In House Church, Pt. 8, I shared about a popular blogging pastor who made some comments to me about house church. I withheld his name at that time, and didn't link to the conversation. But now I feel that the example is important enough to share.

Back in December, Tony Morgan posted in response to some stuff George Barna had said. He asked this question in Does More Church Activity Equal Life Transformation?:

In our desire to help people become fully-devoted followers of Christ, we tend to think we need to encourage people to experience a ministry program, retreat or class at the church, and yet research is showing those activities don't lead to transformation. Barna is focusing his attention more on home church/group experiences. Again, in my mind, this suggests that relational connection must be the key ingredient. The problem, of course, is that encouraging people to step into those types of relationships is much harder than just inviting people to show up for an event at the church.

Is anyone else frustrated by realities like this?

And here was my initial reply:

ME:
It's not a challenge when your church *is* a "home church/group experience". I've grown more in the last six months having participated exclusively in a house church, than I have in the last six years leading worship at a conventional church.

Perry Noble, the pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC, then entered the conversation.

PERRY NOBLE:
The house church model has ONE problem--they neglect the great commission. If Jesus would have wanted us to sit around and suck thumbs...He would have commanded it.

BUT...what was HIS first calling on the disciples? Follow me and we will do deep Bible study? Nope! Follow me and we will figure out predestination? Nope! Follow me and I will make you fishers of me...in other words--we will reach people!!!

I am not saying the house church is totally evil--there has to be an element of community in the church for it to be truly successful...but without an event to stir the heart (remember the Day of Pentecost) then I think many will be missed.

ME:
Wow. If that's your mental model of a house church, then you need to meet some people who attend one.

Granted, some house churches are formed out of pure bitterness and isolation, and house churches are just as prone to sitting on their thumbs as any conventional church is.

But the reality is this - if Jesus had intended for us to launch groups of thousands, with a single "pastor" at the top - he would have started the first one himself.

Yes, he preached to thousands, on occasion, at least. Yet the gospels speak of how he would do his best to escape those crowds. How he chose twelve specific people to pour his heart into them, and then told them (via the great commission) to do the same.

If the very Son of God chose "quality" over "quantity," who am I to second guess him?

If Jesus had millions of dollars, he wouldn't be building church buildings (large or small). If Jesus had thousands of followers, he'd be picking twelve of them and concentrating on those. If Jesus had to choose how to spend his time, he'd be spending it with people instead of preparing all week long for a large weekly event. At least, that's what I'm finding in the Bible I've been reading.

PERRY NOBLE:
Glad we are on the same team...and we will have to agree to disagree on this one. Let's keep loving God and loving others with everything we've got...and following His ways the best we know how...and if one of us OR both of us are wrong...then I believe He will weigh the motives of our heart and understand that we were really trying our best to follow Him the best way we knew how.

I appreciate that Perry showed a little bit of humility at the end... but in reality, after all of the Biblical examples I gave of Jesus choosing small, open, and relational instead of large, closed, and presentational, Perry disagreed with me without any explanation. Yes, we are trying to follow "His ways the best we know how." But that is not an excuse for any of us to be ignorant of the examples of church gatherings found in the Bible. The modern church places far more emphasis on following a traditional model of church than it does on the original examples described in the New Testament.

Perry made two specific points that are important to address.

One, that house churches neglect the great commission. This is amazing for him to say, because house churches were the method of fulfillment of the great commission for the early church. Acts describes some explosive growth for the early church, yet you never see the mention of utilizing a regular event, building a building, or relying on a charismatic pastor to build the church. They met in houses, daily. For large gatherings, they met publicly in public places. It was organic, unrestrained growth, not organizational.

The second point Perry makes is that the "event" is required to reach the most people. Even if this is true, this is still no justification for a church to pour HUGE resources into a grand, weekly production. Church members get so burned out on putting together a grand production that they don't have time for any of the "one another" commandments. The "event" can be much less regular, giving time and room for the church to be relational rather than focusing continually on being presentational.

