Here's an interesting insight into the early church that may influence where we look for houses of peace.
(In the early church) Because of the Jewish tradition of family worship, it was normal for almost any believer to feel comfortable leading in prayer, worship, and the discussion of God's word. This provided the early church with a large pool of potential leaders. When 3000 people were added to the church in Acts 2, most of these men and women came into the church already accustomed to taking spiritual leadership in a "home group" setting... Home worship celebrations, held every Sabbath, served as a training ground for early church leaders. -Dr. Robert Heidler, The Messianic Church Arising!, p. 61
In other words, the early church experienced explosive growth because there was already a large pool of prepared leaders who God moved into the Christian house churches.
Perhaps we are in a similar situation today. It may be that the small groups and cell groups in traditional churches have been an important training ground for house church leaders. (I remember hearing Wolfgang Simson say that cell groups were just halfway houses for house churches.)
It may be that God is preparing once again for the explosive multiplication of house churches. Let's keep our eyes open for the Tim and Kims.
See below for a story from Mark Willis about a house of peace in Chicago. I think we need as many stories like this as possible. Each time we read one it helps us get a little clearer about what to look for and what to pray for.
One of the things that come to my mind as I read this story is "I wonder how many thousands of Tim and Kims there are in traditional churches who could start one of these "vibrant families of Jesus" with just a little help.
In the Comment section, tell us what strikes you about this house of peace. What similarities do you see with Gerardo and Carola? And, see if you have any thoughts about Mark's question at the end.
John
I wanted to spend my 5 minutes talking about a house church in our network we visited yesterday. We've met with them several times before, and it is always encouraging to see how God is using them to display his Family in simple and profound ways. Tim and Kim are a couple that have followed Christ full-on for over 22 years together. They were a part of several unhealthy church hierarchical structures, and eventually found themselves opening up their home for people to worship and seek the Lord together. They have adopted two children from China, and though they have day jobs, they see their jobs as servant to their true vocation - nurturing healthy families of Jesus. The children in this church are involved, just like the parents are. One couple in the community is going through some rough times, and they've gracefully found ways to provide sanctuary for the couple to work out their disagreements and find reconciliation....even as they firmly address stubbornness and sin that are obstacles to the relationship. They've called their entire church family to bring their neighbors and the poor and anyone else to join them for meals and worship in their house... In short - they've been released by God as hosts of this house church to spend all their energies on developing disciples and communities that reflect the image of Jesus Christ. We don't know exactly what it means to "not go around from house to house" with this couple - they are definitely well on their journey and don't seem to need an outside force coming in to tell them about God's Kingdom. However - I found myself wanting to stay around with these folks simply because there was a mutual attraction to God's Kingdom which seemed so near to me that it could have been right across the dinner table. You don't want to leave when the Kingdom is so near its palpable in the air.
Lots of thoughtful comments in the Comments Section. Good job you all!
From our friends in Hawaii...
For many apostolic missionaries it's easy to stay focused when the peace household is engaging and willing to change. Challenges come when nothing changes or the attention of the listeners goes away. So, another principle may come in a way, do not waste jewels before those who do not want them. This is when common sense may advise missionaries to move on.
Something similar from Chadd Schroeder...
Over the last few years, we've "entered" into many houses--many failures, many stories that started really good--but then seemed to stall out--but perhaps they'll take a fresh turn down the road; a few that have continued to go well.
And, from another member of our community (actually, our Leader)...
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. Mt. 10:14. (The Message puts it this way: If they don't welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don't make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.)
Perhaps we could summarize this way...
1. Don't get distracted (even by good things). Your job (as an apostle) is to find the house of peace. 2. Once you've found that house, don't leave too quickly. Invest deeply there. Make sure there is a level of maturity before you move on. 3. Sometimes you will think you have found the right house only to discover it's not. People who seemed teachable really aren't. People who seemed receptive have closed up. Things have stalled out. Don't keep trying to talk them into obedience. No persuading or convincing. You need to know when to move on.
Of course, learning when to stay and when to go is difficult. We will make lots of mistakes on this. But, we will make fewer mistakes if we can learn from each other in this area.
So, what have you learned so far about staying and leaving?
The thing that comes to my mind as I think about this couple is the importance of investing deeply in the lives of others--and being patient to see what God may do with it all somewhere down the road.
Stay focused.
Jesus: "Do not greet anyone on the road" (Lk 10:4). Figurative language meaning stay focused on finding a "house of peace".
Jesus: "Do not move around from house to house" (Lk 10:7) Figurative language meaning once you've found a "house of peace", invest deeply there as Chadd said. "Be patient to see what God may do with it all somewhere down the road."
Why all of this talk about staying focused on finding and camping out with one particular house of peace? Because one God-prepared household can become a base of operations for the Kingdom for years to come. Because one God-prepared household can "infect" dozens (hundreds?) with the Kingdom "virus".
