The Holy Spirit may at times break down existing patterns of prayer and worship in order to renew his people.
Sometimes this is because of inadequacies in the attitude of those worshipping, as in Isaiah 1:10-20. There God is tired of the sacrifice and worship of those who do not repent.
At other times the working of the Holy Spirit comes simply to give a renewed vision of the majesty and holiness of God, to refresh devotion and commitment, and to lead people to a new understanding of his nature. This is a part of the contiunous renewal of which Paul says, ‘let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts … and the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish … and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God’ (Colossians 3:15-16).
Such a time of renewal took place over three days in September 1993 during second semester at the Bible College of Victoria (B.C.V.). This special and unplanned period became a time of renewal, growth, conviction and great blessing.
B.C.V. is an interdenominational, evangelical college training people for ministry in Australia and overseas. There are about 180 full-time students and almost as many more part-time students. Ever since its foundation in 1920 individual, group and community prayer and worship have been an important feature of the community life of the college.
The priorities of the college are expressed as ‘Knowing, Being and Serving’. This means knowing God in personal relationship; being transformed to become more like the Lord Jesus Christ as Spirit-filled people of compassion, faith, vision and power, living holy lives in the personal and social realms; and serving God in the world, developing gifts for ministry for building up the church, meeting the diverse needs in society, and proclaiming the gospel to unreached people.
As a consequence of this commitment, time is regularly given over to prayer. Students and faculty pray in daily chapel services, in fellowship groups, in lectures, at meal times, in faculty groups, in pairs and room groups on special prayer days and nights, and in prayer cells for specific issues including healing, evangelism, community life and student ministries. People pray, sometimes with conviction and joy, at other times with doubts and fears.
Continually there are testimonies to the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is programmed as an important part of college life and God honours that commitment, but on occasions God wants to do something different.
A desire for God
The recent time of renewal began with the group responsible for preparing for a regular day of prayer. Others had a growing conviction that God’s Spirit wanted to move in a new way. One student, reflecting the feelings of many, said, ‘My heart had already been prepared to meet with God – and I was not disappointed. For some time I had recognised the hunger in my heart and my need for God to refresh and renew my weary spirit.’
A number of people felt a desire for the presence of the Holy Spirit. Various experiences indicated that the Lord wanted students to be involved in all night prayer to prepare for the day of prayer for the whole college.
Many would agree with the student who said, ‘For the last two years it has been an increasing prayer of mine that God’s Spirit would move across this nation, and more recently that I would experience more of God’s fulness in my life.’
Significantly, a desire for God to work in this country in a dynamic way is connected with a willingness to allow God to work in a new way personally. It is difficult to communicate what one has not experienced.
One student observed that although none of those who met the Lord on that day would claim the necessary qualities for spiritual leadership in this generation, nonetheless a start was made, for ‘when God raises up spiritual leaders, He first judges them so that they may depend on Him alone’ (Holland 1993:1).
The presence of the Spirit
On Tuesday 21 September about 140 of the college community gathered together in the chapel for prayer. A time of teaching followed the praise and worship. The teaching was brief, about 20 minutes, low key and even understated. Then as people were invited to pray or receive prayer, the effect was as tremendous as it was unexpected.
What had been planned as a 50 minute session became a four hour response to the presence of the Holy Spirit as he touched people’s lives and moved them to prayer, repentance, reconciliation, testimony, praise and commitment. It is difficult to describe this; it needs to be felt.
All who were present found that this was a special time. The college community comprises diverse groups of people from a wide range of denominations and traditions of prayer and worship. Many of them are prayerful people but most had never experienced a time like this.
The Holy Spirit convicted, empowered, challenged, encouraged and renewed people. Forty or more sought prayer. They had a tremendous ministry together.
The day’s program was transformed, replaced by the plans ofthe Spirit. Significant personal matters were dealt with that day and in the days that followed.
One student acknowledged, ‘God was convicting me of my doubt in the Holy Spirit’s power to work in and through my life. … I knew I had once again to give the Holy Spirit permission to consume those parts of my life that had been preventing me from loving God more completely.’
For many, the infilling of the Spirit meant that they were overcome – sometimes with grief and repentance, at other times with joy, often with weeping, and often with relief and rejoicing.
The ministry continued over the next couple of days. People were reconciled. They shared in prayer. They ministered to one another and were counselled.
Two days later, when the college community was gathered together, an opportunity was given for people to share testimonies of what God had done over the past few days. One hour became two, then three and four hours, as they praised, prayed, and gave testimony to the experiences of the Spirit.
It was a time for hearing how people had been challenged about their prayer life, their relationship to the Lord, their relationships with others, personal attitudes, and ministry challenges. Again there were tears and rejoicing.
Lives had been changed, barriers broken down, resistances overcome, forgiveness granted, and blessing received. Although lectures had been planned, they simply did not happen that day. Such was the intensity of the moment that no one wanted to leave the chapel.
Lessons of the Spirit
Four points stand out as concluding observations, although many other things could be said.
1. Historic connections.
There is a connection here with the noted revival which took place at Asbury Seminary in the U.S.A. in 1970 and which had far reaching effects throughout America (Coleman 1970).
The speaker at the start of the day of prayer was the Rev. Mark Nysewander who was visiting B.C.V. with the Rev. Richard Stevenson. Both are part of the Francis Asbury Society (U.S.A.), a society focused on renewal through the Holy Spirit. Mark had been present as a student at the revival at Asbury Seminary in 1970 and is continuing that ministry through the Francis Asbury Society.
2. Future influence.
This experience at B.C.V. may or may not spread to other people and places, but whether it does or not, it will continue to mean a lot to those who experienced it. Many future ministries will be enriched by this personal experince.
Knowing through experience what God can do in renewing a community is essential for communicating this to others and for preparing them for it. The historic connection between revivals may continue as students and faculty better understand the power of God to move people and as they become more confident in ministering in his name.
3. A gentle ministry.
It should be emphasised that the ministry exercised over these days was described as ‘a gentle ministry’ with ‘no hype’. Others were ‘surprised by the quietness’ of the time shared together. It is no insult to those leading worship beforehand or to those involved in teaching to say that the worship and teaching were not extraordinary in any way.
There have been more articulate, more dynamic, more profound sermons preached at B.C.V. than these. The worship was more restrained than it has been at other times, but this time the effect was different from all other times. Clearly, the issue was not human hype, enthusiasm or ability, but the providence of God who initiates and controls.
