Wow!

I found this image at this blog along with some of the comments. If you look at the photo you can see stars (the rounder images with a "twinkle" or "aura" around them) and you cans easily count at least 30 galaxies (the more elongated images). However the caption states that about 1,500 galaxies !!! are visible in this deep view of the universe. This image was captured by allowing the Hubble Space Telescope to stare at the same tiny patch of sky for 10 consecutive days in 1995. The image covers an area of sky only about width of a dime viewed from 75 feet away.


How small are we? (Or how big is God?)

Cosmologists now conservatively theorize this:

Think of an atom that we will call "A"

Think of the observable universe - all that we can see and observe with the instruments we have today including Hubble (13+ Billion Light-years in any direction). We'll call that "O"

Now we'll call the possible size of all of creation beyond what we can see and we'll call that "C"

And consider this: A is to O as O is to C.

The Atom is to the Observable Universe as the Observable Universe is to all of Creation.

Which means that all we can currently observe of the universe is like an atom compared to what might be out there.

My brain hurts.

The Help Desk

For all those who have been frustrated with computers or frustrated with helping others use their computers.
Enjoy!

Some Thoughts on Discipleship 5

The first three views were from Neil Cole, Wayne Jacobsen and David Garrison. Now Roger Thoman at the House Church Blog posts more of his collection of ...

Thoughts on Discipleship Pathways

Curtis Sargeant

Curtis, former missionary to China, is also a student of Church Planting Movements. He encourages us to consider that discipleship is not a knowledge-based process, rather it is about modeling a lifestyle of surrender and obedience. He asserts that the reason Paul was able to leave behind growing disciples in a short amount of time is because they were in contact with a man who was “thoroughly in love with Jesus Christ, filled by the Spirit, and completely surrendered to the Lord’s control.” Curtis contends that Paul’s lifestyle “painted an indelible picture in the minds and hearts of the new believer-leaders…”

Curtis also suggests that a simple church, with the above characteristics, will have a dynamic transformational impact just by being the church:

“A simple group in love with Christ and with each other, sharing freely with each other and with a lost world and constantly in his Word and in prayer. ‘Together,’ discovering more each week about him and his will. If they continue to abide (John 15) in a relationship with Christ and the Body (church), they will have everything they need. The Holy Spirit will be their resident teacher…”

Curtis’ book is available free online here. He asks that when quoting from his book you make reference to his website: https://www.peace.gs/.

Alan Hirsch

Hirsch, in his book Forgotten Ways uses the term “action-learning discipleship.” He suggests that we should look at the way Jesus discipled:

“As soon as they are called he takes the disciples on an adventurous journey of mission, ministry, and learning. Straightway they are involved in proclaiming the kingdom of God, serving the poor, healing, and casting out demons. It is active and direct disciple making in the context of mission. And all great people movements are the same. Even the newest convert is engaged in mission from the start; even he or she can become a spiritual hero.”

Hirsch describes his own missional training network:

“[We] host an internship, where the intern is placed in an environment where he or she is somewhat out of his or her depth. We do this because when people are placed in a situation requiring something beyond their current repertoire of skills and gifts, they will be much more open to real learning. It’s called jumping in at the deep end. The vast majority of the interns’ learning is by ‘having a go’ and actually doing things.”

A good summary of Hirsh’s grasp of discipleship is his statement that “mission is the catalyzing principle of discipleship.”

The introduction to “Forgotten Ways” is available online here.

Much here to chew on!

Some Thoughts on Discipleship 4

We've already looked at Neil Cole and Wayne Jacobsen. Now Roger Thoman at the House Church Blog posts more of his collection of ...

Thoughts on Discipleship Pathways

David Garrison

Garrison, author of Church Planting Movements, has seen simple discipleship chains provide the key to the rapid multiplication of disciples and churches. (Simple churches themselves are also generally present in rapid church planting movements).

Garrison suggests that six basic lessons provide a discipleship foundation for new believers. One of the six lessons is on how to be the church and start simple churches. In this way, new believers also immediately become new church starters.

The key, however, is the way that this basic teaching is passed on. Person A teaches Person B a basic lesson. He then asks Person B to teach the lesson back to Person A so that Person A knows that he has grasped it. Then, Person B takes the lesson and teaches it, in the same manner to Person C, Person D, Person E, Person F, and Person G. Yep. Five more people are taught the lesson and they are taught how to pass the lesson along to five more people each. So, everything a person receives he must pass along before a next lesson is given.

Of course, discipleship in this model does not have to be limited to just six basic lessons, but you can see the focus: every person learns to become an immediate discipler as well as a disciple.

Some Thoughts on Discipleship 3

Roger Thoman at the House Church Blog posts more of his collection of ...