See Priscilla and Aquila.
See Gerardo and Carola.
Stay focused.
John
PS Looking for more stories about "people/houses of peace".
Here's something else to think about on the topic of "people of peace"... "Do not greet anyone on the road". Sounds rude, doesn't it? Almost harsh.
What do you make of this instruction Jesus gave to His "church planters" (apostolos) in Lk. 10:4? It seems clear that this is His way of telling them not to get distracted. "I'm sending you out todo one thing - to birth a Kingdom community in a particular household. In order to do that you must find that household, that "house of peace". Don't lose focus! Don't get into extraneous conversations or relationships no matter how interesting or important they may seem."
If we are also called to be apostolic church planters, are there ways that we can lose focus? Keeping in mind that the good is often the enemy of the best, what are some of the good things that might distract us from finding the "house of peace"? Is it possible that some of the following things might qualify: being hospitable to neighbors, caring for the poor, healing the sick, leading a bible study, exegeting the culture, taking another class, etc.?
Why is Jesus so intent on narrowing the focus of His "sent ones"? Does this have anything to do with the story about Gerardo and Carola?
Pictured to the right: Gerardo and Carola and their kids.
Take a good look at them.
This is what a "couple of peace" looks like (Lk. 10:6). A household (okios) of peace.
From this Mexican couple have emerged at least three house churches as well as a "life project" that is meeting physical and emotional needs of hundreds of people across Mexico.
Your investment in the MRT Community will take 12 minutes today. Click the link below and then click on the podcast to listen to Tim Pynes interviewing Chadd Schroeder about Gerardo and Carola.
I'm going to experiment with sending out a new blog post every other day for a while. My thinking is that we need more time to interact with the comments on one post before jumping to something new. (So, on the "non post" days, may I ask you to invest your five minutes in the comments from the last post.) In response, Mark Willis (Chicago) made a great suggestion (the community of practice at work!) ...
I like the idea of "every other day" to give us a chance at diving deeper into comments - and maybe this is just my lizard brain talking - but I think you posting something each day (even simply posting a comment from the previous day's post) is helpful because it lands in my inbox each morning, reminding me about my "5 minutes a day" commitment.
Good idea, Mark! (I'm for giving our lizard brains all the help we can!) Let's try it. Let's experiment. (BTW, I'm working on a post about the value of "experiments" in starting CO2s, house churches, MRTs, etc.)
So, here's your 5 minutes for today. Go to yesterday's post (see link below). Go down to the comments and see if there's a comment you want to contribute to the conversation.
Peg Batcheller (New Mexico) sent me the blog below from Seth Godin. I think it bears on one of the rhythms of our MRT Experiment - that is, spending five minutes each day to engage with the MRT Community.
BTW, I'm going to experiment with sending out a new blog post every other day for a while. My thinking is that we need more time to interact with the comments on one post before jumping to something new. (So, on the "non post" days, may I ask you to invest your five minutes in the comments from the last post.)
For instance, in response to the last post about inviting people to self select into or out of a group, Mark Willis (Chicago) asks a very important question:
How do you really know what you're getting into if the community has not yet formed?
To say this another way, where do the "clear expectations" that serve as the "filter" come from before a community is formed. Take a look at my response and see if you agree. (BTW, this question has huge implications for the "birthing" of house churches.)
In the mean time, enjoy Seth below.
John
You rock.
This is deceptive.
You don't rock all the time. No one does. No one is a rock star, superstar, world-changing artist all the time. In fact, it's a self-defeating goal. You can't do it.
No, but you might rock five minutes a day.
Five minutes to write a blog post that changes everything, or five minutes to deliver an act of generosity that changes someone. Five minutes to invent a great new feature, or five minutes to teach a groundbreaking skill in a way that no one ever thought of before. Five minutes to tell the truth (or hear the truth).
Five minutes to invest in the MRT Experiment. :-) JW
Five minutes a day you might do exceptional work, remarkable work, work that matters. Five minutes a day you might defeat the lizard brain long enough to stand up and make a difference.
And five minutes of rocking would be enough, because it would be five minutes more than just about anyone else.
The picture to the right shows how full spectrum light is filtered so that only yellow light emerges on the other side. This picture helps explain how the appropriate people get into an MRT.
When Kent and I started this MRT Experiment, we sent out a description of what it would involve to friends in 11 regions. We asked everyone to watch the introductory video on the blog site and ask the Lord if they should join. Nine of those regions self-selected in. Two regions self-selected out.
Then, friends in three other regions (Aurora, CO; Western Slope of Colorado; and England) indicated interest so we asked them to go through the same process of reading and watching and praying. As a result of this self-selection or self-filtering, we now have 12 regions committed to the MRT Experiment.