4. An openness to the Spirit.
While no one can command the activity of God, it is clear in retrospect that there was a willingness on the part of many people, students and faculty, to be open to whatever God had to offer and a commitment to not allowing programs to interfere with the work of the Spirit.
This openness had surprising implications. While many were looking for a wider renewal in Australia, God wanted to work closer to home, with those who were praying.
God deals first with his messengers and challenges them to be the kind of servants he wants them to be.
References
Coleman, R., ed. (1970) One Divine Moment. New Jersey: Fleming Revell.
Holland, H. (1993) ‘An Extraordinary Day of Prayer’ in Ambassador: Official Journal of the Bible College of Victoria, No. 151, p. 1.
See also comment on the Asbury Revival in Renewal Journal (1993) #1, pp. 44-45; #2, p. 51.
This article is adapted from a Church Growth essay Barbara wrote in her M.A. studies.
*
The prodigious growth of the house church movement in China is one of the greatest phenomena in the 20th century. Various observers of these Chinese Christians maintain that this move of the Holy Spirit is gathering people into the kingdom of God at the rate of 35,000 daily, and 12 million yearly (Paterson 1989:23; Waugh 1993:47).
Although it is difficult to obtain accurate statistics, approximations show that, whereas in 1949 there were between 800,000 and 1 million Protestant believers in China (Paterson 1989:103; Kang 1990:79; Kauffman 1991:6) and 4.5 million Roman Catholics (McGavran 1989:1) by 1989-1991 there were possibly as many as 50 million in the house churches. Carl Lawrence, however, estimated there were 75 million and a Japanese Christian editor who spent 6 months investigating the Churches throughout China in 1989 estimated 100 million (McGavran 1989:1).
The State Statistical Bureau of China completed a 2 year survey of religious believers in 1992 and the unofficial figures indicate 63 million Protestants and 12 million Roman Catholics (Asian Report 197, 1992:9). The Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) maintained there were 5,000 official Churches and 5 million believers under its auspices in 1989 and these figures were unaltered in 1992. This means at least 50-58 million – the majority of believers – attend the house churches (Paterson 1989:71). Most of the growth has occurred in rural areas where 80% of the population lives.
These figures do not only represent quantitative growth since growth has been sustained for almost half a century and is still increasing. There must be highly significant qualitative factors operating in the Chinese Church to achieve such phenomenal growth.
My purpose is to evaluate the key principles that have contributed to the effectiveness of the house church movement in China. I will examine the historical context and the revival context which emerged from it. Both of these contexts involve dynamic theological and spiritual elements at work in the burgeoning Church.
Christianity and colonialism
The growth of the Church in China cannot be divorced from the historical and political events of the 19th and 20th centuries. Church growth in general ‘is closely conditioned by both history and anthropology’ (McGavran 1980:153).
The arrival of the Protestant missionaries of the 19th century coincided with the victories of western colonialism. ‘Missionaries and colonialism in China were inseparable, at least in the minds of the Chinese’ (Kauffman, 1975:82).
In 1869 a Chinese official retorted to the British Ambassador: ‘Take away your opium and your missionaries and you will be welcome’ (Kauffman 1975:83). The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 is an example of violent aggression against Western influence including Christianity. 189 missionaries and children were martyred as well as an even greater number of Chinese Christians (Francis 1985:23).
Therefore between 1949-1966, after almost 100 years of unwelcome foreign harassment, the Communists vigorously targeted and attacked Christianity primarily because of its identification with imperialist exploitation (Paterson 1989:40).
Chinese indigenisation
Not only was the timing of the introduction of Christianity into China fraught with difficulties, but the manner in which it was propagated aroused considerable discontent among the Chinese Christians. Western missionaries were challenged quite early to adopt the concept of indigenisation.
The principle of self-responsibility and self-support for mission-planted Churches was advocated in 1841 by Henry Venn, secretary of the Church Missionary Society. By 1851 the concept had been formulated as the Three Selfs: self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating’ (Shenk 1990:29).
In 1856 John Nevius, a Presbyterian missionary, set out this plan for indigenization:
1. All Christians should work for a living and evangelize their neighbours;
2. Ecclesiastical organisation should only be developed as the Christians deemed expedient;
3. Churches must be self-supporting;
4. Churches should use local architectural designs;
5. Church buildings should only be constructed when affordable;
6. The Chinese church should both send and support its own evangelists;
7. Strong emphasis must be given to prayer and Bible training (Kauffman 1975:91).
The self-supporting, self-governing and self-propogating principles became the theme for the First General Conference of Protestant Missionaries in China, held in Shanghai in May, 1887.
The Chinese Church, too, was beginning to realise the need to be independent of the foreign missions. In 1906 the Rev. Yu Kuochen of Shanghai established a small independent Chinese Church (Shenk 1990:32). It represented a voice of protest against the strategies of the missions.
On a larger scale, the True Jesus Church, commenced in 1917 in Tientsin and Peking by Chinese pastor Paul Wei, soon gained nation-wide prominence. This Church emphasised witnessing, tithing, and local Church government. A strong belief in the supernatural power of God to heal, deliver and empower believers was also a catalyst in its expansion throughout China (Kauffman 1975:93).
The tension that existed between the two parties resulted from different interpretations of the meaning of ‘self’. The western missionaries believed in indigenous leadership, evangelism and self-support, but within the framework of western traditions, forms and structures.
On the other hand the Chinese Church leaders desired to express their faith in Jesus in Chinese cultural forms and patterns. This drive for homogeneity, the principle of establishing the gospel in every people group – panta ta ethne – without circumcising inherently good cultural practices, is a natural and spiritual desire which the Bible endorses (Matthew 24:14; 28:19; Romans 16:26).
In the imperialistic climate of China it was very important to the evangelistic thrust of the Chinese Church to be able to preach the gospel and establish people into the Body of Christ in culturally relevant ways to offset the distasteful provocation of colonialism. The Chinese Church leaders therefore expressed their disapproval in 1922 in the following statement at the National Christian Conference held in Shanghai: ‘We wish to voice the sentiment of our people that the wholesale, uncritical acceptance of the traditions, forms and organisations of the West and the slavish imitation of these are not conducive to the building of a permanent genuine Christian Church in China’ (Shenk 1990:32).
Missions and Churches subsequently made genuine attempts to affect change, and establish Chinese leadership in the Church. There were positive signs of the Church becoming indigenous. Powerful Chinese preachers and evangelists were used to win many converts. Others, such as Wang Ming-Tao ‘stood for adherence to the Scriptures and withstood heresies and false teachings’ (Paterson 1989:41).
