Renewal

Renewal: The church, the followers of Jesus are renewed, refreshed and rejuvenated in their personal relationship with Jesus and passionately pursue Him.

“Be Transformed by the renewing of your mind”; “Be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit” are the first things that rise up within me. And they are not just one time events. They are meant to be continuous companions on the journey.

And in this day and age of hyper-info-onslaught, their priority should be high.

The goal is “un-obscuring”; Getting our paradigm shifted (a favorite phrase of mine) so that our hearts and minds can better perceive the Truth & Love that Jesus brings us. The revelation has to be more than just intellectual. Allowing Jesus total access to the rooms of the heart is necessary (and scary, at least to the flesh . . .)

The lie fosters fear to get us to cringe in the darkness. But the Word brings light, love and healing.

As the reality of His Truth and Love sink further into our hearts, the way we respond to all that we encounter on the journey begins to shift. We have a greater awareness of His presence. Indeed, we begin to hear and see with the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth.

So, just how does one begin the journey of renewal? Jesus is the one who has cleared the path for us. Holy Spirit enables us. And tools have been provided to align us so that we can perceive and receive . . .

Next Up: Renewal, Spiritual Disciplines and a cup of Chai with Jesus.

Organic Church . . . More Ponderings

Just wanted to add that Organic Church might just better described as Organic . . . as we, the followers of Jesus, are the church. When Papa God creates . . . it is organic. Sometimes in very interesting ways . . .

We tend to muck things up when we think we can improve upon the original design . . .
Which is not a knock against creativity/imagination/discovery . . . many things have been hidden for our sheer joy of discovery. Prayer for wisdom and discernment of what we discover (and what to do with it) is a good thing.

The Quest is not to come up with a dazzling catch-phrase for marketing purposes (Ech!!! Danger, Danger Will Robinson! Run!).

The Quest is to be authentic foundationally (and that foundation is a Person: Jesus), first in relationship vertically and then taking that relationship horizontally into the market place . . . and the work place and where-ever else the Wild Goose leads us.

Organic Church Ponderings

Organic Church.
I have started writing down some things on this. My first approach was to define what organic is in light of it's increased usage in our everyday lives (in regards to food-stuffs).

Wholesomely natural healthy ingredients. As opposed to just natural ingredients as not all natural organic matter is necessarily healthy. Arsenic, cyanide and radium are all "natural" products but are hardly conducive to healthy living or a long life.

Organic food means it has not been artificially enhanced, tampered with, molecularly modified, radiated, chemically fertilized, and sprayed with chemical insecticide (there are other qualifiers too, but these will suffice). Even what goes into the soil and water that the plant comes from must be free of the above. (Of which I see a analogy to the things discussed in "Gaining Ground" . . .)

At this point I want to say that care must be taken in that some would jump on the "organic bandwagon" without truly being so. The same can be said with emerging/emergent.
Or home churches. Just because one slaps up a sign that says Emergent/Organic/Home Church doesn't mean they really are. Remember the the flap over juice-drink makers labeling their products "100% (apple, orange, what-ever) juice" when in fact their product maybe had only 10% real fruit juice?

On the other side of the same coin, I also realize that care must be taken to not develope a rigid "This is Organic" and "This isn't Organic" structure/protocol that stifles, impedes or intimidates pioneers who are seeking new ways to connect the Gospel to their regions in a meaningful way.

I would add to the developing definition of OC (Organic Church) would be Martin's use of the word Pneumatic. While my wife Adele and I were in ministry school last year, Martin was a guest speaker and used Pneumatic as emergent from pentecostal/charismatic.
Scripture reference is John 3:8 where it is used to describe those born of the Spirit.
I see a need for OC to be dynamic and not static. What may fit well for OC in one region may not work for another somewhere else. I see this also tying in with what Jesus said about only doing and saying what He saw The Father doing and saying. (John 5:19 ~)
There may be a million-and-one good things one can be doing, but it is better to be doing what God has revealed as concerns one's city, neighborhood and region.
This protects against hype and burn-out. Too often church X begins something that has positive impact and experiences breakthrough. Then other fellowships see this and then try to duplicate the same thing into their frame/program. and they fall flat. Perhaps it is better to bless (and give praise for) the breakthrough of church X, as breakthrough for a part of the body is breakthrough for all of the body.

Dynamic Fit
What may flow well in a rural setting may not do so in an urban one. And samething in reverse.
It is not a market driven/demographic approach but a one that seeks Holy Spirit for revelation as what to pray and what to do for a specific area. Which means some prep-work in mapping and prayer walking. Building relationships with those in the area, bringing encouragement in a 1st Cor. 14 way (prophecy) and a James 2:15 way (practical).
Apostolic in seeking to nurture, pour into, train, power and release disciples . . .
(Which may require some healing ground-work as well ~ as there will be some who have been wounded by misuse/abuse from those in authority/leadership).

As a part of being (or one analogy/paradigm of) "Free Range/Organic Church", I find resonance with the principle of catalyst as given in "The Starfish and the Spider" book. A catalyst is an element that brings about change in combination with other elements, producing a new element/compound. But at the end of the process no trace of the catalyst can be found in the new element/compound (my paraphrase. I may not have gotten the exact scientific verbiage correct).

This analogy is incomplete and not perfect as we are dealing (in a Kingdom/Gospel/Christo-Centric way) with people and not elements/compounds. So it could be said it is to build relationship in order to foster growth without building dependency; When I walk out the door there is no trace of "me" left in the equation, just increased life of "people of the way". But there will still be relationship. Again not perfect analogy for we all leave an influence and leave our "finger-prints" upon one another. We share and shape dna. But it is the quest, the desire and the passion to see His fingerprints cover all . . . to see our dna transformed to His dna . . .

Revival: Covert & Overt

I would suggest that revival can take place at different levels with the end result always being that the Gospel is conveyed (notice I didn’t say “preached”, although that is one form of conveyance), that people come into salvation (which is more than just being “saved”) and God’s Kingdom become manifest.

I will use two examples from the New Testament to unpack this a little more.

The first example I will use I see as being in the covert class of revival.

In John 4:4 ~ 43 Jesus meets the woman at the well. It is “covert” in the sense that there is no “Flash/Bang” manifestation of the miraculous (signs & wonders). It is instead a personal encounter, a truth encounter, with a touch of the prophetic which culminates in the woman becoming an impromptu evangelist and her entire town/village becoming believers.

Next as an example of what I believe to be in the “overt” class is the account we have in Acts 2:1 ~ 41. Plenty of “flash/bang” in this. Very much in public during a special celebration. Tongues of Fire, utterance of tongues not learned . . . Peter saying “This is That” (in reference to the prophesy in Joel 2:28 ~ 29) . . . and at least 3000 come into salvation.

So, revival can come quietly . . . and sometimes not so quietly. (And probably in all the possibilities in-between). In each scenario people come to faith in Christ.

In the two listed above, the people were previously “non-believers”, so it makes the goal of revival appear to be that of reaching the unsaved.

But is it only that? What about 2^nd Chronicles 7:14? Could it also be a form of revival when those who have gone astray or lost focus or back-slid or what-ever get back on track, start praying and get refocused?