What are we "filtering" for? People with an apostolic (church planting) calling who resonate with the rhythms of the Experiment.
Chris and Sean in the UK, at their own initiative (I love it!), are continuing the process. Here's part of an email Chris sent me:
This is just to keep you updated with CO2 and MRT news from our part of the UK. Below is a message I sent out to the few dozen house church people I know who live within an hours drive of Sean and me. We're agreed that we should invite others to join our weekly MRT sessions so I invited everyone on the basis they'll self select. If we end up with an extra two or three people with an 'apostolic' inclination joining us for the meetings I'll be well pleased. Any that do join us we'll introduce to the MRT blog so they can be fully on board with the experiment.
We have just four small simple churches meeting in St Neots and Huntingdon, four churches from a population of about 60 000 or so. (How does that ratio compare with yours in Denver?) Then there are some larger ICs that we have not, so far, invited to join the experiment. I don't say we won't - but so far I don't feel it's time to take that step.
Your comments on this process of self selecting for MRTs?
Almost eight years ago, my friend, Kenny Moore and I were having breakfast together and we were talking about our mutual passion to see "a vibrant family of Jesus" within easy reach of every person in Colorado. Our conversation began to settle on Luke 10. And, then on verse 2 of chapter 10. And, then on the second half of that verse.
Therefore, beseech the Lord of the Harvest to send forth workers into His harvest.
That morning, light bulbs began to turn on. If we could only do one thing towards the goal of saturation church planting in Colorado, praying this prayer would certainly be that one thing. Kenny and I made a commitment that morning to pray what we later called "the 10:2b prayer" for Colorado every day for seven days and see what we learned. Who knew all that would come from that small step! (To read more of the story, go to http://lk10.com/practices-and-patterns/the-102b-prayer/ )
Today, many of us in Colorado (and many in other places around the world) are praying that prayer daily for the our particular part of the harvest field. In the video below, you will see one of the recent answers to that prayer. It's an amazing God story of three young men in South Carolina who felt that God had called them to move to Pueblo, Colorado (2-3 hours south of Denver) to plant organic churches. As far as they knew, they would be the first to plant organic churches anywhere in Colorado! :-) Then, through a magazine article they got connected with us and we were able to spend an afternoon together a couple of weeks ago.
So, take a look at the video and tell us your thoughts. Also, it seems to me that our MRT Community should be a repository of 10:2b stories. So, let us know what you have learned as you have prayed this prayer and the answers you've seen in your part of the "field". (BTW - still waiting for a 5 minute video story from one of you all!)
John
PS. Subscription to The Abilene MRT Experiment blog that I mentioned a few days ago is by invitation only. If you are interested, contact Ron Longwell at rlongwell@mac.com
Chris Jefferies' (England, picture on right) comment on Ron Longwell's blog (The Abilene MRT Experiment) seems so important I want to highlight part of it here:
We use Google Wave, creating a new wave each day and adding notes on our heart feelings and what we each sense the Lord is saying to us. We now have a full record going back to the first week of December. We use clickable links to make navigation easy.
We decided to try summarising our VIRKLER notes on a weekly basis and it's been fascinating to see an overview of the journey. I need to spend some time studying it.But the point I'm making is that without intending to do so we have been journalling the entire CO2 process and since we've been meeting weekly for MRT, we've been taking notes on that as well.
Personally, I strongly recommend journalling. If you haven't already, give it a try.A blog is one good way to do this (I use a private blog for my own personal journal and planner), Wave is another, or you could keep a pen and paper diary. The technology isn't as important as the principle of keeping notes. Keeping a shared journal is particularly helpful, I think.Being able to refer back and see the patterns and rhythms of Father's involvement in our lives is one of the benefits, but there's another. Writing things down helps fix them in the mind as well.
Ron and Chris, you inspire me!
I had begun keeping notes on our Denver MRT meetings but in recent weeks I had let that slip. (Hobby said he would be willing to pick this up.) The Lord is using you to remind me of how important this is. (I have no idea what a Google Wave is but I'm sure one of my techie friends can show me.)
So, in one sense, we could say that an MRT is nothing more than two (or more) people paying attention to what God is saying about their part of the harvest field.
Love to hear from others what they are learning about how to pay attention in this shared way.
The Abilene (TX) MRT Experiment at this point includes Ron Longwell (picture to the right), Austin Brown and Kent Smith. In order to help pay attention to what they are hearing from the Lord, Ron has started a blog.
Here's part of the blog post from this last week...
Ron talked about "laying pipe," in Abilene, particularly related to a conversation he and Kent had the previous week with a couple interested in exploring more organic forms of church. Ron feels like we have limited pipeworks to nurture a potentially great influx of wounded people. Austin commented that we must believe that God will provide resources commensurate with the people he is sending.