In 1926 Watchman Nee established The Christian Assemblies, also known as The Little Flock. These were locally autonomous churches without any central organisation. Prominence was given to Bible study and teaching, and the movement produced excellent Chinese evangelists and Bible teachers (Kauffman 1975:94).
Sino-Japanese war
However, the period of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) brought further instability and suffering to the Chinese people, and the momentum of change was impeded in the centrally organised churches (Shenk 1990:33; Francis 1985:23). At the same time, though, conditions in the eastern provinces caused an exodus to the inland regions where the gospel increased and spread.
This was due to the timely intervention of God himself for in places such as the northern province of Shantung he was sovereignly orchestrating his church.
In the early 1930s, Shantung experienced a supernatural visitation of the Spirit of God, characterised by deep repentance and public confession of sin by both believers and new converts, accompanied by signs and wonders in healing, speaking in tongues, and casting out demons. People from all denominations were affected.
This visitation impacted the church across China, resulting in Bible conferences and a rapid increase in church membership (Kauffman 1975:92). ‘To many (in China) the churches and their faith seemed the only stable element in a distraught and changing world’ (Latourette, cited in Kauffman 1975:93). God used the suffering of the people to prepare the church for the intensity of persecution that was soon to follow.
Intervention of the Spirit of God
An excellent model of the Spirit’s preparation of the church for the onslaught of Communism is afforded in the truly indigenous group known as The Jesus Family (Ye-su Chia-ting). Under the Holy Spirit’s direction, this commune:
* Had no central control – therefore , unlike denominations under central leadership, could not be easily controlled by the Japanese or the Communists.
* Refused to accept any foreign funds, on the basis that God was their source and they should exercise faith for his provision. Churches with foreign funds were liquidated in 1949.
* Had no church buildings. The buildings they owned were used for worship, but simultaneously used to produce their agricultural products – providing the livelihood of the commune.
* Encouraged their people to allocate a separate area in their homes for worship – a marvellous preparation for the ensuing forced worship of believers in the house churches.
* Had a dynamic faith in the supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit which was a normal part of the worship of the commune, and proved to be an essential expectation of the persecuted church.
This church began in 1920 under the leadership of Ching Tien-ying. He established a commune in Shantung Province using land left to him by his great grandfather. The felowship spread through the north of China and into the interior. He established agricultural policies, progressively tithing from 10-90% of the harvest annually. During the famine of 1942 the commune gave 90% of the harvest to the poor and still met their own needs. Later the Communists needed one acre per family for life support, yet The Jesus Family was able to feed 500 people from 43 acres and still give away 90% of the produce (Kauffman 1975:95-97).
Effects of initial Marxist/Communist rule
In 1950, under the leadership of Mao Tse-Tung and the Marxist/Communist regime, the Christian Manifesto called on the Christian church to expose and oppose the effects of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism, and help promote an independent, democratic and patriotic China (Paterson 1989:54-55).
However, the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) was established in 1954 by the government to mediate between itself and the church. The name was a prostitution of the ‘Three Self’ principles espoused by the Christian missionaries of the previous 100 years, since the blatant agenda was to secure from the Christians a total commitment to Communist/Marxist policies, and therefore a united, patriotic China. Where the Bible and patriotism conflicted, loyalty to the party line was to be paramount. Chinese evangelical Christians saw the TSPM as the Party’s controlling mechanism of the church.
Since the government viewed the TSPM as the voice of the Protestant Church, pastors and churches who refused to be associated with the movement were vehemently attacked, and many were imprisoned and tortured. Wang Ming-Tao, an eminent Peking Pastor, was arrested in 1955, imprisoned, and subjected to brainwashing and mental torture. He was not released until 1978. He was typical of the fate of many devout Christians of this period who refused to compromise with the State (Paterson 1989:42). Watchman Nee was also arrested in 1952 and never released.
Non-compromising Christianity
By 1958 all Christian meetings not authorised by the government were dissolved. Many Christians stopped attending the TSPM churches because they had become primarily centres for political indoctrination. The house church movement came out of the cauldron of this attempted politicising of the church. During this period, believers began to meet quietly in their homes for mutual encouragement, prayer, and sharing of the Lord’s Supper. These meetings were a reflection and extension of the traditional Chinese social emphasis on family life (Paterson 1989:78).
These house churches (1954-1966) became the fertile soil out of which explosive growth occurred. They provided the climate for the preservation of ‘grass roots’ evangelical Chinese Christianity, and through attention to the basics – Jesus Christ, crucified and risen again, the power of corporate prayer, and the mutual edification of the Body of Christ – laid a firm foundation for growth.
Another factor influencing the success of this movement in the early stages was its roots in the cultural basics. The Chinese church was now truly indigenous. At the same time, the Holy Spirit had been progressively teaching believers to hear and respond to his voice and minister in his power in preparation for the years of the Cultural Revolution, when the church was mercilessly and relentlessly persecuted.
Persecution: context for revival
During the decade 1966-1976, the Red Guards – representatives of the hardliners of the Communist Party – embarked on a ruthlessly cruel campaign to eradicate religion. For Christianity it meant:
* Confiscation of all Bibles and Christian literature;
* The stifling of all remaining institutionalised Christianity;
* Closure of all church buildings;
* Public humiliation of Christians through physical and emotional assault;
* Martyrdom;
* Imprisonment in labour camps, factories and farms;
* Suicide of some Christians;
* A denial of faith in Christ for some;
* Betrayal of fellow Christians by some.
Yet, the gospel spread to areas without any previous witness, due to the exile of believers to remote farms and labour camps (Paterson 1989:45-46). Amazingly, even Red Guards, impressed by the lifestyle of the believers, turned to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ during this time.
Many Chinese believers testify to the fact that the church was purified in the fires of this persecution. Only those who were wholeheartedly committed to Jesus withstood such fierce opposition. One woman believer said ‘If a person joins us, we have a real Christian’ (Paterson 1989:94).
Suddenly, believers needed each other more than ever before. Meeting in small groups, mostly in homes, they learned the value of the unity of the Body of Christ, the edifying effects of fellowship with other Christians, the power of prayer, the priceless value of the Scriptures, and the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit in their midst. The lessons of the preceding years were now bearing fruit in their dire need for mutual strengthening and encouragement.
The Chinese church was developing a quality of lifestyle and attitude that many Western Christians have never experienced. As they were leaderless in many instances, they began to appreciate the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.