I believe that Jesus' sole attractional philosophy for His church was for "love one another" to be what attracted people to the church. Not events with a high production value.

The other point to take away is this - I always see more negative response from those within traditional churches towards those in house churches than the other way around. Barna talked about this in Revolution. I've heard how other megachurch pastors now dismiss Barna outright. I've known several others involved in house church who have shared the same experience. (As far as Barna's standing with the modern church, wait until Barna's next book comes out, Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices. Co-written with Frank Viola.)

I've been in traditional church. I understand the lure of the presentational format, and the desire as a presenter to see the value in it. While I've never been a pastor of a church the size of NewSpring (or a pastor at all, for that matter), it's accurate to say that I know much better where Perry's coming from than he knows where I'm coming from. That's why those in house churches will discuss the failings of the modern church, but the goal there is to help others see what they themselves have already discovered. But those entrenched in the modern church are simply defending the only thing they've ever known, and typically do that by making mischaracterizations of house churches, and ignoring countless scriptures that clearly describe the reliance of the early church on them.

The final thing I'd like to say is this: I believe that many of the megachurch pastors have missed their calling. I believe that they have truly apostolic gifts. That is why they focus on numbers and size. They focus on church planing. This is an important role in the body of Christ, but it is a role that is absent in the modern church. Therefore, people such as Perry Noble feel a call to ministry, and the modern notion of "pastor" is really the only thing available to them. If the body of Christ functioned as described in the New Testament, people with apostolic gifts would be unhindered by the administration of the local church corporation. They would be able to follow the Spirit's leading in planting hundreds of churches rather than just one. They would be mentoring many more apostles. And their impact would be far bigger than their buildings can now allow.

But at the moment, it is primarily the prophets who are trying to call the modern church out of its religious trappings and free it to be the body of Christ as described in scripture. But prophets are rarely appreciated. One day, I pray that God will open all of our eyes to His truth as revealed in scripture.

Labels: church, house church, open formats

On the Consuming Worship blog, worship leader Jeff Miller asked for people's thoughts about 1 Corinthians 14:20-25. Well, I've talked about that one before, not just once but actually twice. My thoughts on that have progressed a good bit since then. So I'll quote a little more of it here, share some of my comments to the other blog, and discuss it a bit more.

Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking; rather, be infants in evil, but in thinking be adults.

In the law it is written, "By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people; yet even then they will not listen to me," says the Lord. Tongues, then, are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is not for unbelievers but for believers. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if all prophesy, an unbeliever or outsider who enters is reproved by all and called to account by all. After the secrets of the unbeliever's heart are disclosed, that person will bow down before God and worship him, declaring, "God is really among you."

What should be done then, my friends? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn; and let one interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let them be silent in church and speak to themselves and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to someone else sitting nearby, let the first person be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged. (1 Corinthians 14:20-31, NRSV)

As I discussed in Weekly Worship Pt. 2, I still think the key point of this passage is about being mindful of unbelievers in the context of our gatherings. They should be orderly, not chaotic. That's why there's a difference between one person speaking in tongues (with interpretation/translation if necessary) being a sign for unbelievers (vs 22) and everyone speaking in tongues making an unbeliever think that you're crazy (vs 23-24).

But even though that is the main point, there's something very important for the modern church to see in this passage. In House Church, Pt. 6 I said the following about vs 24-25:

Paul specifically states that unbelievers would be amazed at how God works through all the believers, and would become believers as a result. The only way Paul's scenario can play out in today's world is if unbelievers see God working through more than just the pastor and/or worship leader, and for people to learn how to follow God's leading and speak the things that God has laid on their heart. Open formats are about whether or not we're going to have one or two people control the flow of worship, or allow God to control the flow, through the Spirit, via whoever He wants to use. I choose the latter.

There's another way to say this - that the closed model of worship/sermon presentation is unbiblical.

