2006 National House Church Convention

Sure, it's a huge investment, but I almost believe that if I didn't have the money I'd walk to the House2House National House Church Conference every year if I had to. What a blessing it is to network with people in the field such as Mike Steele, John White, Tony and Felicity Dale, and many, many more. Plus the ability to share what we're doing, what we've done, and what we've discovered is phenomenal.

This year I had the privilege of leading two workshops:

• Exploring Spirituality

and

• Building Spirituality in the House Church

And what a blast we had sharing what's working in helping people connect with God from across the nation.

If you didn't go this year, make plans for next. I can assure you, you won't be sorry!

2006 National House Church Convention

Sure, it's a huge investment, but I almost believe that if I didn't have the money I'd walk to the House2House National House Church Conference every year if I had to. What a blessing it is to network with people in the field such as Mike Steele, John White, Tony and Felicity Dale, and many, many more. Plus the ability to share what we're doing, what we've done, and what we've discovered is phenomenal.

This year I had the privilege of leading two workshops:

• Exploring Spirituality

and

• Building Spirituality in the House Church

And what a blast we had sharing what's working in helping people connect with God from across the nation.

If you didn't go this year, make plans for next. I can assure you, you won't be sorry!

2006 National House Church Convention

Sure, it's a huge investment, but I almost believe that if I didn't have the money I'd walk to the House2House National House Church Conference every year if I had to. What a blessing it is to network with people in the field such as Mike Steele, John White, Tony and Felicity Dale, and many, many more. Plus the ability to share what we're doing, what we've done, and what we've discovered is phenomenal.

This year I had the privilege of leading two workshops:

• Exploring Spirituality

and

• Building Spirituality in the House Church

And what a blast we had sharing what's working in helping people connect with God from across the nation.

If you didn't go this year, make plans for next. I can assure you, you won't be sorry!

I admit it. I suck at blogging—especially when I'm under other writing deadlines. So, here's where I've been for the last three months:

• I just finished the book On the Way Evangelism, which is a book on evangelism for real people. It includes chapters on how to make friends with unchurched folk (a long-lost art for many), how to be evangelistically strategic in where you buy your groceries and who you hire to cut your grass, how to get radical for God, and so on. I'm pretty excited about it.
• I just finished proofing the "galleys" (the typesetting) for the book High Voltage Spirituality. This book comes out in June and has over forty different spiritual habits for real people. From traditional prayer and Bible study, to taking mini-retreats and mini-fasts, the book pretty well covers the gamut of the disciplines.
• I just finished an article on how to multiply small groups for smallgroups.com.
• I just edited two doctoral dissertations.

And in between, I babysat my grandson Ethan (above), worked with small groups, trained house church pastors, and looked for a j-o-b. So, all that's my excuse for not blogging regularly.

I read somewhere (I've got to find the reference), that something like one-out-of-four workers are addicted to reading blogs and spend 9 percent of the day reading them. I'll confess, I'm not a big blog reader. I check into Andrew Jones' blog, TallSkinnyKiwi now and again, but that's about it. If Joni Furry had a blog, I suspect I'd keep up with it—she has a lot of good stuff to say about the church from a postmodern lay position. But other than that, I don't do much with blogs. Which is probably why I don't post very often. It's like I'm not sure what's worth saying...

...so I'll hush for now.

Book of Daniel - A Couple of Thoughts

Just a couple of thoughts about this week’s premier of NBC’s Book of Daniel.

Here’s a snippet of an article with a quote from Jack Kenny, the producer:

Kenny insists he didn’t mean for his show to be about religion.

“I have no faith-based agenda,” he told The Globe. “I do think Jesus is always talking to us. I think God is all around us. ... I was always raised to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but I never knew what that meant.”

I didn’t find the show all that offensive, and I’ll watch it for as long as it runs - which I predict will not be long because of all the hype (and because, I have to agree with the critics, I don’t think I’ve come across a clergy family quite so dysfunctional - dysfunctional, yes, but: Father Daniel is addicted to pain killers, as well as clergy fetch; Mama Daniel is an alcoholic, who has it all under control (sure she does); a daughter who, in the two episodes, is dealing drugs; a young adult gay son - who I thought was about the only “normal” member of the family; and an adopted young adult Chinese son who has a smart mouth and is having an affair with the fifteen-year-old daughter of the rectory’s president - did I leave anything out? Oh, yeah, Father Daniel’s sister-in-law appears to be deeply involved with the absconding of the church’s $2 million building fund.).

On the other hand, I did (overall) like the portrayal of Jesus as one who is present and walking with Father Daniel through all his struggles, including trying to keep him from abusing the painkillers.

Does the show “slam” Christians and clergy? Probably, but no worse than I’ve seen local and national Christians slam the faith (think Richard Scrushy of HealthSouth, Ken Lay of Enron and Bernard Ebbers of WorldCom - all professed “Born Again Christians”). I think the problem with the show is that it’s shows us more real in more respects than we’d care to admit. Sometimes I feel like we’re Oz’s “man behind the curtain” - we’ve been exposed and we don’t care for it because we want the world to think that we’re squeaky clean, either holy and righteous or “not perfect, but forgiven” (as an excuse for unethical or immoral behavior).