Kent commented on the need for harvesters and stressed the importance of praying Luke 10:2b. He noted that there are a whole cadre of people in Abilene who get what we're about and are on the way, naming about seven individuals or families. At the DNA level, these people are all moving toward what we're about. Kent has a sense that the deliberateness of what we're doing needs to rise a bit.
This strikes me as an idea that other regions may want to try. At the heart of the MRT concept is the priority of paying attention to what God is saying/doing in each of our regions. A blog is one way to do that. Plus, it creates another avenue to learn from each other.
What do you think? What is your MRT learning about keep track of what you are hearing from God?
I apologize for the very long post two days ago on the 1905 Awakening. (Sometimes I get carried away.) And, then, at the end of the post, I put the video of Dr. Orr teaching about that revival. Way too much info! I'm sorry.
A few of you actually made it all the way to the bottom of that post and watched the video. For those of you who didn't, I'm reposting it here. I think it's worth watching 5 minutes of your time. (The whole video is 27 minutes. But just watch 5 minutes.)
Why?
Well, for me it stimulates my faith and expands my vision for what could be. And, that vision is not just a "pipe dream" (!). It actually happened!
But, what if God wants to do something like 1905 again? What if 10% of the population (250,000 people) of Denver were born again? And, we needed 10,000 house churches to care for the new borns? What if God wants us to prepare now for that ("lay pipe")?
What if that happens in the city (region) you are called to?
So, give Dr. Orr five minutes and tell us what you hear from the Lord as you watch it.
My sense is that we need to stay on this topic of revival and it's implications for church planting ("laying pipe") for a few days.
Chris Jefferies (UK) has done us a service today in helping us move beyond the facts of the great awakening that began in Wales in 1904 and spread around the world. It's of great value to consider the number of conversions and church growth and societal transformation. But, what was the heart of all of this?
Chris' blog (see link below) allows us to hear a "love song of the Welsh Revival" that communicates powerfully the heartbeat of what God was doing 100 years ago. As I listened to it, I found myself weeping and praying that God would once again reveal His love this powerfully to Denver and Hawaii and Abilene and Mexico City and...
Several days ago, Chadd Schroeder (picture to the right) in Guadalajara posted the following comment. It was in response to the story of Sean Hyatt in Aurora, Colorado beginning a CO2 with Oswaldo.
I think what you, Sean, initiated with Oswaldo represents for me what has been a change of starting place with seekers. Instead of initially inviting people to join us in something (even a vibrant house church gathering) we are choosing CO2 relationships as the starting place and then waiting on God to see what God wants to do next.
What Chadd is saying has important implications for how we make disciples. What is the starting place in this process? Traditionally we would invite a seeker to a group meeting (house church)? Sean and Chadd are suggesting a radically different strategy. We need to hear more from you guys on this. What do you see as the potential benefits of this different starting place? What are you discovering in practice? Anyone else have ideas about this?
Here's another thought about this short paragraph that Chadd wrote...
I believe that what we are seeing (before our very eyes) is "a community of practice" in action. Do you realize how radical this is? Ever seen one before? Two people in two different countries who have never met each other learning together. And, they are doing in in front of our MRT Community so all of us are invited to join them. And, the learning isn't theoretical. These guys are practitioners. They are field testing it.
It's just a short paragraph but seems to me there is something important here. I'm not sure I can completely put it into words but it's like a whole new paradigm of learning. Community, global, practical, interactive...
This post is pretty long. So, don't spend more than 5 minutes on it... unless you get really interested. :-)
As a member of the House2House Board of Directors ( http://house2house.com/ ), I spent last weekend with about 12 others at Tony and Felicity Dale's home in Austin, TX. In addition to some good "hang out" time with these friends, we spent time listening to the Lord about His mission for House2House at this point in history.
What we heard is that "something big is coming and it's coming soon. And, now is the time to prepare." Two people independently heard that we needed to be "laying pipe". "Pipe" in this context seemed to mean leaders. That is, spiritual moms and dads who will be able birth a multitude of "vibrant families of Jesus" where the new believers will be cared for and equipped. Many of these leaders will have come out of traditional churches and have been healed and rehabbed from the wounds received there.
Here's how Tony summarized the message: "One of the pictures through which the Lord spoke to us over these past 48 hours was that of laying the pipe-work/irrigation system, through which the water of His Spirit can flow. What matters is the water. But if there is no irrigation system, much of the water will get wasted. It was pointed out in discussion that historically the United States has seen a major move of God that is transformational to society around every 60 to 70 years. We are currently long overdue!
What if what is now happening in the church landscape is a part of God’s preparation for a sweeping move of God beyond anything any of us have seen in our lifetimes... (There have been smaller movements of the Spirit and) ...these have all been impactful, but society as a whole has continued to be largely untouched by the Christian message. What if God is preparing us all for something that can change society at a grass-roots level, literally house by house."