I made that statement on Consuming Worship, and was asked for a clarification of open vs. closed. Here is what I said:

My definition of a “closed” format is that there are a limited number of people controlling the flow and format of a presentation. In any typical church, the entire gathering is controlled by the worship leader and the pastor. The worship leader sings songs and the pastor preaches. Those in attendance only “participate” by following what others are doing.

My definition of an “open” format is that the Spirit is in control. There is little to no agenda. The bulk of the gathering is open discussion, letting the God work through all of the people to take the meeting where He wants it to go. But in a nutshell, an “open” format is the way Paul describes it. Spontaneous, yet orderly.

In a closed format, we are teaching people to be passive spectators in their walk of following Christ. It breeds spiritual immaturity. In an open format, we are teaching people to be active participants in what God is doing, allowing them to speak and contribute as the Spirit leads them. It opens up room for spiritual maturity. It breaks down the walls between clergy and laity (something Christ said he *hates*). It trains them to follow the Spirit’s leading while out in the world.

Some people think I'm talking about small versus large gatherings here. While that is a worthy discussion, and open formats are far easier in small gatherings, I have read about large-sized open format gatherings. I think they're quite feasible, though culturally I think we're a long way from seeing that kind of thing happen in America.

The issue isn't size. The issue is who is in control. Is Christ a practical head of the church, leading individuals to speak or contribute through the Spirit? Or are men in charge of the church, setting an agenda, approving what is to be said, and limiting contributions to two or three people?

One commenter said this to me:

You have a valuable ministry that you are a part of, but please don’t allow it to become a belief that it is the “right” way or a way to prove that someone else’s way of doing something is wrong. I am not accusing you of this, I am asking you to not go there.

I totally appreciate the Spirit in which this is said. The reality is, though, that I'm simply looking at scripture and describing what I see there. You can't find what happens in modern churches today described in scripture. It doesn't exist. So it's not about right vs. wrong, it's about biblical vs. unbiblical. I can give example after example from the New Testament supporting open formats. Nowhere will you see an example from the New Testament supporting a closed format.

In House Church, Pt. 8, I shared about a popular blogging pastor who made some comments to me about house church. I withheld his name at that time, and didn't link to the conversation. But in the next post, I will discuss what happened and my reflections on it since.

Labels: church, house church, open formats

If there's a running theme to these quotes, it's that modern-day liberals are basically socialists who don't believe in personal freedom, unless it involves not removing someone who has committed perjury from the office of the presidency.

John Stossel: Control Your Own Health Care

If people paid their own bills, they would likely buy high-deductible insurance (roughly $1,000 for individuals, $2,100 for families) because on average, the premium is $1,300 cheaper. But people are so conditioned to expect others to pay their medical bills that they hate high deductibles: They feel ripped off if they must pay a thousand dollars before the insurance company starts paying...

Whole Foods puts around $1,500 a year into an account for each employee. It's not charity but part of the employee's compensation. It's money Whole Foods would have otherwise spent on more-expensive insurance. Here's the good part for employees: If they don't spend the money on medical care this year, they keep it, and the company adds more next year...

Most important, since employees control the money, their behavior changed. Whole Foods workers started asking "how much things cost," Mackey said. "They may not want to go to the emergency room if they wake up with a hangnail in the middle of the night. They may schedule an appointment now."

There was no need to ask about costs before because the insurance company seemed to pick up the tab. But that drove up costs for everyone. Now, saving money makes sense to employees because the money belongs to them.

HSA critics ask whether individual accounts will encourage people to save money at the expense of their health.

Mackey has the right response. "The premise in those kinds of questions is that people are stupid. They're not smart enough to make these decisions for themselves. It's sort of an elitist attitude. The individual is the best judge of what's right for the individual."

Well, of course, liberals (and socialists) always believe those in power know better than you do, as long as they're the ones in power. They have no concept of true freedom. They have no concept of the free market. They believe that if a situation is to improve, the government must intervene. The idea of individuals taking control of their healthcare frightens them.