Thoughts on Discipleship Pathways

Wayne Jacobsen

Wayne’s view of discipleship is far more fluid. Here are some quotes from his book…

“Jesus didn’t leave us with a system he left us with his Spirit. He gave us his Spirit as a guide instead of a map. Principles alone will not satisfy your hunger. That’s why systems always promise a future revival that never comes. They cannot produce community because they are designed to keep people apart…

“Just keep in mind the simplest lesson that has been repeated countless times since Jesus was here: The more organization you bring to church life, the less life it will contain…

“That’s where religion has done the most damage. By making people dependent on its leaders, it has made God’s people passive in their own spiritual growth. We wait for others to show us how, or even just follow them in hopes that they’re getting it right. Jesus wants this relationship with you and he wants you to be an active part in that process…

“‘But can we do it on our own? Don’t we need some help?’ Marsha asked.

“Who said you’re alone? Jesus is the way to the Father. As you learn to yield to his Spirit and depend on his power, you’ll discover how to live in the fullness of his life. Yes, he’ll often use other people to encourage or equip you in that process, but the people he uses won’t let you grow dependent on them.”

The value of Jacobsen’s writings is that he challenges us to stay away from formulas and remain dependent on our relationship with the Father.

These quotes are from his book that is available free online.

Some Thoughts on Discipleship 2

Roger Thoman at the House Church Blog posts some of his collection of ...

Thoughts on Discipleship Pathways

How do we address healthy disciple-making (spiritual formation) in the context of simple/house church?

I think this issue has much to do with how we view the process of discipleship. If it is just information downloading (my old way of thinking), then it’s simply a matter of a well-designed program. If, however, it is about relationship, modeling, life and lifestyle transmission, well… that is going to be a different matter altogether.

To get my own juices flowing on this subject, I decided to review some of the different perspectives and approaches to this topic that I found interesting.

Neil Cole

Neil encourages discipleship to begin in groups that are smaller than organic/house churches. He calls these small incubators “Life Transformation Groups.”

"This is a group of two or three people who meet weekly to challenge one another to live an authentic spiritual life. Members of these non-coed groups have a high degree of accountability to one another in how they have walked with the Lord each week, which involves mutual confession of sins as well as reading a large volume of Scripture repetitively. LTGs are also missional, in that they actively pray for the souls of lost friends, associates, and neighbors."

These groups, as you can see, focus on accountability, Scripture (lots of Scripture reading), and actively praying for the lost. Neil feels strongly that one cannot improve upon the Bible for curriculum and that helping people immerse themselves in Scripture provides them with the needed foundation:

"Do we really think we can improve upon God’s Word? Why do we so often give people our own teachings and curriculum rather than Jesus’ teaching? … The helps that are available to us are not sinister or wrong, but they are also not the seed of God’s Kingdom."

I particularly agree with Neil’s desire to see Christians learn to be “self-feeding” as quickly as possible.

Neil sponsors Greenhouse Conferences and the quotes above are from his book, Organic Church.

Some Thoughts on Discipleship

I've been hunting around a number of blogs and have been reading some contributions on the topic of discipleship over at the House Church Blog that I though I would copy and paste here in the next few posts. But first I thought I would share some of my current thinking.

Discipling people has become a significant theme for me and I have been realizing that discipleship starts well before someone actually starts following Jesus. I could also say following Jesus starts well before someone makes a decision to commit their lives to Him. In that sense I am discipling my neighbours with my words and actions and attitudes before I ever have a "spiritual" conversation with them and I am certainly discipling my children as they are growing up - both before and after they make a decision to follow Jesus. My relationship actually changes as they become older from that of parent/child to mentor/mentee, discipler/disciple and to that of more of a peer relationship as they begin to match and surpass my spiritual maturity.

In my mind, the two main challenges of discipleship in our culture are:
a. the battle against consumerism - that tendency to measure our worth by the things we have or the temptation to pursue things instead of find our fulfillment in God.
b. the temptation to equate being a disciple with doing a list of Christian things like being a faithful church goer (complete with all the other church-going requirements), reading your Bible, saying your prayers, witnessing, etc. A disciple should instead be measured by his/her ability to listen to and obey God, the quality of their love for God and neighbour, their humility, and a number of other hard to measure qualities that can only be discerned by the close relationship established in a family context.

Keep it Simple

Roger Thorman at the Housechurch Blog posted on why he does the "house church/simple church thing." I though his reasons were good enough to copy and post here.

I do not see the overall tenor of the New Testament church as being one that focused heavily on “the form” or “the model” of church. Church, the people of God, is simply believers living an everyday lifestyle of worship, service, obedience, loving others, etc, etc. Yes, they gathered to bless and encourage one another, but, honestly, the form of these gatherings was not addressed with great emphasis. I think it was assumed that if Christians lived passionately for God, then gatherings would happen quite easily, organically, and… often very simply.

And… overall… we want to participate with God in His life and in His purpose on the earth.

So… why do we do this house church / simple church thing? … here is my list:

I believe in gatherings that are small, because we need the support, encouragement, and deeper growth that comes from this type of community.

I believe in gatherings where everyone is known so that no one gets lost.

I believe in gatherings where we can learn from each other’s personal lives and stories (not just head knowledge) so that growth and discipleship takes place in the context of genuine, healthy relationship.

I believe in gatherings that are participatory because this involves and engages the entire body of Christ.