This is the true meaning of revival – a fresh and deepened commitment of believers to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. Christians who know him in this measure have a hope that transcends all hopelessness in this life. Although it was very dangerous to witness openly to the Lord at this time, many believers did so. The church primarily grew from conversions as people observed the way Christians endured persecution, and saw their lifestyle under extreme pressure.
By 1977 a more moderate set of pragmatic policies was pursued by Deng Ziaoping in the early years of his second term in office. The more liberal faction of the Party campaigned for the Open Door policy for the West – to help foster much needed industrial reforms.
Christians were released from prison for political expediency. China wanted to boost her trade and diplomatic relations by impressing the West with a policy of religious freedom and attention to human rights issues (Paterson 1989:49-50).
During the decade 1978-1988 the house churches saw great multiplication growth (McGavran 1989:1), and initially enjoyed relative peace. Consequently, the Christians boldly evangelized, worshipped and taught in large meetings. Outstanding reports included one city where 60% of the population became Christians, and a city of 160,000 where the majority are Christians, living in 13 communes (Paterson 1989:82).
David Wang (Paterson 1989:163) reports of another situation in which the majority of the citizens of an entire county became Christians in 1988. A Pastor had been imprisoned in 1963, when there were only 170 believers in his county. When he was released in 1986, there were 5,000 believers. Two and a half years later, the church had grown to 56,000 believers.
Evangelism: the result of revival
Conversions on a huge scale are the result of aggressive evangelism, characterised by a bold proclamation of the Gospel, accompanied by signs and wonders in the power of the Holy Spirit. Believers who learned to operate in the power of the Spirit in the secret meetings of the house churches now boldly proclaim the saving, healing and delivering power of Jesus Christ.
This is specialised evangelism that works through the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit into particular situations. Itinerant evangelists devote their lives to preaching the gospel from province to province. They constantly risk imprisonment and harassment from the authorities, but they are passionate in their ministry and are seeing much fruit for the kingdom of God.
The church encourages the ministry gift of an evangelist, and also emphasises the individual’s responsibility to witness, both in word and lifestyle. Anthony Lambert (1989:8) says the house church model for effective witness in China today is the simple, apostolic proclamation of the Gospel, combined with sacrificial life-style and suffering. This … is remarkably effective in reaching the masses of the people. … The church is growing by leaps and bounds from the grass roots upwards.
Influence of radio ministry
One other form of evangelism in China deserves special mention. The Christian radio ministry has progressively impacted unbelievers all over China. During the years when the country was closed to the outside world, the Far East Broadcasting Company received virtually no feedback on the influence of their programs on the Chinese. However, after 1979, letters received from inside China reveal that Christians are being nurtured, encouraged and strengthened by the broadcasts. More than 50% of the responses are from unbelievers seeking information about the gospel.
The following figures show the increase in written responses each year between 1978 and 1988. The overall decadal growth rate is a staggering 9,000%.
The responses totalled only 177 for the entire period between 1969 and 1978, but sharply increased after China and the United States resumed diplomatic relations in 1979.
1979 – 3,000 responses.
1980-1986 – 10,000 responses a year.
1987-1988 – 16,000 responses a year.
Given the fact that there are many who still cannot respond because of the danger, the radio ministry is of immense value to the cause of the gospel (Paterson 1989:115-116).
Reasons for growth
Vital theological convictions have produced significant spiritual emphases in the house churches.
As early as 1917, Chinese believers recognised the sovereign, supernatural power of the Spirit of God to heal the sick, perform miracles, and deliver from demonic oppression. I believe it is significant that this revelation coincided with the drive of Chinese Christians to become indigenous.
Western believers presented the Gospel from a Western theological perspective – appealing to people’s rational processes. Faith was based on the message proclaimed in words. The preached word has been emphasised exclusively, and Jesus has been well presented as ‘Christ the wisdom of God’.
However, the Chinese – and other Third World peoples – are more acutely aware of the dimension of the spirit world. Therefore, ‘Christ the power of God’, acknowledged in the preaching of the Word with accompanying signs and wonders, is the way God demonstrates his supremacy over all false gods (Wang, Asian Report 194, 1992:9-10).
Chinese Christians expect the Holy Spirit to declare the Lordship of Jesus through supernatural acts as a normal occurrence. This theological absolute is the common thread evidenced throughout the house church movement. I am convinced this is the fundamental reason for its preservation and outstanding growth. Within the house church movement itself ‘most Christians still recognise signs, wonders and miracles as the number one factor resulting in church expansion’ (Wang, Asian Report 198, April, 1993:7).
2. Revelation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ
The primary priority of Chinese Christians is encouraging and maintaining a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Persecution has driven the church to the basics of the faith, and a very real experience of the presence of Jesus in their lives. Their faith is in Jesus who is present now in the believer, and is returning soon. Therefore, effecting reconciliation between him and all who desire salvation is a matter of urgency.
3. A Theology of entering into Christ’s sufferings
A theology of suffering has issued from the fires of persecution. Christ Jesus suffered for them, therefore they willingly enter into the fellowship of his sufferings (Phil.3:10), and consider it a privilege to identify with him as his representatives in situations of persecution where they can demonstrate his great love for sinners.
David Wang tells of a woman Christian worker in a poor province of China sentenced to five years hard labour who refused to be bailed out by fellow Christians. She saw imprisonment as a divinely appointed opportunity to minister the gospel in the labour camp. Her only request was that Christians would support her in prayer (Asian Report 194, April, 1992:7).
4. A belief in the power of prayer
All the activities of the house churches flow from a base of intensely fervent prayer. Intercession occupies a major portion of their church meetings. Whole congregations unashamedly weep as one before God, and the entire group of believers sustain a unity of focus, adding their passionate ‘Amen’ to the pleadings and supplications of their fellow Christians (Balcombe Video, 1993).
One Chinese pastor, returning from a conference in a western nation, said ‘Our brothers in the West know how to plan, but we know how to pray’ (Paterson 1989:189).
Persecution drove them to prayer, and now persistent corporate prayer is frequently sustained for three to four hours in any one church gathering.
5. Belief in the church as a spiritual structure
No other structures except the Body of Christ are necessary in this movement. The vast majority of house churches do not own any property, but meet in homes, old buildings, and even, in at least one instance, a cave. What is important is the spiritual membership of the group.
Inherent in this doctrine is their faith in the priesthood of all believers. Leaders do not dominate the church, but encourage all members to live pure lives, and take their rightful place in the Body of Christ (Paterson 1989:189).
