Principles of Simple Church

Hello, We would like to thank for your participation in the Simple Church Website. It is our desire that this website would be an encouragement to you and a profitable resource for your ministry.

 In case you have not noticed, we have added a new component to our website. This new area of the site is called Community. We are still perfecting it, but our desire is that the community part of the site will look and work very similar to Facebook. It will be a place for you to put a photo and info about yourself. You can share articles, weblinks, videos and photos with others on the site. You will be able to create groups, have discussions, and even chat with others who are online. We are very excited about this new component to our site. We feel we have placed lots of good articles and information on the site, but now the greatest need is to have more community among the users of the site. 

First, allow me to say that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching (cause to learn), rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. II Timothy 3:16-17

Second, allow me to say that God has gifted men and women to be both proclaimers and teachers of the Word of God.

Third, allow me to say that the Word of God should be central to all gatherings of Christ followers.

Dear Nicolay,

There are times that I truly wonder if I am sane or insane. Do I live in or understand reality? I just left a meeting of primarily teachers and pastors discussing the state of today’s church in Ukraine. Where have the apostolic men gone? My conclusion - God help us! We are truly an over educated bunch filled with theology and doctrine and methods and strategies. It was all quite complex and frustrating just as I fear we (I) have made this whole church and Christianity thing. None of us lack for words or ideas about what other people should do – some of us actually have spiritual gifts to explain our behavior.

We are glad to announce the publishing of a new book in Russian - Reimagining Church by Frank Viola

You can order the book by sending your name and address and the quantity of books that you want to simplechurch.books@gmail.com

We are excited to announce the publishing of a new book in Russian - Reimagining the Church by Frank Viola. The book will be available in April, but until then we would like to share with you some excerpts to give you a taste of the book.

Open-participatory meetings do not preclude the idea of planning. Nor do they have to be disorderly. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul formulates a number of broad guidelines designed to keep the meeting running in an orderly fashion.

In Paul’s thought, there’s no tension between an open-participatory meeting and an orderly one that edifies the church. The order of the meeting is organic. It’s the by-product of each member seeking to edify the whole.

Many people regularly visit this site. More and more churches are adding their information to the list of churches on the site. Since many of you are putting into practice the Biblical principles that are discussed on this site, we would love to hear your testimonies of how God is working. What are you learning about incarnational evangelism, making disciples, practical priesthood of all believers, Christ Headship, nonhierarchical leadership, and participatory gatherings? Share just a few sentences, or even more if you would like. Post it under our forum

Also our blog section is a great place to share what God is personally teaching you. If you from time to time or even often write down your thoughts of what you are learning in your relationship with God, please write a blog and share it with the rest of us for our encouragement.

Finally, we have recently been organizing training events for those involved in simple churches. If you are involved in a simple church or a simple church network and would like to hear about training opportunities, please contact Maxim Nikolaev at m.nikolaeff@gmail.com or Timmy Powers at timmy.powers@gcmweb.org

A list of the values that we’ve observed to be commonly shared among those who are gathering together in simple ways.

The Kingdom of God

• Our emphasis as Christians is on building the kingdom, not a church, or even “The Church.”
• New churches are planted and outreaches are planned in an endeavor to build the Kingdom of God, not necessarily a church or an organization.
• Allegiance within our groups and networks is to the King, not to the leadership within those groups and networks.

We are excited to announce the publishing of a new book in Russian- Reimagining the Church by Frank Viola. The book will be available in April, but until then we would like to share with you some excerpts to give you a taste of the book.

Surprisingly, the Bible never defines the church. Instead, it presents it through a number of different metaphors.One of the reasons why the New Testament gives us numerous metaphors to depict the church is because the church is too comprehensive and rich to be captured by a single definition or metaphor. Unfortunately, our tendency is to latch on to one particular metaphor and understand the ekklesia through it alone.

Dear Nicolay,

Do you remember when we traveled around Ukraine doing the Vision Conferences to encourage church planting as part of a saturation church planting strategy? Those were exciting days full of enthusiasm, in spite of the resistance from many brothers. We fully expected that God would enable us to begin 40,000 new churches by starting reproducing churches. We talked about reproduction, movements and starting new churches, and the glory of God.

Editors Note:
Every day new visitors are coming to our site. In order to expose them to some of our best articles, and to create fresh discussion among those of us who have been active on the site a long time, we will from time to time repost an past article like this one. This article has been a favorite of many people. We invite you to read it for the first time or read it again. Take a moment to add your thoughts and commentary and let's learn together how we can honor and magnify Jesus and join Him in building His kingdom.