Helping People Follow Christ

One of our elders, Dave Lewis, passed on to me an excellent study: House Church and Mission: The importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity by Roger Gehring. Ghering’s work challenges some American assumptions about how we think of church in larger gatherings. His in-depth biblical research can open our minds to fresh ways of doing church so that we can reach more people for Jesus Christ and multiply more rapidly. I am wondering about how megachurches such as ours could give brith to multiple smaller “house” churches.

This is an important and amazing work. The book published by Hendrickson in 2004 is a translation from a book published in Germany in 2000 based on a dissertation at the University of Tubingen. Gehring shows high level academic erudition in biblical and historical scholarship. I know of no peer to this work. He thoroughly analyses the evidence with scholarly objectivity and an eye to implications for church ministry today. I agree with his conclusions that the NT focused much more on individual local churches than on some notion of the church universal. Even most of those statements indicate the aggregate of the local churches rather than some other entity. He shows that there were more than likely house churches in a city who then gathered as the church of that city in larger gatherings. The conclusion is balanced and helpful in applying his research to today’s situation. It would be interesting to know how he responds to Neil Cole’s Organic Church.

Jesus gives his famous new commandment in John chapter 13 in the Upper Room right after his last supper with his disciples whose feet he washed just before the meal in an astounding example of servanthood with the towel wrapped around his waist.

What I have never noticed is the immediate context right before and right after the command to love one another as Jesus as loved. Right before he said that one of them would betray him; Satan entered Judas and he went out into the night, a very dark moment. Right after, Jesus says that Peter will deny him three times before the rooster crows.

So Jesus command to love one another is sandwiched between one who will betray him and one who will deny him; and yet he loves them and so we are to love one another including those who will betray us and deny us.

The good shepherd knows his sheep. He protect his sheep from wolves. The sheep know his voice. He lays down his life for the sheep. That’s the kind of leader I want to be. Jesus-like leaders know, protect and sacrifice for their followers. They do not run from danger; they do not pad their own pockets and protect their own interests.
Jesus offers life, abundant life; life that is rich and full and real (John 10:10). He is the only way to that kind of life.

Lately I have been wrestling with God over how we can reach many more people for Jesus in the Spirit’s power. How could a church become a movement? Is there a way that “mega” churches could unite their DNA with an “organic” church model for rapid multiplication supported by the resources of the mega?

King Ahab was one of the worst kings in the Bible and his wife Jezebel is legendary for her wickedness. And yet at the end of his life, Ahab repents. He fasts and humbles himself before God. So God hearts him and relents of the disaster he was going to bring. Amazing grace. Thank God for his amazing grace in our lives. It is not too late to repent. God loves a humble and broken heart. He forgives sinners, even really evil ones.

King Asa showed incredible courage in his revivial of true worship. 1 Kings reports that that he did right in God’s sight removing idols. And then he actually removed his own mother, Maachah, because she made an idoal for Asherah. It takes guts to remove the queen mother.

Do we love God enough to confront our own family when necessary?

God of the City was an amazing time of worship and prayer. The singing was outstanding supported by a diverse choir representing 40 different churches. The unity among the speakers and leaders was high, a spirity of genuine love and one-mindedness. God was praised and exalted; people were challenged.

Tonight is the God of the City prayer and praise event. www.godofthecity.org.

I’m praying and fasting for God to move in power through his people to bring revival to this region. If you are in north Dallas, come to Pizza Hut Park and pray with thousands of others.

Got to the web site for details.

Age reduces strength and sharpness with an inevitable force. Even King David as he aged had to get off the battlefield. I want to end well — a prayer:

Prepare me for those days to come, to finish strong. Enable me to go full out for you Lord. Strengthen my hands and heart and mind to be faithful all the way to the end. I want to end well going strong until my final day with pungent salt and a bright lamp.