THE PITFALLS OF ORGANIC CHURCH [PART 6]

Rotate Locations Early and Often.

For the first 4 years of our house church life, our family hosted every meeting together. That’s twice a week for four years! Today we only host twice a month (on Sundays) and other families take turns hosting in their homes the other weekends.

The reason we decided to rotate our meetings wasn’t because we felt burnt out, however. Not at all. In fact, we really love hosting the house church in our home and it’s very convenient for the kids on our street to join us on those Sundays, which makes it extra special for us. So, why did we decide to rotate our Sunday morning meetings? Well, it all started with a trip to Alaska. At least, an imaginary one.

As I’ve already mentioned, our house church group has been quite large for some time now. Over the last few years I’ve been pretty vocal about the fact that our group was too big and I really felt that there were plenty of mature people in our group who were more than capable of hosting and even leading a house church group in their own home. However, after a series of conversations and meetings with different people, what I learned was that none of those people saw themselves as ready, equipped or capable of doing this.

My epiphany came one evening when one of our brothers in the group asked everyone else this question: “If Keith and Wendy suddenly moved to Alaska next month, how many of you would even continue to meet together as a church every week?” To my surprise, and heartbreak, no one said that they would continue to meet together without our direct leadership in the group.

I think it was at this time that I recalled the words of wisdom shared by my friend Alan Knox who said that any church that cannot continue to function without the direct leadership of the leader isn’t a church under the headship of Christ. (Or something like that. I share this exact quote in my book, “This Is My Body: Ekklesia as God Intended”).

So, right then and there Wendy and I knew that we had failed to make disciples of the people in our house church. We wanted them to understand that they were all following Jesus – not us - and that He had equipped all of them to be the Church, and to be practicing members of the priesthood of Christ. That’s when we started asking everyone in the group to step up and to start taking some of the responsibilities away from us and to start owning the group themselves. Sharing the weekly hosting duties was just one of the things we started to intentionally give away to the group. We also started not showing up to these meetings at all on occasion to underscore the reality that they could be the Church without any help from us at all.

The good news is that, about a year later, we asked some of these same people that question again about our mythical trip to Alaska and every one of them said that they would most definitely continue to meet with the house church family even if we were not there. I have to believe that hosting the house church meetings in different people’s homes, and allowing everyone to experience the meeting apart from us made a difference. People got to see that there was nothing especially holy about our den, or about us as leaders, and that they were all called by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the Body of Christ no matter where they gathered or who was in the room – or not.

-kg
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Friday, March 30 & Saturday, March 31
Walnut, California
Neil Cole * Ross Rohde * Keith Giles * Scott Underwood
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MEET YOUR FACILITATORS: BILL FARIS

William Faris, is the author of “Homegrown” and “How Healed Do You Want To Be?”. He has been a professional pastor, counselor and writer throughout his adult life. Currently, Bill is a part of the professional counseling staff of Marriage and Family Matters in Mission Viejo, California. In addition, he serves as the Director of the Vineyard Community Mission Network (VCMN), a network of house churches based in Orange County, CA that is affiliated with Vineyard USA. Bill and Robin, a gifted nurse, have been married for over 30 years and have four children.

Bill’s latest book, “Homegrown” is the true story of how a conventional local Vineyard church "went house church" in a bold quest to re-engage their mission, simplify their structure, and fully involve their members. Along the way, these believers begin to learn a whole new way of being the church at the neighborhood level. The result is an exciting new mission to "empower everyday people to take the ministry of Jesus to everyday places". Those who are looking for some surprising stories, some biblical thinking and some inspiring visions of how "microchurches" can impact their members and their surroundings will find Homegrown to be a worthwhile read

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AN ORGANIC CONFERENCE FOR CHURCH PLANTERS

Momentum West Coast 2012: Organic Church Conference
Unleashing Your Missional Potential
March 30-31, 2012 ▪ Southlands Christian School ▪ Walnut, CA

PURPOSE
To train, equip and send out mission-oriented disciples of Christ to plant organic churches in the mission fields where God has placed you (neighborhoods, workplaces, and families).

EVENT
Attend Momentum West Coast to obtain tools, insights and resources to plant an organic church in your own home or community.

At Momentum West Cost you'll spend a day and a half learning, practicing, and discussing issues critical to making an impact in the mission field where God has placed you.

Obtain practical training, tools, techniques, and support for planting and growing
your own organic church from leaders in the field with decades of experience.

Meet your personal organic church coach who will continue to provide insight and support beyond the conference.

Interact with other organic church practitioners to discuss challenges, solutions, and new ideas for planting and growing the Body of Christ.

FORMAT
Momentum is like no other conference you've attended before. We've uniquely designed this event to maximize input from all participants and facilitate discussion in both large and small group formats.

Our facilitators will briefly share insights on critical topics for about 30 minutes, and then participants will share their perspectives and ask questions within their small group.

Each small group will have their own organic church coach who will work with you throughout the event and will continue to be available after the conference to answer questions, provide support and help with the development and growth of your organic church.

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CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Friday, March 30, 4:30pm – 9:15pm
Saturday, March 31, 8:00am – 6:00pm

LOCATION
Momentum West Coast 2012 will take place at
Southlands Christian School
1920 S. Brea Canyon Cutoff Rd.
Walnut, CA 91789

FACILITATORS
Neil Cole (Organic Church)
Ken Eastburn (House2House)
Keith Giles (This Is My Body:Ekklesia as God Intended)
Bob Sears (The Well OC)
Bill Faris (Homegrown)
Joe Chebat (The Well OC)
Jeanne O'Hair (The Well OC)

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NEXT HOUSE CHURCH 101 CLASS - FEBRUARY 7TH

Registration is FREE* (Must RSVP)

Learn more about the House Church experience and how you can start your own house church, or join an existing one, here in Orange County, California.

This seminar will explore several aspects of house church including:
*Is House Church Biblical?
*What about the kids?
*Who's in charge? (Leadership in a typical house church)
*What about Spiritual Covering?
*Guarding against heretical doctrines and keeping the faith.
*Food, fellowship, family and fun in the house church context.
*God's Amazing DNA For His Church.

TO RSVP FOR THIS SPECIAL SEMINAR PLEASE EMAIL US AT
mailto:ATOCHOUSECHURCH@GMAIL.COM

Let us know how many will be attending and we'll send you a map and more information about the "House Church 101" class.