House Churches Gathering

The last few years has seen a rise in interest in different forms of being church. House Church. Cell Church. Organic Church. Simple Church. These are a few of the names used to describe something new but old. The earliest church in Jerusalem met in homes and in the temple courts. Much of the way we experience church today doesn’t bear much resemblance to what we see in the New Testament. There were no cathedrals or hi-tech facilities with projectors or indoor baptisteries; no pew Bibles or fallback speakers. There’s nothing wrong with these, of course, but home meetings and corporate gatherings don’t necessarily require them.

thethirdplace, the home-based church we started a year ago, has been meeting for prayer, care for one another, conversation focused on readings from the Bible, and a simple meal including the Lord’s Supper. We’ve had as few as three of us and as many as 20 plus for some of our gatherings. We meet and relate to one another on the simple promise of Jesus: “wherever two or three gather in my name, there am I in their midst.” It depends on His apprentices faithfully “devoting themselves to the apostle’s teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” It depends on Jesus adding “to their number daily those who were being saved.”

But thethirdplace isn’t the only home-based or simple church in the Fellowship. There is also Kairos from Redditch, Saltway from Droitwich, and Hillfields Christian Fellowship (HCF) from Coventry. These churches have a variety of histories. HCF includes 3 couples and 1 baby who have a heart for the poor and homeless. Saltway has a café-style meeting in a local coffee shop. Kairos is a community of people committed to one another who date back to Church Hill Christian Fellowship.

On 5 April, these four home churches met together in a village hall just outside Redditch for a joint gathering to meet one another, hear each other’s stories, pray for one another, have a meal, worship, and celebrate communion together. It was experimental, and we deliberately facilitated a day that didn’t look like a typical Sunday morning worship service. The 24 of us who gathered were encouraged by one another! We want to do it again.

We are hopeful that we will start to form an embryonic network of churches that are simple and organic; of a kind that will be reproducible and demonstrating Kingdom of God values. Pray for us!

If you want to find out more, contact me here.

A Slice of S.O.A.P.

At thethirdplace we recommend a daily use of s.o.a.p. A regular or daily practice of reading scripture, recording observations, reflecting on personal or corporate application, and prayer helps keep one’s heart clean and tidy and a hospitable place for the Holy Spirit to reside (see the sidebar to the right for a couple of documents you can download regarding daily gospel readings and a guide to using s.o.a.p.). Writing these down is even better, and generates a diary of one’s interactions with the Father as an apprentice to Jesus. Here’s an edited version of my slice of s.o.a.p. for the day.

Scripture: Mark 14.12-16
12 On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked him, "Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" 13 So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14 Say to the owner of the house he enters, 'The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' 15 He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there." 16 The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

Observation:
Jesus’ apprentices assume he wants to keep the Passover feast, and recognise preparations are required. It seems a ‘proper’ passover meal requires preparation; I wonder how much preparation and what kind of preparation was required? Where can I find information about that? I wonder which followers Jesus’ sent? Did they have any special gifts, characteristics, or attitudes as to why he chose them? Maybe hearts of service and belief? I wonder how unusual or ‘normal’ it was for them to receive such directions of Jesus? How would they know which man carrying a jar of water? And how would that man carrying the water jar know the disciples would be looking for him? Or the owner of the house? And how would the owner of that house know to prepare the room for Jesus and his apprentices?

Application:
I’m not asking these questions because this seems ‘unbelievable’ to me, but because I wonder how I can have a heart or spirit of obedience, a posture of obedience such that when Jesus speaks, I listen. How do I clarify from all the voices competing for attention that a certain one is Jesus, like a certain man carrying the water jar? I suppose the word ‘preparation’ comes into play here; I need to have a heart prepared for Jesus to speak to me, hence a daily use of s.o.a.p. I think also of something Dallas Willard says, regarding experiential experimentation of responding to what I perceive to be Jesus’ voice. That is, if I think I’ve heard Jesus’ voice through scripture, the Holy Spirit, or others, then I can act ‘experimentally,’ so to speak, and learn by failure or fulfilment, if I have heard correctly by what I experience as a result of obeying what I believe I’ve heard.