6. Recognition of the Scriptures as the Word of God
The Bible is highly esteemed among Chinese Christians. They will go to any lengths to obtain a copy, sometimes travelling for days to make contact with a courier, and risking detention by the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) for obtaining ‘foreign supplied’ Bibles.
In other places, one copy is circulated among members who are responsible for hand-copying the text. The lack of sufficient Bibles, along with limited sound Biblical instruction, unfortunately leaves many places open to heresy. Pastors refuse to send their potential ministers to seminaries operated by the TSPM, because of the strong political content of the courses.
7. A responsible belief in the mission of the church
These house churches take seriously the church’s mission (Matt.28:18-20). This is attested to by the spiritual harvest they are experiencing. Every Christian is encouraged to witness, and the ministry of the evangelist is given a high profile (Paterson 1989:189).
Ensuing spiritual elements
Definitive spiritual emphases have emerged from these theological convictions in the house churches today in China. For ease of comparison, they are presented in a simple table. They represent Church Growth principles at work supernaturally.
Theological Elements
Spiritual Elements
Recognition of, and dependency on signs and wonders
* sensitivity to the Holy Spirit in evangelism* exercise of spiritual gifts
Revelation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ
* presentation of the basics of the gospel* emphasis on personal relationship with Jesus Christ for conversion growth
* commitment to personal witnessing* sustained vitality in worship
Entering into Christ’s sufferings
* selfless Christianity* boldness in witnessing* focus on eternal values
Belief in the power of prayer
* sustained, persistent, fervent prayer* total dependence on God’s miraculous intervention to preserve his testimony
The church as a spiritual structure
* supportive, caring community* every believer essential to the Body of Christ* emphasis on lay ministry* importance of corporate fellowship
Recognition of the Scriptures as the Word of God
* high view of Scripture* an insatiable hunger for God’s Word* willingness to risk personal safety to obtain Bibles
Responsible belief in the mission of the church
* personal evangelism* fearless preaching of the whole Gospel
*
The greatest benefit to the church in China is the unity gained from a truly indigenous church functioning in the power of the Spirit.
In addition to this principle of indigenous unity, the following phases of Church Growth advocated by Eddie Gibbs (1986:43-45) are all strongly contributing to the current growth of the church in China and are evident in the theological and spiritual elements.
1. Mobilising the witnesses.
2. Equipping the people of God for ministry. This is encouraged, but at times hampered through lack of suitable materials and teachers.
3. Creating a climate of receptivity. This has been a work of the Holy Spirit, using the persecution of the church and the expulsion of Western missionaries to focus the church on the real issues.
4. Effecting regeneration.
5. Incorporating into the Body of Christ.
6. Involvement in the ministry of Christ.
Conclusion
The Chinese house churches have flourished under the dynamic direction of the Holy Spirit. This growth occurs within a climate of official hostility to Christianity. The strategies of the Spirit have developed a truly Chinese church independent of any foreign control or influence, free to propagate the gospel in terms easily understood by its fellow citizens.
These churches are constrained by the present suffering to present the gospel as a matter of urgency, compelled by the love of Jesus Christ for lost sinners. The whole church seriously applies itself to evangelistic mission, and gathers the converts into a nurturing community to build them up so that they can take their rightful place in the Body of Christ.
Despite the remarkable growth of the Christian church in China, there is still much work to do. The best figures reveal there are 100 million believers in this country of 1.289 billion. When we consider that China is one fifth of the population of the world, and 33.5% of the world’s population is Christian (Barrett 1993:23), the church in China is faced with a formidable task to fulfil the Biblical mandate to preach the Gospel to every people group.
They have pressed on by the power of the Holy Spirit in the past, and will continue to do so in the future as they combine his supernatural enabling with their tenacious devotion to the task at hand. Fired by their constant knowledge of Jesus Christ present in his power they proclaim Maranatha, the Lord is coming.
References
Balcombe, Dennis (1993) ‘Harvest Time For China’, Video, Mount Gravatt: Garden City Christian Church.
Barrett, David B. (1993) ‘Annual Statistical Table on Global Mission: 1993’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January, 1993, pp.22-23.
Chao, Jonathan (1988) Wise as Serpents Harmless as Doves. Pasadena: William Carey Library.
Francis, Lesley (1985) Winds of Change in China. Guidelines For Effective Service. Sydney: OMF.
Gibbs, Eddie (1986) ‘Power Won’t Flow From Principles’ Global Church Growth, July/August/September, 1986, Volume xxiii, No.3. pp.43-45.
Hunter, Kent R. (1990) ‘Whatever Happened To The Homogeneous Unit Principle?’, Global Church Growth, January/February/March, 1990, Volume xxvii, No.1, pp.1,4.
Lawrence, Carl (1985) Against All Odds: The Church in China. Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering.
McGavran, Donald (1980) Understanding Church Growth (Revised). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans.
——- (1989) ‘What is Happening in China?’ Global Church Growth, April/May/June, 1989, Volume xxvii, No.2. pp.1,4.
Kang, Wi Jo (1990) ‘Korean Minority Church-State Relations in the People’s Republic of China’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, April, 1990, Volume 14, No.2., pp.77-82.
Kauffman, Paul E. (1975) Confucius, Mao and Christ. Hong Kong: Asian Outreach.
——- (1991) ‘China’s Opposing Attractions’, Asian Report 190, Volume 24, No.3, May/June, pp.3-7.
Lambert, Anthony (1989) ‘The Mandate of Heaven: An Analysis of the Present Overall Situation in China’, Global Church Growth, Volume xxvi, No.2 pp.7-9.
Paterson, Ross (1989) Heartcry For China. United Kingdom: Sovereign World.
Pierson, Paul E. (1985) Historical Development of the Christian Movement – Class Syllabus. Pasadena: Fuller Theological Seminary.
Shenk, Wilbur R. (1990) ‘The Origins and Evolution of the Three-Selfs in Relation to China’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Volume 14, No.1, January.
Wagner, C. Peter (1976) Your Church Can Grow. Ventura: Regal.
Wang, David (1992) ‘Asia’s Maturing Church’, Asian Report 194, Vol.25, No. 2, March/April.
——- (1993) ‘China/Hong Kong: At The Crossroads’, Asian Report 198, Vol.26, No.1. March/April.
Wark, Andrew (1992) ‘Reaching and Teaching’, Asian Report 196, Vol. 25, No. 4. July/August/September.