John Stossel rules, by the way. John Stossel for president!

C.S. Lewis on Government Education:
OK, it's not specifically about government education, but our current government education exactly matches what C.S. Lewis was complaining about. Boortz quoted this earlier this week, and it's worth re-quoting.

What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence -- moral, cultural, social or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how 'democracy' (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient dictatorships, and by the same methods? The basic proposal of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.' Children who are fit to proceed may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's [of the same age] attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. We may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when 'I'm as good as you' has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway, the teachers -- or should I say nurses? -- will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men.

It is quite amazing how accurate his analysis was.

Coulter on Why She Doesn't Support Fred Thompson:

In 1999, Sen. Fred Thompson joined legal giants like Sens. Jim Jeffords, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to vote against removing Bill Clinton from office for perjury.

Thompson, whom President Nixon once called "dumb as hell," claimed to have carefully studied the Constitution and determined that perjury by the president of the United States did not constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors." He must have been looking at one of those living, breathing Constitutions we've heard so much about.

When the framers chose the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" for the Constitution, they were using a term taken from British parliamentary impeachments. There's a 600-year history of what this phrase means -- and Clinton met it about a dozen times before he gave a single statement under oath or suborned a single witness's testimony...

But, as The New York Times recently said, Thompson "agonized over what he saw as two 'bad choices...'"

So Thompson could either: (1) Follow the Constitution and make his constituents happy or, (2) disregard the Constitution and make his Hollywood friends happy...

This isn't the time to be toying with any Republican who had a Clinton in his sights and ended up shooting himself in the foot.

Speaking of Ann Coulter, I just got her new book. There are a few choice quotes from that book that I'll be sharing once I'm done with it.

Boortz on Hillary:

Watch this woman. All she seems to be doing lately is coming up with ideas for government entitlement programs ... and government entitlement programs are nothing more than wealth redistribution programs. Check your scorecard we have:

* Nationalized Health Care.
* The Baby Bonus
* American Retirement Accounts
* Hillary's idea of government involvement in our children's education even before kindergarten!

In the meantime ... have you heard one single idea from Hillary that would increase your personal freedom? Have you heard one single idea that would decrease the intrusiveness or the power of the Imperial Federal Government? How about one idea that would promote competition in the free market?

You're right ... you haven't.

You haven't because Hillary Clinton worships the God of Government. This is a woman who feels that there are only a select few in this country who are capable of ordering and living their own lives without guidance from those smarter and more capable than they. This is a woman who believes to the depth of her soul that you can't exist without embrace of government guiding your every step and picking you up every time you stumble.

The further we get into the presidential race, the more I'm sure that Hillary will get the nomination. Why, then, is she making this so easy for the Republicans? She keeps offering new entitlement programs, hoping to buy more votes. If the Democrats' type of pandering is successful, our form of government cannot withstand much longer. Most of the voting public is intelligent enough to see through her desparate attempts to buy votes. Let's just hope that it stays that way.

It's interesting that as socialism is receding throughout the world (with the notable exception of Cindy Sheehan's best friend, Hugo Chavez), Democrats are still trying to get Americans to participate in a bold socialist experiment. They are patient, though, and are more than willing to expand the socialist ideal one step at a time.

Labels: politics

There's been so much going on, and I've read a lot of stuff I've wanted to link to and make some comments about. I figured I'll just rattle a bunch off and get on with it...

Sun still main force in climate change:

Over the past 20 years, however, the Danes argue, the solar cycle remains fully apparent in variations both of tropospheric air temperature and of ocean sub-surface water temperature.

"When the response of the climate system to the solar cycle is apparent in the troposphere and ocean, but not in the global surface temperature, one can only wonder about the quality of the surface temperature record," Svensmark and Friis-Christensen say.