I (John) woke yesterday with the sense that I should send to the H2H Board some information about the last great awakening which took place in 1905-1907. I've copied it below for you. My motivation was to show the huge scope of this movement of the Spirit in the US (many more around the world) in a two year period. What if God were to do this today? And, how much "pipe" needs to be laid in order to be ready?
Love to hear your thoughts about how we "lay pipe" in preparation for something like this. What are the implications for our MRT Community?
John
PS. I've also included a video at the very bottom by Dr. J. Edwin Orr on the 1905 Awakening. He was considered a world class expert on revivals.
From The Cure of All Ills by Mark Relfe.
"Antecedents. Spiritual decadence pervaded society in the late 1890's. Corruption, immorality, drunkenness, cults, gambling and agnosticism rose in proportion to the Church's ineptness. By the turn of the 20th century, the glory had departed, the saints had defected, the salt had lost its savour, the world had lost its light and deep moral darkness prevailed. The flag-waving, sin-hating, mercy-loving believers of the 1860's had been replaced by inert, invisible and immovable - "in name only" - Christians of the 1890's." p. 65.
(The Spirit began to break out in a number of places. Here's one of the early ones. "In October, 1904 Evan Roberts (age 26) received a Word of the Lord for his generation. (The summary statement was "Bend the Church and save the world".) The Holy Spirit bade him speak it first at his home church (in Loughor, Wales) to a group of 17 people. All 17 responded! The Holy Spirit fell in awesome power! ... Within weeks every church building in Wales was packed with hundreds standing outside unable to get in! The nation's atmosphere was suddenly electrified by the presence of God..." p. 78
A few weeks later, George Davis, from New York wrote this. "I have just returned from a two days' visit to the storm center of the great Welsh revival which is sweeping over Wales like a cyclone, lifting people into an ecstasy of spiritual fervor. Already over 34,000 converts have been made, and the great awakening shows no signs of waning... It is sweeping over hundreds of hamlets and cities, emptying saloons, theaters and dance-halls and filling the churches night after night with praying multitudes. The policemen are almost idle; in many cases the magistrates have few trials on hand; debts are being paid; and the character of entire communities is being transformed almost in a day." p. 79
"For weeks past, meetings have been going on in various parts of the country, and in numerous instances, have been protracted into the small hours of the morning. The extraordinary thing about these meetings is their unconventional character. There is no organization, no program, no presentor, no presiding elder! Everything is left to the direction of the Holy Spirit. Preaching, in the usual acceptation of the word, has, for the time being, been entirely discarded and is superseded by singing, prayer and general testimony." p. 81
Another report: "Truly God has visited His people in Wales. It is not a question of one town being awakened, but of the whole principality being on fire - profanity silenced, taverns deserted, theaters closed, betting books burned, football teams disbanded, police courts idle, family feuds pacified, and old-standing debts paid, sectarianism submerged, the family altar re-erected and Bible study a passion. This is the finger of God!" p. 86
(The revival spread around the world. In England 1,000,000 conversions from outside the church. Europe, Africa, India, Korea, etc. Here are some comments about the impact on America.) "Dr. J. Edwin Orr assessed that in excess of 2,000,000 outsiders were enrolled in the seven major Protestant churches between 1905-1907 in the United States. He admitted this figure did not include any of the increases in the Holiness or Pentecostal groups which experienced an even greater rate of growth (JW: probably about 5 million). Dr. Orr estimated that another 2,000,000 were genuinely saved within the churches. Dr. Orr indicated that more than 5,000,000 (outside the church) were drawn to Christ in this two year period. p. 100-101.
(Wikipedia: "A feature of this revival that was not seen in any other revival prior to 1904 was the role of the media.")
JW: The language of the above passage is a bit unclear. I think that what Dr. Orr is saying is that between 1905 and 1907, 5 million were converted from within existing churches and another 5 million outside of existing church were converted and became church members. The population of the US in this period was about 85 million. So, almost 12% of the population became Christians.
Current population of the US is about 309 million. If something similar to 1905 were to occur now, that would mean 37 million new Christians (12%). In a city like Denver (2.5 million), this would mean 300,000 new believers (half current church goers and half not) in a two year period. Current number of church goers in Denver is estimated at 150,000.
Gives new meaning to the word "urgent", doesn't it!
Clearly, current "infrastructure" would be completely inadequate to handle this kind of harvest. Perhaps that is why the Lord is urging us to "beseech the Lord of the Harvest for workers" in preparation for this next season. If there were 300,000 new believers in Denver and if we assume an average of 15 people in a house church, we will need 20,000 new house churches. Hmm...