I believe in gatherings that call the body of Christ to take responsibility for its own spiritual life and stop relying on mediators, events, or someone else to “bring us the goods” because we need to grow up.

I believe in gatherings that are simple so that we are free to spend time with nonChristians and have the time to invite them into our lives.

I believe in gatherings that are easily multiplied, so that we can see people released to reach people anywhere, disciple people everywhere, and start “churches” at any time in any place.

I believe in gatherings that are inexpensive so that money is freed up for apostolic workers and the needs of the poor.

Is there one particular “model” that all of this fits into? I think God will constantly challenge, stretch, and re-shape our man-made attempts to “do” church gatherings. And I think that is okay. The point is to keep focusing on maximizing our life with Him, our partnership with His purposes, and our spiritual growth.

And, for me for now, this means keeping the whole dog-gone thing simple, simple, simple.

Not Getting Burned by the Pyromaniacs

I was just over at Pyromaniacs, a rather conservative Evangelical, strongly Calvinist blog site looking at some posters lampooning anything postmodern or emerging church. They are actually kind of funny but be warned that some of them only make sense if you have been reading a lot on the emerging movement and are familiar with some of its shortcomings.

Anyways I was reading the post mentioned above (that linked to many of the posters) criticizing Scot McKnight's (the guy who blogs at Jesus Creed) article on the emerging church found in Christianity Today online (I have mentioned that article before).

The folks over at Pyromaniacs were very articulate and very concerned about the more radical wing of the emerging movement. I'm concerned too. However the tone of parts of the discussions were quite vitriolic and I wondered how helpful some of the interactions were. Pyromaniacs are, after all, compulsive fire starters. I guess they like to generate some heat. However in spite of my wonderings, I posted a reply which I've quoted below.

Interesting post - and very good interactions. I'm new to the blog and came here to see the posters via a link from Tall and Skinny Kiwi (who thinks they are hilarious by the way). I like them too - but like most humor, they rely on exaggeration and stereotyping.

I suppose I would categorize myself as a radical conservative, Evangelical but post-Christendom Christian. As I read the post and the comments I often feel as if Emergent and Postmodern have become (almost) synonymous (in the eyes of many who criticize the movement). I think most emergent people I know would say they are trying to respond to postmodernity with an effective biblical witness. But then my circle may not be very large.

I like a lot of what the emerging movement is saying and doing but as a reform movement it has a lot of extremism. Most students of Church History would (and probably will in the future) see it as a minor blip in the history of the Church. I don't think it has much staying power because it is a transitional and temporary response to the current phase our culture is going through. It will move on and hopefully create space for whatever new expression of the church that will become the strong, biblical response to postmodernity.

The value of the emerging movement (in my opinion) is in that "wonderful" concept of deconstructionism - but probably not in the way someone like Jacques Derrida intended it. I think the contribution of the EMC will be in its deconstruction of the church - simplifying it and removing from it every non-biblical element and structure to the point where, if we removed one more thing, it would no longer be the church.

Luther and the reformers started to do this but I think they lost their nerve and continued to keep many of the elements of Catholic ecclesiology. They reformed much of the theology but not much of the ecclessiology and certainly not much of the church and state, political/religious intertwining - they probably made it worse (because of the religious wars and political jockeying that resulted from the reformation). But we live in a different age - an age where the church has been proclaimed irrelevant by a postmodern culture - and has lost its force. I think we can learn much about our current situation by looking at the theological wranglings of the reformation and the great awakenings (1500-1750). We sometimes see that period as a short moment in time but where do you think we will be in 250 years?

Our task is to steward a new reformation. What are its theses and who nailed them there? I think in some ways the argument about emerging is beside the point (because it is passing on and because the energy wasted on the culture wars takes energy away from creating solutions to the challenges of Postmodernity). I'm hoping I didn't miss the point with my comments.

More Swarm Theory

I am still thinking about how this concept of swarm theory relates to the church. Is it possible to actually develop Christians with the core competencies to make the church work in as effective way as ant colonies or bee hives work? Can we create a different ethos?

Can we hardwire certain values into people's makeup? If each member is hearing the Spirit and acts according to scripture (the hardwiring) the things that could get done in the kingdom would be amazing. To lead an organization like this a leader must equip people to hear the voice of God and obey it. He (or she) must not make decisions for others, make sure decisions remain close to where they are carried out (otherwise he becomes a bottleneck). The role of leadership is to instill those values and give permission to make decisions. Historically the church has developed
hierarchical controlling systems of leadership instead of releasing empowering systems. So I don't think the real role of leadership is to cast vision or to administrate but to instill (hardwire) kingdom values.

To me the core competencies (hardwired values) include:
+ you (we) are the church - not some organization (the hive) or some bigwig (the queen bee)
+ every individual must act responsibly.
+ every individual must make his or her own responsible decisions
+ everyone must take initiative to work hard and do his or her own part
+ don't follow fads
+ don't imitate others
+ every member must know how to listen to the Holy Spirit (my sheep hear my voice)
+ the goal is the larger good (ensure the continuation/growth of the colony)