Simple Church

[HSmomto4]

Our church staff just had to read this book along with High Expectations: The Remarkable Secret of Keeping People in Your Church and Nine Marks of A Healthy Church. It was for the vision team as we did a church survey and we got a bad grade. The pastor has sense left, but the vision team wanted to finish the reading and plans before they brought in a new pastor. They feel it would be in the best interest to have everything set up and plug in a new Minister instead of finding someone and then starting over. (Not sure how I feel about this either…)

When reading reviews on Simple Church is sounds good. No bells and whistels (staged performances as I call them that drive me insane) and going back to simple gospel sharing experiances.

Here is a review I read on Christianbook dot com:

The simple revolution has begun. From the design of the iPod to the uncluttered Google home page, simple ideas are changing the world.
Simple Church clearly calls for Christians to return to the simple gospel-sharing methods of Jesus. No bells or whistles required, so to speak.

Based on case studies of four hundred American churches, authors Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger prove that the process for making disciples has quite often become too complex. Simple churches are thriving, and they are doing so by taking these four ideas to heart: Clarity. Movement. Alignment. Focus.

Each idea is examined here, simply showing why it is time to simplify.


I also am reading that is all about the emerging church. I need someone in plane English to explane what is wrong biblicaly with this book. No I haven't read it but will be, I'm getting a copy from our church on Monday. I need to know what I am getting into here!

Thanks in advance!

[JoelH]

Some of the end works of the Simple Church movement don't sound as bad as the Emerging chruch movement, but they start from survey of believers' needs, which is starting from man first rather than God first.

In other words, the way we should "do chruch" is: God says so through the Bible, we follow this, thus-saith-the-Lord, full stop (period). The Simple Church, though they are sounder theologically than the seeker sensitive church or Emerging chruch movement, fundamentally shares with these movements the opposition to the principle I just outlined.

[Sing4Him]

The term simple church is often used interchangeably with other terms like organic church[3], essential church, primitive church, bodylife, relational church, and micro-church[4]. Some groups use other names for their groups, although they would consider themselves part of or related to the simple church phenomenon. A good example of this is Emerging Church Network's "authentic faith communities" [5] or "emerging indigenous faith communities"[6]. Perhaps the most common synonym is house church, which has much more popular usage and predates the term simple church significantly.


The name simple church is favored over house church by some because the house church movement has often been associated with embittered reactions against more traditional forms of church. Whether earned or not, with some people the house church movement has a reputation for being insular and exclusive, even cultish -- something that many who are concerned about missional living want to avoid.


Sociologically speaking, simple church could be seen as a subset of Emerging church[8] (although many in the simple church movement would not see themselves as part of emerging church[9]), a phenomenon rising from the conversation between Christianity and the culture and worldview of postmodernism. Many in the emerging church movement would consider simple church to be represented in expressions such as house church and unique gatherings like Church in a pub.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_church

[Sing4Him]

Again.. this is all Man's Methodologies in bring people in numbers to church!
Notice.. use of the word GOD-- NOT JESUS

Here, take a read of one of the other's ways of using "the Simple Church in Sunday school"

http://www.webtoastmedia.com/admin/geiger/uploads/SS%20in%20SC.pdf


WHERE DID THE GOSPEL GO?????????????????

[Sing4Him]

But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. Gal 1:11

[HSmomto4]

Sing, I have a meeting with my church pastor on Monday and I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row.

[Sing4Him]

HS-- be ready to be told that you have taken things our of context, that you are reading things correctly, that what we say here or what you have read is wrong.. then you might be told that you are being divisive, unscriptural, that you are deceived or someone is deceiving you.

I will be praying for you as I am sure others on here will also... :pray:pray:pray

Where Are the Elders Who Guard the Flock?
By Bob DeWaay


This past weekend I received a call not unlike many dozens of previous communications from Christians concerned about unbiblical practices being introduced into their local churches. This particular one expressed a committed Christian’s concern that their large evangelical church was introducing mysticism and eastern practices under the guise of youth ministry. This church had even created a shrine of sorts in the church basement for young people to practice this mysticism.

The caller had researched this subject for several months, documented her church’s new practices and described why the practices were dangerous and unbiblical. Confident that her findings would help correct the church’s direction, she brought her research to the church leadership, only to be mollified and warned about having a bad attitude. In response she asked the leaders to compare these practices to Scripture, but to no avail. The story is all too common; why does it continue to happen?