Just got an email today from Sean Hyatt (See the picture of Sean and his wife, Jessica, to the right. Sean doesn't always look this well-groomed!) Sean and Marty Reiswig have a MRT in SE Denver.
I'm copying part of Sean's email (with permission) below because it illustrates one way in which a city wide network can function. Sean sent the whole email to denvernetwork@googlegroups.com Using googlegroups is one way to begin to connect within a region.
I have a friend named Oswaldo who lives near downtown and is at the tail end of a 2-year drug rehab program. He and I have (yesterday) entered into a discipleship relationship (using daily CO2 primarily) and he has an urgent need for a job with at least 30 hours a week by TOMORROW... Anyone know of a job opportunity? Or know a business owner who could take him on with at least 30 hours of work, per week, for at least week or two (at minimum?) Please pass this on to anyone you know, or let me know ASAP of an opportunity if you can. He is willing to work, is very sharp, and willing to work hard no matter what he finds.
Here's some more of what Sean told me about what he is doing.
I am planning on keeping track of what happens each day as a "CO2 as a discipleship tool" experiment, and will share it with everyone when were a couple weeks into it...
I described the daily CO2 discipline (checking in together and sharing what we're hearing from the Lord 2gether) and asked if he would join me in doing it for 1 week together, by phone, and we could go from there. He agreed...
Then I said, "Well, I'd love to pray together before we get off the phone" and I proceeded in suggesting that in the spirit of discipling one another, and shepherding one another's hearts, we should also share the prayer piece. So I asked if he wouldn't mind saying a prayer for us (since I did it yesterday). He chuckled uncomfortably, and said that he would try. So he did - it started out a little unsure but pretty soon he was praying quite confidently, pouring his heart out to the Lord, and crying! It was beautiful. I amened him heartily, thanked him, and said, "Well, Ill leave you with the Lord, and let's do this again tomorrow!" We hung up. Total conversation: 15 minutes.
What do you see in this story that encourages you?
John
PS Reminder that we would love to hear stories of how God is working in your city or region.
The comment below from Chadd Schroeder in Mexico strikes me as a great example of a "community of practice" at work. That is, a context where all of us, as church planters, are learning from each other. (Chadd has always impressed me as both a great learner and a great teacher!)
In a sense, there several lessons in Chadd's comment. First, that videos are a great way to tell stories. Second, stories are a great way to change the culture. Third, that videos are amazingly easy to make these days. Fourth, that our MRT Community is a great place to share useful videos (either ones that we make or ones that we find).
Right now in the "Tags" section of our MRT site there are two videos listed. (And, I, the least techie of all of you, made them both.) I'm looking forward to story telling videos about vibrant families of Jesus from you all! (Under 5 minutes please.)
John
From Chadd...
One of the things that keeps coming to my mind as I watch the videos is that video interviews seem to communicate so effectively, contagiously and in multifaceted ways that written material is not able to do. I'm thinking of Mexicans and the obstacles to the viral spread of the kingdom here. I sense God wants me to experiment more in this area. Hmm...
Here's a great insight from Peg Batcheller in Albuquerque...
"Here's what I saw this morning in Colossians 4:7-9.
What a great example of an MRT, that even then, in the first century, men traveled in 2s, sent messages around the territories to share what was happening in their cities and to encourage the brothers and sisters in other cities. They sent messengers, whereas we just get online for a few minutes and tell our stories across the world. But the message is the same: communicate with each other how we are doing, and encourage the hearts of the others.
Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here.
You are right on, brother, in the MRTs working together to encourage the believers, and to share our stories. Thanks for the invitation to be here with you."
All kinds of interesting insights into MRTs from Chadd's introduction to us below. I think I'll reframe from my comments for now and ask you - what do you see in what he has written that seems important as we think about how MRTs function?
John
Intro to Guadalajara MRT
My name is Chadd Schroeder. My wife Nancy and our three daughters, Morgan, Natali and Ceci have lived in Central Mexico and have understood ourselves as missionaries to the people here since 1991. For the last 12+ years, we’ve lived in Guadalajara—a large Mexican city of about 7 million people.
Over the years, we have always worked with a team of other U.S. missionaries and Mexican leaders. But especially for the past 5 years we have understood ourselves more as an MRT instead of a traditional missionary team. Instead of all working on one church or one project, we have transitioned to see ourselves as a grouping of trans-local workers with a common vision to see healthy incarnations of Christ throughout our region even as each of us is involved in different local ministries or projects and with different communities of Christ. For the past few years, we have typically met together every two weeks to connect with one another and to listen to God together. The relationship and practice has been very helpful.