Waugh, Geoff (1993) ‘Astounding Church Growth’, Renewal Journal, Number 2, pp. 47-57.
The Rev. Dr Colin Warren wrote as the Uniting Church minister at Rangeville, Toowoomba and Founding Director of Freedom Life Ministries. This article is adapted from his doctoral dissertation with Fuller Theological Seminary.
Mainline churches in Australia reach mainly the middle class. We need to recognize there cannot be a dogmatic ordering of the church with respect to forms of worship, language used, and leadership style, if we are going to minister meaningfully to the poor, the rich, and all between. A homogeneous target population must be determined, and different methods of presentation used to meet the needs of each group.
Unity, not uniformity
The particular homogeneous group we are reaching consists mostly of well-educated people. When people come from other social levels, they are welcomed warmly. A few remain; mostly they drop away. We despair for allowing this to happen, but I see it as axiomatic that this should occur, unless we analyze why it is happening and do something constructive to alter the situation.
It does not matter how much those from a different homogeneous group are welcomed, they will feel that they are square pegs in round holes. They have different types of conversation, different interests, speak differently, watch different TV programs, and the children relate differently to their parents. To reach different homogeneous groups, we must develop a diversity of approaches, recognizing different needs in the areas of fellowship, preaching, and concentration span, and tailor our approach to meet the need.
It is quite reasonable for the leader of a highly educated or mentally alert group to lead from behind, using inductive methodology, but a group that does not have the same mental capacity will prefer to be with one who leads them more directly. Similarly, when counselling the first group, non-directive methods could be used more successfully than with the second group, who frequently would be helped more by a directive counsellor.
All of this indicates the need for diversity of approaches, and the need to recognize that to have unity in the church, we do not need uniformity.
Yet, denominations geared to a parish system often prohibit planting unique styles of churches if it infringes on another parish’s boundary. We need a radical change that permits forward looking parishes to exercise vision that allows for obedience to the commission that Christ gave to the church.
We are organizationally geared to a maintenance ministry, not a growth ministry. This means that our churches try to encompass different homogeneous groups within the one congregation and then feel despair when they cannot hold them.
New Testament pattern
Is there a way through this dilemma without causing division? I believe there is. It lies in the concept of the home church that was so successful in the apostolic days. Historical research indicates the probability, that as the Jewish synagogue was a gathering together of a group around the Torah, so originally there was a gathering of house churches around the synagogue, with persons to have oversight of these house churches.
In the New Testament, oikia and oikos are virtually used synonomously, and have the same range of meanings as in secular Greek, and the Septuagint. The most frequent use is in:
a. The literal sense of house (Matthew 2:11; Mark 7:30).
b. The metaphorical sense of family, household, or family of God (Matthew 13:57; John 4:53; 1 Corinthians 1:16; 2 Timothy 1:16).
In the primitive Christian community, the family of God concept can be seen as a strong possibility in the house churches that were established, where the family of God was seen to include slaves and other workers who belonged to a Christian household and formed the nucleus congregation of a house church, where the house was the meeting place (Acts 11:14, 15, 16, 31, 34; 18:8; 1 Corinthians 1:16).
It is important to recognize that it was a missionary situation, and the establishment of house churches was of great significance for the spread of the gospel. The early church took over the natural order of life of the community.
In a similar way, churches today in our secular society are in a missionary situation. The crucial thing is to spread the gospel. There has to be an organizational structure for the church, but that structure must be subservient to the spreading of the gospel. Pragmatic needs require that the church will always be living in the paradoxical situation where it is an anti-organizational organization. Its structures must not hinder people from being brought into the Kingdom of God.
Circumstances alter cases. The message of the church has not and will not change, but the way we package that message must change to meet the existential situation. In Australia, we seem to have reversed this process. We have changed the message to accommodate the beliefs of our society, and have considered to be suspect anyone who seeks to change the status quo with respect to the method of presentation.
People groups
Church Growth studies show that there are homogeneous people groups in any society. Churches have frequently disregarded this reality, which at first glance appears to run counter to the scriptural teaching that in Christ we are one (Galatians 3:28).
The homogeneous unit principle does not deny this, but recognizes that within this oneness, there is also diversity due to many factors which can inhibit close and lasting intimate relationships. A series of home churches can be commenced by a mother church that caters to specific groupings of people who always feel that they are on the fringe of the normal grouping for that particular location.
An example could be where evangelism wins young people who have been involved in the alternate life scene and have experienced the drug, occult, permissive sex culture. Parents of ‘straight’ young people have a natural and legitimate fear their sons and daughters may be attracted to the permissive culture before the old habit patterns of the alternate lifestyle young people have been broken.
The relearning of behaviour patterns often involves a long education process. New Christians do not necessarily drop their former behaviour patterns immediately. In many cases, they are fourth-generation pagans and have known no other behaviour in terms of role models. A home church can conveniently bring together such groups of people and begin the discipleship process to a Christ-like way of life.
Another example may be a group of business executives. These are often under enormous pressure in the work situation and these pressures can produce difficult dilemmas in terms of ethical decisions and can involve them in serious family problems when work pressures destroy family life. They need to be able to talk to those who know and understand their needs. Because of the responsible position they hold that affects the lives of many people under them, total confidentiality must be maintained. They can only share their burdens with those who can be trusted. Often this can only be with those who carry similar burdens and who can adequately support them in these situations.
The home church can provide a setting for the fulfilment of this need. Many other groupings of people do not fit into the normal church in Australia and so do not attend worship, but frequently would like to do so. Their position on a resistance-receptivity scale would change, if given the right opportunities.
Paul’s concepts
Paul spoke with greater relevance and meaning to the community of his day than we do to people from the counter culture, and other unreached groups. Paul as a social thinker has much to teach us about reaching those yet untouched by the church. He revealed much about the internal dynamics of his communities. They lived alongside the philosophical schools of his day and the mystery religion communities. There was nothing novel or unusual about the appearance of the Christian communities, as communities. Their novelty was their message and the radical freedom they offered.
Robert Banks (1979:65) identifies three major components in Paul’s idea of freedom:
1. Independence from law, death, and alien powers.
2. Dependence on Christ and the Spirit.
3. Interdependence with others and the world.
The purpose of that freedom was so that the Christian could live a life of righteousness, conforming to the way of Jesus, which was the way of the cross (Luke 14:25-27).
Paul led his converts into a personal relationship with one another. He showed that the gospel had a shared communal aspect to it so that to embrace the gospel, was to enter into community (Rowthorn 1986:9).
