K

    One of the new people in our church is a brother whom I'll call K. He is up from Brazil on a six month visa before returning home. He doesn't speak English. As with most church cultures, what he is familiar with is pastor centric. His mother, also a non English speaker is up visiting. K introduced me to her as "Pastor." After our gathering I went over to him with a bi-lingual Bible that another brother gave me last year. My Portuguese is halting as I don't know the verb changes, and my accent is atrocious but by the grace of God I have made it my business to know His Word. So i showed K Matthew 23:8, and Romans 8:29, two of many verses that show the importance of our brotherhood in Christ. K read them aloud in Portuguese. Then I managed to say that offices or gifts like elder or pastor (using the Portuguese words) are important but what is more important is our brotherhood because that is eternal. The Holy Spirit helped me remember the way in which a Portuguese speaker expresses that concept, (literally "for always"). I saw the gleam of revelation in K's eyes as he looked to me and said, "irmao" (brother-I don't know how to reproduce the accent mark) and then to himself as well. As Paul the apostle said in a different context, "The Word of God is not bound!" (2 Timothy 2:9b ESV)
     Another encouragement from yesterday was a young brother A whom God is moving in powerfully. At the very end as I was getting into my car to return home he came up and asked for a book which I had offered to the church (Basic Bible Doctrine by Wayne Grudem). A expressed a desire to find 4 people who would pray consistently for the neighborhood in which we are ministering, and finally asked me to pray for him personally. I asked whether he had any specific need. He said no, just to bless him. What a basic, wonderful request and yet how often do we ever do this? Happy to comply. Thank you, Jesus

Salt Bay Reflections

     Friday I had the opportunity to act upon an invitation by a brother named Chuck to spend part of a weekend with him and some Canadian saints seeking the Lord Jesus in a cottage on a bay of the Atlantic in Maine. Long drive with the last twenty-five miles harder than the previous 225. By 4PM I had pulled into the driveway to spend the next hour and a half watching the tide roll in. Nearly imperceptible at first, it gradually changed until the waves were actually curling and crashing down on the outcrops of stone. After a lifetime of usually stress filled work, I am thankful to have time to reflect on the God's creation.
    Chuck, Mike, and his wife Anne pulled in about ten. We spoke quite awhile until I finally called it quits about midnight. They are seasoned saints, people who have walked with Christ for decades, experienced the vicissitudes of triumph and failure, and kept on following Jesus. We prayed and spoke, reminisced and encouraged. Saturday morning took one of the most pleasant walks I have ever had.
     One of the more memorable discussions that Chuck & I had centered around the need to have Christ's compassion for those who are perishing without Him. I had prayed for this years earlier when He showed me that I didn't have that compassion. I thank God for using Chuck to remind me to keep praying for His heart for the lost. Saturday evening Chuck patched in a sister named Val on a conference call, and we spoke about what we were all sensing on the horizon- a collapse and resultant devastation of the US & world economic and political systems. I believe God is saying to "prepare," not so much physically or materially but spiritually in joyful welcome of those who will be desperate in that scenario.
     Got up at 4:44 Sunday morning, and drove South to participate in our monthly Celebration outreach, which begins with at least an hour of prayer. JR, Mary, Adele & Jose helped facilitate worship, and we had visitors from Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine and Brazil. Met a brother named Trent, whom I had heard much good about, and his family. His appearance and exuberance brought back memories of the Jesus People days. Our brother Matt preached the love of God powerfully with translation into Portuguese by JR and Belle.
     Coming home I received a call from a veteran of the Cross named Doug. We find great joy in God's painstaking work in us over many years to bring us to a place of humility where we can finally give from what God has revealed to us.

Opining

     Opine- to hold or express an opinion. I have haunted libraries for generations and have always understood that they were quiet places designed for reading or study. My current local library is consistently the noisiest one that I have ever encountered.
    I try not to follow the major news stories but they are impossible to avoid. The fraud, selective reporting, and bias of the media is blatant. Take the Trayvon Martin shooting. The cover of a major weekly news mag has what is probably his kindergarten picture on the cover. Have you ever seen a picture of what he looked like at the time of the shooting? He is six-two, muscular and covered with tattoos and allegedly in trouble with both school authorities and police who had almost arrested him several days prior. He was also a reputed drug dealer. Have you heard that on the news?The media lynch mob has long ago convicted George Zimmerman. If he should not be convicted I predict riots as in the Rodney King affair some years ago.
    The most recent Colorado massacre (apparently the more people that are killed, the more publicity) is the most recent example of an ongoing phenomenon that goes back at least as far as the Old Testament. (Try 1 or 2 Kings) Pagan societies require a steady supply of victims. Ours are paraded on the nightly news, radio, the Internet etc. around the clock. Most "news" consist of people murdered or otherwise victimized.
    Is it a generational thing that I think the current trend towards receiving government benefits is shameful? I know any number of younger Christians who don't want to work, and don't have too because of "transfer payments" or who may work but still are on some government subsidy. As one brother explained to me, he makes more money by not working. Is 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 no longer in our Bibles? "That you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly towards those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing." (NKJV)

