Principles of Simple Church

*Victor Choudhrie's 15 essential steps for changing traditional churches into New Testament churches.

1. Replace professional clergy with Priesthood of all Believers with authority to baptize, break bread and equip fishers of men. (1 Peter 2:9)
2. Replace Church building with "House of Peace." (Luke 10:5-9; Matt. 10:11-13)
3. Replace programmed Sunday service with daily informal gatherings. The Bride of Christ must have intimacy with her Lord every day and not just for a couple of hours a week lest she become unfaithful. (Acts 2:46-47; Hebrew 3:13)

Note: This is Part 2 of a two part article. You may not have seen the first part, because we have had problems with the site in the past month. We apologize for the problems with the site. We hope the problems are corrected and that the site will now work normally again. To fully understand the thoughts in this article, we encourage you to read Part 1 of the article first. Thanks for visiting and participating in our site.

We are a Kingdom of Priests

I have heard about the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers for most of my life. It is something that most Christians say they believe, but my conviction is that the practices of many churches hinder people from really living in the reality of their priesthood.

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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.

Teachings, from a conference on church planting movements, by Victor John, who initiated a remarkable movement in India with around 3 million people baptized and 80,000 churches planted.

1)       At 6:30 pm we began with 15-20 adults and several children, meeting in the home of the church planter, which also doubles as a beauty parlor during the week. All the hair dressing equipment had been moved to another room to make space for the plastic chairs that were set up in a circle. It was very hot and crowded, but nobody seemed to mind (except the visiting missionaries!)

It is hard to believe that our website has been in existence for four years. During that time we have posted almost two hundred different articles. More importantly, through the website, we have been able to get to know many of you personally and we have been able to help one another in our walk with God and in the ministry that He has called us to. We are particularly amazed and blessed by the number of people across the Russian-speaking world that have contacted us and let us know that the principles discussed on this website are close to their heart and are a reality in their ministry.

There is no real way to measure the influence and impact of this website, but as we hear stories of changed lives, new disciples, and new churches, we realize that God has had a plan to use this website as at least a small instrument in the building of His kingdom.

Dear Nicolay,

Greetings, Nicolay!  I am sorry that we did not see one another on this last visit to Ukraine.  I did see many of my old friends who we worked with in the early 1990’s.  They were great reunions as we met and talked about the “old days”.  I love remembering those days of revival in Ukraine, but we cannot nor should we live in the past.

“For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.”
1 Corinthians 14:31

The Vocal Minority
Recently I attended some small group meetings where the same people prayed, taught and led week after week, often for a long time. By the way, what they said was usually encouraging. But, how did this affect the silent majority? For some, it was a good time for a nap. Others felt intimidated because they could never pray that long, so why try? They reasoned, “What will my little one sentence prayer sound like?”