is at emergent village.

related:
emergent village
SSL :: christian conservatives could bolt from GOP
SSL :: bone of my bone. flesh of my flesh.
SSL :: more on searching for God knows what