Nobody in two of our network’s house churches watched it except my wife and I, so perhaps it won’t be an issue. But if it does come up, especially with an unchurched person, I’ll neither slam the show nor defend the faith. Instead, I plan on bowing my head and humbly admitting that we fall short - lots of times - but that, like the show demonstrates, when we do, when I do, there’s something about having Jesus in the person walking alongside to help pick us up, to encourage us, and to remind us “Life is hard. That’s why the reward at the end is so great” -the best quote of the show.

Online Mentoring Week 2

Our second online mentoring gathering went with only a slight hitch in the technology, but we're getting bugs worked out. Again the gathering included house church apprentices from as far away as Kentucky. We had a grand time with an additional apprentice joining us.

We looked at what happens at a house church gathering, as well as how to get a gathering started. Of course, the online PowerPoint presentation was helpful, but not nearly as helpful as the conversation as questions were posed, suggestions made, and stories shared.

Our next online session is on January 7th at 10 AM PST. If you'd like to be a part of the live sessions, shoot me (bill) an email at mailto:bill@hcna.us and we'll get you set up with the conferencing software.

First Online Mentoring Session

On December 3rd, I led the first HCNA Online Mentoring session. We had three folks join us - one local, one from the other side of the state, and the third from Kentucky. The technology was a bit of a hang-up, but all-in-all I'd say it went pretty well. For the time being, you can take a look at what we covered by visiting The Conversation: Online Discussion Board on the homepage menu.

On that same day, I'm excited to say, we also saw a new house church birthed here in the Seattle area - Kent, actually. The house church had been conceived some time ago as a Bible Study for those in "recovery." Last night the group decided to go ahead and become a house church, which is pretty huge given that the founding members were all long-time out of church and wanted nuttin' to do with church (I'd call them somewhere between wanderers and nomads). In any event, it was an excellent day.

I received a very interesting article about house church yesterday that I want to share a part of. It was an article about the movement in India and I thought it was inspiring. Hopefully, you will too:

In 2003, I received training from an IMB [International Mission Board] missionary who told us how he used this technique to see incredible response where there was no response before,” Hunter said. “In little more than a year, 30 believers in an area with no churches became 10,000 new believers and 906 small groups.

“Since that time, we have been seeing many Hindus come to Christ and new house churches started by new believers. The new believer is transformed into a multiplying trainer by using very simple concepts that can be passed on from new believer to new believer.”

I find it amazing what can happen in one short year when people are discipled [trained] as opposed to "educated" [filled with theology and other "knowledge" about God, rather than in obedience to God]. If you want to read the whole article (and it's pretty fascinating) go to: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=22193.

What We've Become

Whatever happened to The Rock House Church Network? Once upon a time, weren't they the sponsor of the House Church Network Association (HCNA)?

Well, The Rock is still here. We've just grown up a bit and figured some things out.

The Rock House Church Network started in response to the growing spiritual malaise across North America. Once upon a time The Rock had been a rather unconventional brick-and-mortar church, but we came to the conclusion that - for us - continuing to pour money into a church building and perpetual salaries was both counter-productive and faithless. So, we sold our building and launched a three-year "experiment" to see if we could manufacture a model for house church that matched to global movements.

Three years later, where do we stand? Wiser and humbler.

For one, we discovered that God didn't put us on earth to manufacture anything that's of the spiritual realm. We don't have the tools, the technology, nor the ability. The fact is, movements happen when the Spirit moves. Period. The Lord told us to pray for God to raise up workers for the harvest field (Luke 10:2), not for us to get out there and recruit, convince, and cajole people into our mold. When we do, we take living stones and turn them into bricks - they fit well in a the conventional church's structure, but all in all they're just another brick in the wall. Bricks all look the same and they don't do much besides keeping the weather out. Living Stones, on the other hand, do God's bidding, whatever that may be.

And so, we don't recruit anymore - instead, we pray. We beseech the Lord of the harvest to raise up workers and to send them out into the harvest fields. And if we can assist those God raises up by supporting them, helping to train them, coaching, or mentoring them, well, then our three-year experiment has been a grand success.

Just a Few Random Thoughts

The stir of the day is George Barna's Revolution. Though as of this posting the book hasn't been released yet, those who attended the National House Church Conference in Denver were offered advance copies. The book is going to stir it up good.

Barna addresses the established church in North America, but because he has been careful to maintain his objectivity (or at least maintain a good facade) the Mainline church has typically been able to "hear" him as well. That may all come to an end with this book. In Revolution Barna explores the mass exodus from the local church...but not the exodus of Christian slackers, but of sold-out-to-Jesus Christians. It used to be 94 percent or so of "evangelicals" were involved in a local church (Barna essentially defines an evangelical as someone who is practicing the faith). As of 2004 that number had dropped to 75 percent, and in the words of Barna spokesman Thom Black, "We're in a nose dive." Barna predicts that by 2020 or so only 30 percent of evangelicals will be involved in a local church.

Where are they (we - I have counted myself in this crowd for several years) all going? According to Barna, they're getting involved in house churches, marketplace ministries, parachurch organizations, family church, and other not-in-church activities.

The key to the revolution is us - you and me - the individual believer who takes personal responsibility for every aspect of their faith, i.e., for everything that the church exists for. Worship, discipleship, fellowship, evangelism, and serving one-another. Of course, we don't do it a vacuum. We associate with other revolutionaries who take their faith as seriously as we do.

Which, is the point of the HCNA and this website. Whether you're a part of a house church, thinking about it, or a part of some other revolutionary ministry, we hope you find something here helpful. If so, let us know what worked for you. If there's something missing that you'd like to see, let us know about that too!