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Thursday, 20 November 2008 |
 So here we go again...
Can a Christian eat pork ribs or a ham sandwich? Not many of us who
confess faith in Christ would have too hard a time answering that
question. Yet, for first-century believers this was one of those "tough
issues" that had to be worked through. Just ask Peter. In Acts 10 Peter
tells the voice from heaven, By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten
anything unholy and unclean. Yet he is corrected, What God has
cleansed, no longer consider unholy.
Can a Christian drink wine? Believers in Argentina would think, what a
silly question! Of course you can. Jesus did. There is even a miracle
in the Bible about Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding feast.
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Tuesday, 18 November 2008 |
 I have never been able to enjoy looking at a bird in a cage, even if it
is a nice cage. While it may provide a safe haven and contain all the
food and water she will ever need it also prevents her from doing the
one thing God made her to do. A bird that cannot take wing and soar to
the heights misses the best part of being a bird.
Over the last decade I’ve communicated with thousands of people whom
God has awoken to the fact that they have grown up in religious cages
that have stunted their growth and robbed them of God’s life. Some were
thrown out for questioning the sanctity of the cage, while others
escaped when they noticed the door was not closed as tightly as they’d
been led to believe.
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Friday, 14 November 2008 |
 Dear Nicolay,
Before I get to the practical ideas that you asked for – let me first talk about the nature of change.
The decision about change often centers on not the need for change, but
the rate or speed of change. There are those who favor gradual,
systematic change and there are those, like myself, who propose
significant, radical change.
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Tuesday, 11 November 2008 |
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 When we speak of the Reformation we all think of Martin Luther, of justification by faith and
of the beginning of the Protestant Church. What do we mean by “The Second Reformation”? Luther
began a reformation of belief but not necessarily of structure, ie, of how we do church once we believe.
How we express church ultimately shows what we really believe!
What is religion?
- Special people, at a special time, in a special place doing special things for me while I watch.
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Thursday, 06 November 2008 |
 I am used to being different from people whom I connect with. In
college I was the lone protestant getting a degree in Theology from a
Roman Catholic/Charismatic university. I was one of two
non-episcopalians getting a Masters degree from an Episcopal seminary.
So being possibly the only mega-church staff member at a national
conference for house churches does not freak me out in the least. I am
comfortable enough in my own skin and calling to know that God uses the
differences to make a more perfect whole. That is evident at this
conference in ways I never expected.
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Tuesday, 28 October 2008 |
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 Note: This article is written by Guy Muse, a Southern Baptist Missionary serving in Guayaquil, Guayas, Ecuador.
One of the issues continuing to resurface again and again in Baptist circles is the variance in interpretation of the baptism portion given in the Great Commission. Does baptismal authority rest with individual believers or with a local church congregation?
What was Jesus intent when he gave the Great Commission?
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Tuesday, 14 October 2008 |
 If we think that a model of church is our solution to reaching the
world we are already in a bad place, whether that model is a mega
church or a micro church.
There is a vast difference, however, between an attractional posture
and an incarnational/missional understanding of church. The difference
is not in the organization, but in the release and flow of God's
kingdom. The church is not meant to be sedentary but sent-"one holy,
apostolic (sent) church."
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Friday, 10 October 2008 |
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Sorry, text is available in Russian only
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Monday, 06 October 2008 |
Dear Nicolay,
Greetings, dear brother! Let me continue my thoughts on change. Here is something from David Olson, which caught my attention about how we need to change our behavior. David is author of “The American Church in Crisis”.
“If the world you live in is largely Christian, then you can focus on buildings and maintaining Christian institutions. The needs of the insiders are very important, so focus on church membership, doctrine, and institutional maintenance.
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Tuesday, 23 September 2008 |
Dear Nicolay,
It has been a long time since I heard from you. I know that spring is
such a busy time in Ukraine. I remember fondly driving through all of
Ukraine and watching the people planting their gardens. I would often
say, “Ukraine is one big garden”.
In one of your last emails you asked if we in America also faced similar problems as you do in Ukraine.
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Friday, 19 September 2008 |
 The promise of the New Covenant is this: “„I will put My laws into
their minds, I will write them upon their hearts. I will be their God
and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach every one his
fellow-citizen, and everyone his brother saying, „Know the Lord,‟ for
all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. I will be merciful
to their
iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.‟”
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Wednesday, 17 September 2008 |
 Shane Claiborne writes: “Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus and
deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life.”
In my former life as a pastor, I was a dispenser of comfortable
Christianity. I took on the job of creating a “conducive environment”
for worship. What this really meant was making a worship event cushy
enough that people would want to come and then come back: comfortable
seats, coffee, pleasing worship music, and a sermon that holds
attention. Unfortunately, regularly attending a comfortable worship
event has become the primary marker of what it means to be a Christian
today.
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Wednesday, 10 September 2008 |
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 (also known as The Christian Bubble or The Holy Huddle)
For those unfamiliar with the term, the Christian Ghetto is a slang
term used by many Christians to describe much of popular, mainstream
Christianity. As the word ghetto would imply, Christians have isolated
themselves from the world, and have created a distinct Christian
culture, with its own language (Christianese), its own music, its own
clothing, etc. The Christian Ghetto results from a mentality that sees
any exposure to the non-Christian world as defiling. But perhaps most
of the Christians stuck in the Christian Ghetto are there
unintentionally - they simply spend too much time with Christians, and
take in only Christian music, television and media.
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Tuesday, 02 September 2008 |
 J.D. Payne has done a study of house and simple churches, specifically
those that he calls “missional house churches.” Many interesting
tidbits are found in this study. For example…
Payne identifies four types of people who are typically involved in
house churches. I think looking at these categories of people can be
very informative and provoke some excellent conversations about our own
simple/house churches.
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Let us begin with a very important fact. The goal of the site is not to criticize traditional or institutional churches. Yes, some of the articles make comparisons and some of the writers do strongly question traditional practices. However, those of us...
We have over one hundred articles available on our site, so if you are a new visitor, you may be overwhelmed. Where should you start? Here you will find some of our best articles ...
Some call them house churches. Some call them organic churches. Some
call them simple churches. We prefer to just call them churches. They
are rapidly multiplying, simple communities of believers, meeting in
homes, offices, campuses, wherever God is...
You are church before you do church. This is one of
the fueling insights of the missional church movement. This isn't a new
idea...but it is pretty provocative, especially when one considers its
implications. If we take Jesus at his word when he say...
Organic Church. I've been using this term for around
fifteen years now. Today it's become somewhat of a clay word, being
molded and shaped to mean a variety of different things by a variety of
different people.
PDF file for the English version of article