7/22 Update

     Awhile back I had a couple of posts in which I included something called "Fun with Words." Some expressions don't translate well into other languages. For example, in English one of the terms of endearment that a person can employ is "honey." In Portuguese one says "melados," which means molasses. The idea is the same but I don't think an English speaker would consider someone calling them "molasses" favorably. Another is the expression in Portuguese "oito y oitenta," which means 8 to 80. This doesn't mean anything in English but in Portuguese denotes someone who is unstable, who has wild emotional swings.
    On a more spiritual note, enjoyed fellowship with the support/accountability brother's group on Thursday, and began a Bible study with three more brothers on Friday, with focus on the inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of the Word of God. Saturday morning had a long overdo breakfast with Nathaniel. We realized we had known one another for a dozen years. Saturday evening fellowshipped with the Phinney Hill group, always a pleasure, and Sunday trekked back to Boston to my "home" house church. Today we experimented in meeting in a partitioned room in a building due to our recent increase in numbers. While I wasn't thrilled with the logistics, it did serve as an entry point for several visitors.
    Shared a little on the theme of persecution, which seems to be promised in 2 Timothy 3:12. Also looked at John 15:18ff, and 1 Peter 4:12ff. Persecution fills the pages of the New Testament, and is experienced by many around our planet. There is no reason to expect that we will continue to have immunity. Already a strong prejudice exists in the US, especially in media and elite circles. May we prove faithful if our turn should come.

Dilemma of Growth

     One of the best blessings of gathering in homes is the opportunity to welcome people into that part of God's family. Because numbers are limited and celebrating the Lord's Supper as a full meal allows for longer times together, one can make deep relationships. People feel less inhibited in participating in that environment, and the need for structure and organization is minimal. Those who wish to disciple others in the faith are not tied up in endless meetings. House churches don't have the expense of buildings and professional staff so financial resources can go to the New Testament priorities of ministering to the poor and aiding itinerant ministers. And one can follow the apostolic patterns found in Acts & the Epistles.
     But what happens when we grow out of the apartments or homes that are gathering in? People wish to preserve the relationships that have grown out of the house church environment so they look for a facility to rent. Now we begin to lose what God has used to bring us to that point. We have ongoing expenses- making a landlord's mortgage rather than giving to the poor or itinerants. With more people we lose the intimacy of the house and begin to require more structure and organization. Only a few can share publicly.
     Unfortunately the pages of the New Testament do not instruct us in what to do when groups grow out of the homes. We only know from history that the early church did not move into larger buildings until the 4th century. This implies that the existing home groups must have multiplied into other homes. Hardly any American home groups with whom I am familiar have done this in a healthy way. Most have never grown to a size where they had to think about it. However, most regular churches started in someone's living room.
    Are we willing to experiment with multiplication, which is admittedly harder, for the sake of welcoming in people as we were once welcomed, or is the larger building model inevitable? As I am learning the hard way, if one believes that God would be pleased by multiplication, then that must be placed into the spiritual DNA of a group from Day One, and reinforced at regular intervals. Otherwise the inevitable will occur.