Most evangelical churches have elders; these elders are responsible for the Lord’s flock. My interviews with people who have witnessed their churches being infiltrated by unbiblical teachings and practices have opened my eyes to a serious problem in our evangelical movement: elders who do not think that what is being taught and practiced in their church is important enough to judge biblically. This is serious. In many cases, these elders consider their primary job to be—support the senior pastor and his reputation at all costs. Their secondary job—watch over the financial well being of the church as a corporation. Their tertiary job—make sure no one rocks the boat. Thus, in these elders’ interpretation of their job description, the problem in the church becomes those concerned members who care about the integrity of the gospel message.

Most evangelical churches take seriously most of the qualifications of elders as listed in passages like 1Timothy 3. This means that they look for good family men who are faithful to their wives, have a good reputation, and are not guilty of scandalous behavior. And they do well to follow these guidelines. But these qualifications are not the end of the story. As a matter of fact, many unconverted people meet most of these guidelines. But a more important matter has been pushed aside: the requirement that elders guard the Lord’s flock from the wolves.

Let us consider Acts 20 where Paul gathered the elders in Ephesus and gave them instructions. Here is what Paul said:



Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:28-30)



Paul is telling us that elders MUST guard the flock against wolves who bring false teaching. In this most important role, many are failing.

For example, someone recently told me of his frustrations with the elders of his church. The church, traditionally very conservative and solid biblically, began promoting Theophostic ministry—a ministry that involves teachings and processes that are not Biblical.[i] So he appealed to the elders, giving them evidence of serious error in this movement’s teachings and of the harmful consequences of allowing it. Rather than searching the Scripture and comparing the teachings of Theophostics with the Bible and making a decision, they referred the member to the counseling pastor who was promoting the ministry. The elders had no desire to concern themselves with this matter. If the reports I have received from dozens of people are true, this is too common.

Many elders are successful businessmen, but being a successful businessman neither qualifies nor disqualifies a man from being an elder. Churches seem to lean toward selecting such people because churches want to be successful businesses. But did Paul tell Titus to select businessmen-elders when he said: “holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict” (Titus 1:9)? No. If a man has no willingness to study and learn sound doctrine, is content to have only a superficial knowledge of the Bible, and is unwilling to correct false doctrine—that person is NOT QUALIFIED to be an elder. So a remedy for many of our church ills would be for our churches to select biblically qualified elders who are truly ‘apt to teach’ (1Timothy 3:2; 2Timothy 2:24 KJV). If we required this of all elders, we would not have all the false doctrine coming into the church that we see today. We would have elders with backbone who would even stand against the senior pastor if necessary should that pastor depart from the truth. A pastor who loves the truth and desires integrity in the church would earnestly desire to have elders like that around him, not merely people who are committed to whatever program he wants to promote.

Paul’s warning to the elders in Ephesus came true. Studying 1 and 2 Timothy, we find that false teachers did arise “from their own midst.” So Paul instructed Timothy about how to deal with the situation. He wrote: “As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus, in order that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines” (1Timothy 1:3).

The Greek word translated “doctrine” or “teaching” is found 15 times in Timothy and Titus out of 21 total references in the New Testament. The so-called “pastoral epistles” emphasize the importance of doctrine. Paul said that elders who “work hard in word and doctrine” should be given special honor. Elders must be “apt to teach.” Those who go astray in doctrine are to be corrected and if they refuse to repent they are to be rejected (Titus 3:10).

Combining what we know about elders from Acts 20, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus, it is clear that guarding the flock from false doctrine and teaching true doctrine is the elders’ most important role. Churches endanger the flock when they choose elders based on their business acumen, that they seem to be moral men and “nice guys,” or are likely to support the senior pastor at any cost while ignoring the importance of doctrine. Pastors who do not teach sound doctrine from the pulpit exacerbate the problem by making it unlikely that a pool of men qualified to teach the truth and correct error will ever arise in that church.

The answer is simple: we need to teach sound doctrine from the pulpit and as God raises up men trained in sound doctrine who love the truth and are willing to defend the truth against the wolves (and who meet the other qualifications) should be appointed elders. Paul’s words emphatically summarize this:



All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; (2Timothy 3:16 – 4:3)


Pray that God will raise up people in our evangelical churches who will do what Paul instructs and that local churches would have godly elders who will guard the well being of the Lord’s flock.

[i] http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue79.htm explains the issues and shows how far off base it is.