The converts gathered together in private homes and shared community (Romans 16:5). It is because Paul saw Christians as belonging to both a heavenly church and a local church that he saw them as being in a continuing personal relationship with one another which was far more important than an institutional relationship. These churches had their roots in the household unit and took some of its characteristics.
Paul emphasized their unity with Christ, and refers to the church as the body of Christ. For Paul, worship involved the whole of a person’s life, every word and action, and was inclusive of the whole of a person’s time on earth. The purpose of the church was for the edification of its members through ministry to one another.
If we in our day can catch this vision, the need for increasing the size of buildings with the coming of new converts would be minimized. We could have a central church, sending out suitable lay persons to win and disciple in their homes those who find it hard to fit into the church scene.
Paul saw the gifts of the Spirit as being for the community and they were set in a frame work of love (Ephesians 4:12, 1 Corinthians 12:7). The community of believers had at its centre the key of fellowship expressed in word and deed. For him, the focal point of reference was the relationship between the members of the body.
In our situation, this could best be accomplished in the informal, intimate relationship of a home. In Paul’s day, distinctions along national, social and sexual lines were becoming blurred. A broadening in the notion of citizenship was taking place. He thought more in terms of the things that unite people than the things that divide them.
Paul saw women functioning differently from men, but he saw them as full members of the Christian community. Although he placed some restrictions on them, he also accorded them prominence, particularly in the teaching and exhortation areas. He recognized functional diversity within the community.
Paul dissolved traditional distinctions between priests and laity. He emphasized corporate responsibility, at the same time allowing inequality in the Christian community within unity. His communities were theocratic in structure. Because of the different gifting of each person, each was able to participate with authority in its activities.
The churches recognized a diverse distribution of gifts, but no hierarchical or formal structure. There was leadership, but there was also the freedom under that leadership to exercise the Spirit’s gifts. The body as a whole determined whether behaviour was in order (1 Corinthians 4:29) within the fellowship of worship. Paul’s communities were participatory societies, where authority was distributed throughout the whole group.
Rather than set himself over these Christian communities, Paul stood with them in all that he did. His authority was God’s gift to him, given in his Damascus road experience. It was an intrinsic authority from the Holy Spirit, evident to all. It did not need to be legislated.
This is the authority that I believe God the Holy Spirit will invest in the people who will lead home churches. They will be chosen in the same way that Paul and Barnabas were chosen, as the Spirit led the church (Acts 13:2).
Laity can build the church
We tend to forget that those whom Jesus sent out to evangelize the world were trained on the apprenticeship model, not in theological colleges. Neither should be denigrated, but it should be recognized that both can successfully be used when operating in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Rangeville Uniting Church has been training a group of lay persons in preparation for sending them out, in the same way Jesus sent out his disciples. In Jesus’ day, they were called out from ordinary occupations. We can expect God to do the same today.
The great commission has not changed and if we truly believe that God is going to win the world, there will not be enough clergy to handle the harvest. In our situation, the church buildings are now inadequate. We do not want to invest further resources in buildings, but in people. We are ready to send out lay persons to plant churches in their homes.
The desire is to target those groups not being reached. If some consider that laypersons would not be theologically adequate for the task, we need to remember that the first prominent theological thinkers on behalf of the church were laypersons of great ability; men like Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine. It is good to remind ourselves that revolutionary movements like the Cathars, the Waldensians and the Lollards were spearheaded by the laity. They developed a great preaching activity and urged a return to the Bible.
The Reformation in Europe, like the previous Conciliar movements, was mainly a movement of the laity, as was the Reformation in England. In the middle ages, the urge for reform sprang mainly from the laity. In the Reformation on the continent, it was the laity who provided the main driving power.
John Calvin was one of the most conspicuous examples of a layman who was a self-made theologian. Many other examples could be given of the key role of laypersons in the significant advances of the church. The church government needs to see the laity as an essential part of the church, rather than an insufficiently tapped source of cheap labour.
To treat ordinary church members as immature is to keep them immature. The laity, more than the minister, are immersed in a hostile world and can minister out of a first-hand knowledge of the current pressures on the ordinary person. The clergy must allow themselves to be taught by the laity.
Lay pastor as counsellor
Some would say that the counselling role of the home church pastor requires that a person be trained. What if the candidate has not filled this expectation? That would be the preferred option, but many clergy have little counselling training also. Untrained, caring support can be effective. We must use the tools available. Carkhuff (1969:10) states that: ‘While professional programs have failed to produce tangible evidence of their translation to client benefits or, indeed, evidence that they are concerned with researching their training efforts, assessment of lay training programs have yielded positive results.’
He goes on to point out that lay counsellors appear to have a greater ability to:
1. Enter into the milieu of the distressed.
2. Establish peer like relations with people being helped
3. Take an active part in the client’s life situation.
4. Empathize more effectively with the client’s style of life.
5. Teach the client within the client’s own frame of reference.
6. Provide the client with an effective transition to higher levels of functioning within the social system.
In the helping professions, the key ingredient for an effective helper is the capacity to empathize with the one seeking help. The counsellor who protects him/herself by remaining clinical, may be able to handle a greater number of clients because of less stress, but his/her effectiveness will be minimized.
The preparedness for self disclosure and making oneself vulnerable breaks down barriers in the one who is seeking help. I have found that those we would appoint to a position of lay pastor have already been trained in counselling to the level necessary to be very effective. They have already proved this.
Holy Spirit gifts
I am not advocating a technique or a gimmick, but I am urging a new approach to taking advantage of results of Church Growth studies on homogeneous groups, and the use of God given gifts of the Spirit among the laypeople of our church, who are prepared to recognize and come under duly appointed authority.
The structure that I am proposing to link the mother church with satellite home churches is one which I believe suits our particular case, given the rules and regulations under which we must work in the Uniting Church of Australia.
Other situations may adapt these principles in other ways. I suspect that modifications would be necessary to suit specific cases.
The laity have a ministry to the world, and a ministry to the church. In the home church model, they can exercise both of these roles. To do this, they need the support of the whole church, which includes the clergy who can assist them to release their Holy Spirit gifts.
References
Banks, Robert (1979) Paul’s Idea of Community. Lancer.
Carkhuff, Robert (1969) Helping and Human Relations, Vol.1. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Rowthorn, Ann (1986) The Liberation of the Laity. Morehouse-Barlow.
A group of enthusiastic young married couples had been engaged in an intensive coffee house outreach ministry to other young people. They were jaded and disillusioned by the lack of encouragement they received from the churches to which they belonged.