Knowing Him

     Jesus prays (John 17:3) "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Paul affirms in Philippians 3:10 that he wants to know Christ. This is not an intellectual knowledge but a deep, relational knowledge. How can we come to know God? One way is through prayer, talking to and listening to God. Our prayers tend to focus on our needs or situations (supplication) or praying for the needs or situations of others (intercession). Both are necessary. Praying for our needs demonstrates our dependence upon God rather than ourselves. Praying for others is one of the major ways that we can fulfill the command to love one another. Yet a good, healthy relationship does not consist in asking for things, however necessary or beneficial. Consider how we get to know another person. We spend time together (hanging out). We discover what other people think or say about the person. We also listen to and reflect upon what the person says about himself.
    In the Bible, God says many thing about Himself. In the New Testament, Jesus does the same. One example is His "I AM" statements. this refers back to the passage of the burning bush in Exodus. When Moses asks who shall I say sent me, God responds with the Name, "I AM." Jesus repeats this numerous times. His listeners understand that by using this phrase He is claiming to be God. For example in John 4:25-26 he responds to the Samaritan woman's question about the Messiah by saying, "I AM He." He also says "I AM the bread of life (John 6:35,48,51), "I AM the light of the world (John 9:5), "I AM the good shepherd (John 10:11,14 etc.).
     One way to enter into deeper relationship with God is to acknowledge or confess who He says that He is. As we do this, it finds a confirmation in our own hearts, and facilitates the revelatory ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Multiplication

Multiplication? You mean 3X4=12? (Do kids learn the multiplication tables anymore?) No, I refer to multiplication in the Kingdom of God. In the past twelve years of working with house based churches in New England, I haven't seen  a single healthy multiplication, in which a viable home church grew to the point where it gave birth to another home church and both thrived afterwards. Yet it seems that this must have happened in the New Testament era. Historically we know that from the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 70AD that the Christians worshipped in homes for at least two hundred years, and that a group which numbered 120 persons in the upper room (Acts 1:15) grew to many thousands in the days following, and eventually spread throughout the Roman Empire. Yet we have no Biblical information on the process. We see plurality of eldership mentioned at least eighteen times in the NT including Acts 14:23, and Titus 1:5. (In contrast the word "pastor" is used only once in Ephesians 4:11, and is probably an itinerant ministry like the others in that verse.) We also see three clear examples of consensus in Acts 1,6,& even 15. (Note the approval of the whole church in verse 22) We also see the authority of the church in Matthew 18:15ff where no mention is made of pastors, elders or leaders. Thus a case can be made for elder guided consensus in church direction including multiplication.
     God has blessed us in our group to come a point of growth where we need to pray, contemplate and counsel together about whether to do as so many have done before- to take the easy route of becoming a building oriented church, or to experiment with multiplying into two, with the hope that this is not the last multiplication but the first. Jesus told us to make disciples and disciples will be required to multiply successfully. Only whole hearted followers of Christ who have truly put Him first, who are willing to love and forgive one another and depend on Jesus can make this happen.

Riding the Wave

    Have only surfed once in my life but that seems like the best analogy for what God is doing in our midst. The men in our church often gather on a Saturday morning (the women meet separately). This past Saturday we gathered and spent at least two-thirds of our two hours together in prayer, one of the most powerful times that I have experienced in recent years. When the foundation of prayer, and thus relationship with God is laid, we are unleashed to respond to the power of the Holy Spirit.
    Yesterday nineteen adults, seven teens and seven younger children gathered, a doubling in size of the gathering from only a few weeks ago.  Interaction between the saints was genuine and refreshing, as if we had found an oasis in the desert. For many years I have believed that it is the responsibility of those already in a church to welcome and integrate new people into the fellowship rather than expecting people to do that on their own. Now I see that happening.
"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters..." (Isaiah 55:1) "Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God." (Romans 15:7) "The Spirit and the Bride say come. And let the one who hears say come. And let the one who is thirsty say come; let the one who desires the take the water of life without price." (Rev. 22:17  All references are ESV) God has given us the joy and privilege of providing a place for people to be planted in His Body.

Crossroads

     We began almost like a band of fleeing refugees. This was about four and a half years ago. Over time we solidified, harmonized, and grew in our relationship with God and one another. Some people came and went but the Holy Spirit developed a core group. We worked for a long time on the question of how we were to make decisions, and a year and a half later came up with elder guided consensus. We experienced a lot of "drama" and came close to foundering. Through it all God proved Himself faithful again and again. At the end of 2011 we felt that we needed to give what God had given to us; that the blessings He had bestowed were not just for us, and that we needed to make more impact on the world around us.
     We tried two experiments. One was developing relationship with a small Brazilian church nearby. The second was partnering with them in a monthly evangelistic outreach at a low income housing project. We also began to pray for the opportunity to welcome people into this little part of the family of God.
     In the last month God has brought a number of people into our home gatherings with more expressing interest. We are thrilled. Yet this has rapidly brought us to a crossroads. We are a relatively poor group. No one owns a house. We meet mostly in small, one bathroom apartments. Twenty people max us out. We expect thirty this Sunday. What do we do now? We never want to intimate in the slightest way that we don't want people to come. There seem to be two major options. One is the traditional route. Almost all North American churches begin in someone's living room. If enough people come then they rent a space, and if more come they try to buy a building. By the grace of God we have access to a building both rent & utility free. (Some readers are probably saying, "Are you kidding me? This is a no-brainer.)
     The other option is to multiply into two groups so that we can continue to meet in homes. What does this require? Each group would need adequate leadership, ideally a worship facilitator, people willing to open their homes to host the group, and a potential willingness to not meet on Sundays with all of those with whom they have forged relationship over the last few years. We would continue our once a month gatherings, and could have prayer, brothers and or sisters' meetings together.
    The most important question in all of this is what does God want? May we seek Him diligently.