Our MRT for now is made up of four families: Cory and Toni Burns, Tim and Kim Rush, Gerardo and Carola Garcia, and my family. The ladies are encouraged to connect with us fellows when possible—but family duties sometimes make this difficult. It seems that we are in a strange and new time for us. The Rush family is on furlough in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They hope to move back to GDL in summer 2010. The Burns family is planning to go on a one year furlough this summer—and then return to GDL in 2011 for a new mission assignment. The Garcia family is Mexican. They are very involved in local and trans-local ministry in Guadalajara and envision themselves likely in GDL for many years to come. Gerardo is limited in his understanding of English—but a gifted and proven Mexican leader. Finally, my family is planning to transition to Texas in July 2010. However, after so many years of life and ministry here in Mexico, we are stretching ourselves to envision an ongoing ministry of some kind to Mexico—perhaps as “Non-Resident Missionaries”—even as we also feel God’s call to flesh out Jesus with others in Texas.
I think this MRT experiment with you is timely. Because of so many transitions with missionary families, we had stopped our intentional practice of gathering as an MRT (though we remained connected through phone calls, CO2 relationships, etc.). But through this experiment with you all, God seems to be urging us to begin anew the practice—perhaps as a way to remain intentionally connected and strategically praying for our region even as we move into a new chapter of our lives as apostolic workers. Because of our geographical challenges now and in the near future, we have decided to meet every 2 weeks for our gathering on Skype. For the moment we are using the name Equipos de Misioneros Translocales (EMT) to articulate the idea in Spanish. We translated Kent’s document in Spanish using that name.
I wonder what God will teach us and do among us in the next few months.
It was about 9-10 years ago that we came up with the term "simple church". Neil Cole had coined"organic church" as an alternative to house church because "not all churches meet in houses". I liked that a lot! Then, one day this thought wandered into my mind: "Simple church - a way of doing church that is so simple that any believer could say, "I could do that!" ".
In that one phrase, we took a quantum leap towards the priesthood of all believers.
MRTs are much the same... a way of doing (being) regional leadership that is so simple that any two apostolic people could say, "We could do that!"
Sean and Chris, in their story below, are a wonderful example of this principle. I love this phrase: "We held our first meeting before we really understood what the MRT process was." The fact that the MRT idea is so simple tells me that there is great potential for it to also be viral. It will be fun to see if that is indeed the case.
One other thing to point out. Once they had read the Invitation, they "began to explore the MRT blog". In other words, they began to read your stories and comments. Keep this in mind when you find others you want to invite into the MRT Experiment. Encourage them to explore this blog and see if it's the kind of community they would want to be a part of.
In the comments section, I hope you will welcome our two friends from England and share with us all your observations about their story.
Simply,
John
Hi everybody, we are Sean (Diviney) and Chris (Jefferies) in the western part of Cambridgeshire in England. We joined the MRT experiment a little late and are not very far along with it yet. However, the way we got started will make a good story so we'll tell that for now, we can share other information later as we learn more about Father's purpose for us.
We have been doing CO2 together since the first week of December and it was a blog post about CO2 that encouraged John to contact us with an MRT experiment invitation. We held our first meeting before we really understood what the MRT process was. Chris had watched John's interview with Kent before we met and we talked about that, we discussed three connections we felt drawn to make with local people, and we prayed together.
Afterwards, as we began to explore the MRT blog and understand it more thoroughly we realised that we had already held our first session. What a revelation!Everything we have seen and heard so far resonates with what we've been seeing and feeling for some time as a result of spending time in CO2. We think CO2 leads naturally to mission. Both of us had already felt driven towards some form of outreach and we thought the Luke 10:2 approach would be the way to go.
In particular we already felt that mission would come through listening, that what we do would be driven and guided by what we heard. Now we had been invited to join a considerable number of people who felt the same way. This was awesome!So here we are.
So far we have three possible 'leads', one new and two older ones that we want to try to 'refresh'. The new lead is a Muslim couple who live about a mile from Chris, they published an article on a Muslim website and we spotted it and feel we should follow up on it. We will try to make contact with them.And finally there's a good chance we'll repeat a kid's camp that we were involved with last summer. This may give us links to parents as well as the children.Meanwhile we plan to meet weekly to chat and pray. We'll keep you posted on developments.
See below for the introduction from our friends who, in order to function subversively, need to be called simply "two workers in Hawaii". (BTW have you seen Eugene Peterson's chapter on "The Subversive Pastor" in The Contemplative Pastor? He makes the powerful point that "Jesus was a master at subversion".)
Two comments come to my mind about this report. The first is that it reminds us that each of our "mission fields" have a different level of receptivity. As a result, the strategies that He gives us will vary. There's no "one size fits all" here. I see our MRT Community as a place where we can reflect on these differences with safe people who understand the uniqueness of each calling.