Prayer:
Jesus, by your Holy Spirit at work in me, please bring clarity of thought and obedience to me. Help me in my quieting myself before you to hear your voice clearly. I believe that as I trust you with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding, and in all my ways acknowledge you, they you will make my paths straight (Proverbs 3.5-6). Please help thethirdplace meeting even as I write, to know your grace and presence. In your mercy Lord, please hear my prayer.

Reflections

2008-06-04
I’ve been reading three books in recent weeks that are helping me to reflect on what we want to see grow and develop in thethirdplace. Neil Cole’s The Organic Church has been helping me think about church as an organism rather than an organization or institution, in which biological principles of growth and reproduction operate. Joe Myer’s Organic Community has brought to the forefront similar principles, but also those of collaboration, flat leadership structures, empowerment and a kind of mutual accountability that brings the best out of one another without manipulative power and control.

Currently, I’m reading Gibbs and Bolger’s Emerging Churches, and I’m about half-way through. Their research on emerging churches highlights how these churches 1) identify with the life of Jesus and his Kingdom of God teaching and living, 2) erase the false secular/sacred divide of modernity, and 3) practice a kind of community life together where hospitality and embracing the marginalised is primary. These churches seem to do so in a manner highly revolutionary to that of traditional churches captivated by a consumer-orientated culture.

What does it mean for thethirdplace? I’m not sure yet!

2008-06-01
thethirdplace has been meeting for three months. Five of us have been regulars, while three have come once or twice. We’ve had a couple of BBQs and a film night (Facing the Giants). While we’ve described to a number of people what we’ve envisioned and started with thethirdplace, we’ve only invited a half-dozen people to come along so far. Our deliberate ‘soft’ launch has gone well.

Tim and Tam are now away for a couple of weeks stateside visiting family, prayer and financial partners, and attending a course related to Tim’s DMin studies. The time away will be a good opportunity to see how thethirdplace carries on meeting without Tim and Tam. Elaine and Phil are hosting in our absence, and we’re confident that that thethirdplace will sense Jesus’ promised presence because they are meeting in His name.

What have we learned so far about this experimental and embryonic home-based church?

Several things come to mind. First, how little we know about what it means to be church when the traditional “Sunday come-to-meetin’” model has been our primary experience. Intuitively (and biblically), we know that church is more than a gathering, even if it is other than on a Sunday morning. I’m not sure we know yet how to be church with each other beyond our gathering together.

Second, it is hard not to have an ‘agenda’ or some other ‘control’ over the course of our evenings together. Third, I don’t think we have yet found a way to develop in one another more deeply our apprenticing to Jesus.

However, I’m not worried about these at this point. We’re on a journey together. We’ve got each other, we’ve got the Bible, and we have the Holy Spirit helping us. We want thethirdplace first to be a safe place to ‘be’ without expectation or judgment, where we embrace one another as God embraces us and experience ‘belonging’ to one another as a community.

The Apprentice

Did you see this week's episode of 'The Apprentice' on BBC1? It's a fascinating programme, and I've been watching the entire current series after being intrigued by the trailers before it launched. (I haven't seen any of the previous series). Raif was fired by Alan Sugar, and Michael slipped and slimed (my opinion) through using up another of his nine lives.

Last night during our conversation at thethirdplace, we talked about the adverts which were produced, and ultimately why Raif's team failed while Alex's team of Lucinda and Lee celebrated. There's no doubt that the 30 second telly advert by Alex's team promoting Atishu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEugOBc_1ns was naff while the one produced by Raif and Michael http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVCKueF13mI for I Love My Tissues was subtle and moving. But the former got Alan's approval while the latter didn't.