Quebec Report

July 2, 2012

QUEBEC REPORT

Have just returned from my third ministry visit to Canada this year. Thank you, God for opening this door. Left early Wednesday morning, going Mass Turnpike West, New York Thruway to Syracuse, and then due north to Ottawa. As always the Berkshires were spectacular; I hope to spend some time there this summer. Passed signs for Guilderland, NY, near Albany. Oddly some of my best high school friends were from that town although I went to school about forty-five minutes away. Farmland begins just past Albany and stretches to the end of Nebraska as one drives west on I-90. You can also see something that may be the Erie Canal on your right. As I had very little Canadian currency, I tried to purchase some at American banks near the border. Unlike my successful experience in Maine, I went to four different banks and ended up with only $50.

Crossing into Canada has always been pleasant. Just before I reached the border I went over an extremely high, narrow bridge but am uncertain of the name of the water below. Although I studied French in junior high, high school, college & grad school I never became even conversational in the language although I did learn to read it. About twenty years ago read the New Testament in French three times and about twenty other books but hadn't used it since. In Quebec most signs are in French and the Brazilian friends with whom I stayed lived in French speaking areas.

Reuel, Erika and Mateus, their toddler, greeted me warmly when I arrived about 4:30. I met them originally in Brazil, several times in the U.S. & in Canada on a previous visit. We watched “Courageous” a movie by the film making church in Georgia that has also produced “Facing the Giants” and “Flywheel” among others. Each one seems better than the last. The theme centered on the responsibilities of fathers towards their children wrapped around a police thriller.

The next day we went to a beach along the river with our friend Adolpho & his daughters. Very pleasant, and I didn't burn. Adolpho gave me a tour of downtown Ottawa before picking up his wife Flavielli. (As always, I have not seen these names written down and am guessing at the spellings.) Thursday we returned to the beach (a Brazilian pastime) but it was very windy. Erika made the classic beans, rice, salad mix that I like. That evening we gathered together and had a time of worship, testimonies and prayer. I shared some Scriptures and related thoughts on the theme of persecution referenced in the previous post.

Friday we relaxed and then after dinner I drove to Montreal, about an two and a half hour journey. There Wellington, my host, greeted me. We talked and prayed together. In the morning we ate breakfast, took a walk with May, his Jack Russell terrier, and then went to lunch at a place called “The Cage aux Sports.” The wait staff spoke French, which Wellington knew but I did not. (I am limited to about 4 or 5 sentences and a few stray words.) So I explained in French that I was an American, and did not speak French. She replied (in French) that she would do her best to understand me. I caught the word “comprend” (to understand). While we ate I heard rap style music in English and heard our waitress singing along. I asked Wellington to mention this to her. She launched into an explanation (in French), which Wellington repeated in Portuguese. (Brazilians love to joke) Now my Portuguese is not much better than my French although I have about 80% reading comprehension. The gist was that she watched English language TV, sang English songs, understood English but was too timid to speak it.

That evening several Brazilian Christian families came over. I shared on the theme of glorifying God and Wellington spoke on His eternal purpose. He diagrammed on a big sheet of paper. I think I understood about half of his spoken communication. Brazilians love to talk and eat, which we did afterwards. On Sunday we hung out, I took a walk, prayed and went to dinner in the city of Montreal, located on an island in the St. Lawrence river. Andre and Camilla were our hosts, along with Davi, their toddler. We ate something resembling meatloaf, and Andre told me the fascinating story of how he and his wife had met. Left early this morning and drove about 340 miles home.