Someone asked me some questions about our house church in California and since I’ve already taken the time to write up these answers I thought I’d share them here on my blog, too. If you have any questions that aren’t answered here, feel free to add your own in the comments. Do you have a leadership team? Elder/Deacon board, or what? No, nothing formal. However, we DO have people who function as elders and overseers/facilitators, we just don’t call them... Read more
“Let the strong take care of the weak; let the weak respect the strong. Let the rich man minister to the poor man; let the poor man give thanks to God that he gave him one through whom his need might be satisfied.” – Clement of Rome, 1st Century Early in 2004, my wife and I were serving as Children’s Pastors at a local church plant in Orange County, California. Whereas we’d both served on staff at various churches... Read more
The Gospel was once considered a threat to those who held political power. When Paul and the other apostles started preaching about Jesus there were often riots because they were “….all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” [Acts 17:7] There was no doubt about it. This Gospel was dangerous. Jesus was a serious threat to status quo. City officials and the crowds were thrown into turmoil over this subversive man. [See Acts. 17:8] Those who accepted... Read more
Anytime we speak about the extravagant and unending love of God for people, we must always remind ourselves – and one another – just how sinful and undeserving we are of such amazing love. The danger, of course, is that we might fixate too much on God’s audacious love and not spend enough time meditating on our own worthlessness. Several authors are guilty of this. For example, people like Philip Yancey, and Brennan Manning tend to go on and... Read more
I’m currently reading a book about the early Christian church and came across this amazing section about the Christian Catacombs: “It is well known that from the end of the First to the end of the Fourth Century, the early Christians buried their dead…in subterranean galleries excavated in the soft rock that underlies Rome. These ancient cemeteries were first uncovered in 1578…more than six, some estimates say eight million bodies are known to have been buried between AD 72 and... Read more
“If something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit it. The first to admit it, and the last one to know.” – Paul Simon, “Something So Right” Ok, I need to confess something to everyone: I might be wrong. You see, I’ve been saying for a long time now that, while we are all in Christ, not everyone has Christ in them. That was my firm and honest conviction. Until last night. That’s when my friend Chuck McKnight challenged my... Read more
Barna Research released new survey results this week that they – and many other Evangelical Christians – are casting in a negative light. However, they’re emphasizing one set of results over against another set which is much more positive. The report, entitled “Almost Half of Practicing Christian Millennials Say Evangelism Is Wrong“, leads off with the shocking news that Millennial Christians are largely uninterested in sharing their faith with their non-believing friends. [More on this in just a moment].... Read more
Ok, I know this seems counter intuitive, but stay with me here. Whenever we form groups or define ourselves by what we believe, or what doctrines we agree about, we’re actually defining everyone who doesn’t agree with us as “them” or marking them as outsiders. I’ve seen this happen too many times. Especially in house church circles. [Not that this doesn’t also happen in every other form of church that’s out there, but my concern is mostly with those who... Read more
Christians in America are stuck on a problem they can’t seem to solve. It’s a problem that unites nearly all of us together. In fact, other than Jesus himself, no other topic or issue so completely unites Christians than this. I’m talking about abortion, of course. But we’ve been stuck on how to solve this problem since 1973. Seriously. Has anyone ever told you the definition of insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over again but expecting... Read more
A few days ago I received an email from a friend of mine. He was sharing with me his frustration over the apparent blindness that many Christians seem to have when it comes to following Jesus. His experience was that every time he attempted to talk about doing what Jesus commanded us to do – like loving our enemies, turning the other cheek, caring for the poor, etc. – the responses he kept receiving were comments like, “But the... Read more
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