Why? According to Alan, the first mentioned the product three times, while pointing out the 'antibacterial' feature twice. The failed advert left the viewer confused as to the product and didn't highlight it's unique germ killing action. The brief was to sell a specific product, not make a tear-eliciting dramatic production.

It got me to thinking and our group to discussing what being an apprentice to Jesus means. Is it what is portrayed by the programme? What about an apprentice's (a follower or disciple) love for Jesus? I'm doubtful that the programme gives any sense of what that means, but I think the adverts certainly give a view from two ends of the spectrum of how we who love Jesus communicate who he is and what he means to us to others. On the one end, there's the deep and foundational relationship I have with Him that shapes and guides my character and behaviour that is subtly communicated to others. On the other end, there is the flat, unsophisticated, even blunt and confrontational presentation of one's passion for Him and passion for the Kingdom of God values he lives.

The first has a low cringe factor for our friends unfamiliar with Jesus. He appears attractive; his passion for people, acceptable, but not alarming; his call to people to 'Follow me!' worth considering. The second comes close to creating a cringing embarrassment for our friends, but it reminds me of something Dallas Willard writes in Divine Conspiracy, 'When we see Jesus as he is, we must turn away or shamelessly adore him.'

I love Jesus. I want to love Him more. But I also understand that as an apprentice to Him, communicating to others my love for Him runs a spectrum from subtle and non-threatening to being completely abandoned to Him in my expression of that love.

If I could use another analogy, there are times when I quietly and respectfully express my passion for Tam which others can observe without having to turn and look away. There are also times when I am completely absorbed by her that everything and everyone else fades into the background; but my embrace of her causes others (especially my children) to say 'get a room!'

I wonder if that makes sense. I know this, here at thethirdplace, it's 'a place to be; a place to belong,' and we're about helping each other safely explore what it means to be apprenticed to Jesus.

Significant Visits

thethirdplace meets the 'Forever Youngs' in Stratford
4 April

A dozen folks from a Northside Christian Church in Virginia have been touring the UK, and their final night was a visit in Stratford. thethirdplace travelled on down to spend the evening with them. The group was led by Margaret and Jack (pictured with Tim and Andy). We enjoyed conversation together, a meal, and then broke bread together and prayed for one another. A highlight of the week!



















Hillfields Christian Fellowship - A House Church
2 April

At the National Leaders Day hosted by the Fellowship of Churches of Christ a few weeks ago, a nearby house church came up on our radar screen. The Hillfields church has navigated some difficulties the last several years, one of them a compulsory purchase order in which they lost their building. Three couples (Richard/Jayne, Dave/Liz, and Paul/Sarah) transitioned to being a house church. Tam and I decided to visit them, and what a wonderful time it was getting to know them! They are lively, committed, and clear about why they exist and meet together. We talked together about how we can encourage them and how they can encourage thethirdplace. I'm excited about the possibilities!

A Dinner Story

Last night we met at Phil and Elaine's home. The bacon butties were wonderful with the celery soup. The puddings (strawberries, apple-toffee cheesecake, and creme caramel) not only rounded out the meal, they rounded out our midriffs!

Our after dinner conversation initially focused on one of our gospel readings from the week, Matthew 25.14-29. Jesus precedes telling the story of a master and the resources he provides three servants by saying 'the kingdom of heaven is like...." This is key to understanding the story, particularly because the ending sounds very harsh! The focus is on personal responsibility and accountability in the Kingdom to use all that we have in this life wisely. And it seems to hinge on how one views the Master....

We also asked two questions. First, we asked the question "What is church?" Is it what happens at a meeting on a Sunday morning? Is it a building? Is it a fossilised institution? Second, we asked what is an apprentice (disciple) to Jesus, and what is it that marks one out as an apprentice?

What do you think?

Welcome to this first posting...

Welcome to this first posting of thethirdplace. We were birthed at our first meeting on 7 March 2008 with six of us participating.