The surface air temperature, they argue, is "a poor guide to sun-driven physical processes that are still plainly persistent in the climate system."

The researchers explained it's "customary to attribute to greenhouse gases any increase in global temperatures not due to solar changes."

"While that is reasonable," they say, "one cannot distinguish between the effects of anthropogenic gases such as carbon dioxide and of natural greenhouse gases."

Increased evaporation, for example, means "infrared radiation from water vapor, by far the most important greenhouse gas, will tend to provide positive feedback for any global warming, whether driven by anthropogenic or solar forcing."

Come on, people. The sun provides all the energy for our planet. Without it, our temperature would drop rather drastically. Surely anyone would have to admit that variance in solar output would result in changes in temperatures on earth (among other planets, as studies are also showing). Why do proponets of the man-caused global warming theory simply want to dismiss this?

And when they say that they "wonder about the quality of the surface temperature record," you can take a look at a site like this surfacestations.org to see examples of stations recording temperatures that are located in areas that are nowhere near giving an accurate temperature reading. Located by air conditioners, in parking lots, beside a lightbulb, all sorts of stuff. And these are the readings that are contributing to the data that makes everyone believe that "global warming" exists.

Questioning 20th Century Warmth:

Gerd Bürger of Berlin’s Institut für Meteorologie decided to revisit the work of Osborn and Briffa, and his results raise serious questions about the claim that the 20th century has been unusually warm. Bürger argues that Osborn and Briffa did not apply the appropriate statistical tests that link the proxy records to observational data, and as such, Osborn and Briffa did not properly quantify the statistical uncertainties in their analyses. Bürger repeated all analyses with the appropriate adjustments and concluded “As a result, the ‘highly significant’ occurrences of positive anomalies during the 20th century disappear.” Further, he reports that “The 95th percentile is exceeded mostly in the early 20th century, but also about the year 1000.”

In other words, this whole idea of the 20th century being quite an anomoly is quite possibly total bunk. Why? Because proponets of the man-caused global warming theory fail to use the right statistical methods when doing their research, and the media laps up the results regardless of the methods, since the result promotes hysteria.

CNN Meteorologist: ‘Definitely Some Inaccuracies’ in Gore Film:

CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano clapped his hands and exclaimed, "Finally," in response to a report that a British judge might ban the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" from UK schools because, according to "American Morning," "it is politically biased and contains scientific inaccuracies..." Marciano also sarcastically said, "the Oscars, they give out awards for fictional films as well."

It must be getting a little cool down in the eternal dungeon, if someone at CNN is being critical of Al Gore. And on that note...

Boortz Responds to Al Gore's Peace Prize:

With few exceptions, the Nobel Peace Prize has always been awarded to someone with both feet firmly planted in the world of liberalism. I know a lot of leftists and anti-capitalists around this country and the world will be celebrating, but when you consider that this prize was once awarded to that murderous Muslim Yassir Arafat, it's hard to be impressed.

The peace prize has been a joke for years. Giving it to Yassir Arafat simply made it official. After that, giving it to Al Gore just gives you a good chuckle.

Labels: politics

It's now official - I've gotten myself completely caught up with photos, and moved everything over to Picasa, Google's photo album software and website for sharing photos. There are about a year and a half worth of pictures that I never got uploaded into my previous online photo album, so if you've been waiting for updates for awhile, head on over and enjoy.

One of the great things about Picasa is that I can upload pictures in really large sizes. I decided awhile back to upgrade the amount of storage I have (beyond what they provide for free) so I can use it as an online photo backup.

But perhaps the best thing about Picasa's web albums is that it supports RSS - so you can actually subscribe to my online photo albums, and get notified when I upload more stuff. If you read my blog you probably already know about this, since I've mentioned two times already. This also means that I won't be metnioning when I update pictures - so if you want to see the updates, you'll need to subscribe to the RSS feed from Picasa.

Now that I'm caught up with that, maybe I'll have some extra time to post something else soon!

Labels: life