Second, I love the fact that this MRT is consist of just two people - in this case a husband and wife. ("... and He sent them out two by two" -Lk 10:1) The simplicity of this has huge implications for multiplication. Neil Cole: "Only that which is simple can multiply rapidly."
Your comments/observations?
John
We are two workers following God into mission in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands. We believe God has called us to be vocational apostolic workers here for the rest of our lives. This place is our home and these people are our people. We aim to take on the "flesh" of our fellow citizens as a way for them to see the Kingdom revealed among them. That means, we're doing everything we can to blend in and incarnate Christ here in a local manner. Hence, we've taken regular, ordinary, everyday jobs as a vehicle for building continuity with our fellow locals and opening up venues for ministry and evangelism. For far too long, Christianity has been brought here with a foreign fist ready to strike at anything non-Western. We feel it is now time for the Kingdom of God in Hawai'i to be revealed with love and aloha - allowing ordinary people here to see that they can join up with God without having to "leave home" in the process.
For the now, it is just us as a couple who are part of the MRT for this region - at least, we're the only two that know we're part of it. There are others we live among and connect with on a frequent basis that hold to CO2/MRTish practices and have missional hearts for this place. So, while we don't have any official MRT-mates (as of yet), we are definitely not without believing company. We're actually just getting started (within our first year in our current location) but we do have a church of believers (6 adults, 3 kids) that shares life together within our neighborhood. We have also found many people of peace in this place (some followers of JC, some not) that we are nurturing relationships with and seeing where God leads. Even though we may not live to see it, we look forward to the day when every person in this region is within close-reach, both geographically and culturally, to a local family of Jesus.
Many of you are responding to my request last week of investing the first five minutes of your email time each day to the MRT Experiment. To reading the post of the day (I'll work on keeping them short) and responding with a comment. Thank you!
Perhaps you may feel that you need to say something profound in every comment. I want to assure you that this is not the case! A key part of the MRT Experiment is about building encouraging webs of relationships - even with people we've never seen face to face. It's about knowing that we're not alone. Knowing that there are others on the same journey who we can talk to and who will pray for us.
This is the kind of community where mutual learning can thrive.
So, today, I just going to post below some of the responses to the Chicago MRT Introduction from yesterday by Mark and Katrina Willis. Read them over and see if any comments come to mind about the value of a community of friendship and mutual learning like this.
John
From Chris in England...
Mark and Katrina, thanks for this introduction. You have encouraged me and confirmed what is happening where I live as being part of the same pattern. It's the way the Almighty does things.I'm impressed that on the one hand you see the loud work of the world but intermingled with it Papa's work of love and peace through his special people. What a contrast!'People from the harvest who can be leaders in their context.'Yes! That is the key to how the Kingdom will continue to come. The sown seed growing and sowing seed of its own. Read Revelation 3:7-8. The key of David is the Key to the Kingdom, the key that was promised in Matthew 16:19.
From Hobby in Brighton, CO...
Wow, you are quite articulate! I love the description.I appreciate the image of you pouring yourselves out/emptying yourselves. Philippians 3 has been on my mind lately.Father, I pray that you be WITH Mark and Katrina. Make your presence known as you rejoice and suffer with them. Accept their offering and fill them up again and again.
From Noah soon to be in Christchurch, NZ
Praying for you guys in Chicago - that's a tough city if I've ever seen one!For the Kingdom!!
From Chadd in Guadalajara, MX...
Mark and Katrina-great description of the vision that God is placing on your heart. I really appreciate your desire to interact with the people in your city--to notice and look for ways to describe what you see through your Father's eyes. I'm praying with you today.
See below for a great description of the harvest field called "Chicago". Mark and Katrina Willis, part of the Abilene/Antioch diaspora, have been assigned by the Lord of the harvest to that huge city. Add your voice to theirs today in beseeching the Lord to thrust out (exballo) an army of harvest workers there.
John
My wife Katrina and I are living and working here in urban Chicago - we moved here in June 2008. It's been a fast-paced lifestyle that has asked a lot of us emotionally, financially, and spiritually. Living in the urban matrix of Chicago, we've seen elements of Babel and whispers of the New Jerusalem -- plenty of "making a name for ourselves" through skyscrapers, gang graffiti, and workaholics; but also plenty of peace-making, reconciliation, and redistribution of God's people throughout the "empire" to serve the poor and lost among us.
We are connected to several other couples in the city who have the goal of planting house churches and participating in mission with God. This has been a great source of encouragement for us, and at the same time, we're still listening to God as to how he is calling us together. Our dream is to see a "vibrant family of Jesus" in close reach of every person in Chicago. We are desperately praying that God show us people from the harvest who can be leaders in their context. We have seen several vibrant families gather in the last year, and are praying for the holistic salvation of Chicago, the "city of neighborhoods."
Here's an interesting insight into the early church that may influence where we look for houses of peace.