I was invited to lead them in a caring and sharing group. At the end of six months of weekly meetings and other activities the bitterness had largely disappeared, but by this time all of them had stopped attending their respective churches. They invited me to work with them indefinitely. For nearly three years the weekly meeting was ‘church in the home’ for them. It built and strengthened their faith until most of them moved away from the city to other places where they became active in other groups or churches. That experience of home church had strengthened their faith in Christ and his church.
The house church or church in the home is neither new nor revolutionary. Wherever the people of God have been genuinely open to the Holy Spirit their lives have often found their most potent expression in small groups.
The early church had its essential life in homes. Their intimate experience of being the people of God was in households. There they ‘devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers’ (Acts 2:42). In his letters to the churches, Paul refers several times to the church which meets in the house. Early church history confirms that the most common meeting place for Christians was in the ordinary domestic setting of a house. Going to church in the first and second centuries meant going to someone’s home.
A small group
There are powerful biblical, historical and sociological reasons for contending that the life of the Christian disciple is more completely expressed and fulfilled in a small group in an informal domestic setting than in a large assembly and hall.
Jesus’ final command was to love one another (John 13:3435) and his final commission was togo and make disciples (Matthew 28:1820). We may proclaim the gospel to thousands but we make disciples in small groups in the furnace of daily living. We can only truly love one another in the context of an understanding, sharing relationship.
The strength and influence of the revival under John Wesley and George Whitefield was
conserved and focused through the class meetings of twelve which Wesley organised. David Prior (1983:40) notes, ‘By 1742 in Bristol (i.e. four years after his Aldersgate Street experience of assurance of salvation through trusting Christ) there were 1,100 people divided into classes of 12 each, each with a leader. … Class members began “to bear one another’s burdens” and naturally to “care for one another.”‘
The class meeting has been described as the keystone of the entire Methodist edifice. Wesley expressed a personal need for a small group with whom he could unburden himself without reserve. No circuit, he said, ever did or ever will flourish unless there are small groups in the large ‘society’. In later years, Wesley would not accept an invitation to conduct an evangelistic program unless house groups were already established to which new converts could be directed and nurtured.
The current move of the people of God into small groups and communities is widespread from the United Kingdom to South Africa to the grassroots communities of South America, from Zimbabwe and Uganda to China, Singapore and Korea. Wherever the Bible has been taken seriously and the Spirit poured out people have more frequently found their essential life with a small group of other Christians.
The large congregational meeting is the place for public worship, declaration and teaching. It is instructive to note that the people of Israel were taught the law in their families (Deuteronomy 6) and the expression of their corporate unity as the people of God was when they went up to Jerusalem four times a year for celebration and festival.
If we were to take seriously the model which Jesus gave us we would be concerned with forming groups of 1215. In order to obey his command to make disciples there needs to be a grouping or social context which stimulates personal awareness and understanding of one another and gives opportunity to observe closely the behaviour, the attitudes, and the feelings of one another. Jesus called the twelve to be with him. They walked, ate, slept and kicked the dust of Galilee together. In the discipling of a small group he modelled intimacy and fellowship.
Within that group of twelve Jesus had three who were even more intimately related with him. He took them with him on special occasions such as at the Transfiguration and the raising of Jairus’ daughter. Jesus made small forever beautiful when he said that ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them’ (Matthew 18:20).
When we review the biblical statements about our relationship with one another and reflect upon what has been termed mutual ministry it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how we can respond genuinely to these Scriptures except in a small, continuous, ongoing, intimately related group.
Jesus’ command to love one another is emphasised again and again in the epistles. In fact is was this quality of life which caused others to recognise the Christians as Jesus’ disciples. ‘To be Jesus’ in love and compassion is the greatest witness. In order to do that you have to be close to people.
A shared life
We are called to a shared life. Loving cannot be at a distance or in personal remoteness. Nor can it be expressed only to God in our times of worship and meditation ‘for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also’ (1 John 4:19b20).
What does it mean to love and to share? And what are the impediments to the shared life? God cares about the way we treat each other because we are members of his family. The vertical relationship with God is given flesh and blood in our horizontal relationships with one another.
The expression ‘one another’ and similar terms are keys to the shared life. The Scriptures in which they are found give substance to the attitudes and behaviour which express love. They detail love in action. They deliver us from the sentimentality, lust and triviality of today’s use of ‘love’. It involves reciprocal relationships.
There are some 18 categories involving ‘one another’ in the New Testament. Love one another is most common; it occurs 12 times. Many other categories are familiar: accept/welcome (Romans 15:7), comfort/instruct (Romans 15:14), forbear/bearing with (Ephesians 4:2), live in harmony/have unity of spirit (1 Peter 3:8), confess sins to and pray for (James 5:16), submit to/be subject to (Ephesians 5:21), be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving (Ephesians 4:32), serve/become slaves (Galatians 5:13), practice hospitality/be hospitable (1 Peter 4:9).
These and many similar expressions show how ‘the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love’ (Ephesians 4:16). Our task, under the Holy Spirit, is to build up each other.
Paul was convinced that the Christians in Rome were so complete in knowledge that they were ‘able to instruct one another’ (Romans 15:14). We must conclude that building one another up is too important a task to be left to the leaders. It is not the exclusive task of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to build up the body of Christ. They need to train and equip God’s people to do the building.
It is one thing to be a pastor; it is a more demanding but more productive task to train another to be a pastor. I may be only a ‘one talent’ person as a pastor but I would expect that a five talent pastor would show me how not to bury my one talent but use it for my Master.
The charismatic renewal has enabled many people to enter into mutual trust and share in a more open, vulnerable and accountable way. Yet the rich results of renewal found in deep personal sharing are still rare. What causes this plateau of involvement with one another?
Obviously there are personal reasons why leaders and people do not wish to share. We are afraid that confidences will not be respected. We are conditioned to hide our deepest feelings and cover up our negative attitudes, to put on a mask and keep up appearances at all costs. Some of us will not share with others because we are afraid that when others know us as we know ourselves they will not like or accept us. Some have an understandable fear of falling under the influence of people who will exercise power or control over their lives.
Churches emphasise the individual and personal character of salvation which then is worked out mainly in a private devotional life. This provides opportunity for discord and disunity with a fear about the consequences of a shared life. We may agree in doctrine but never share at the deeper levels of attitude and feelings.
Structural impediments built up over decades of church tradition and organisation inhibit the growth of sharing, loving relationships. Church life inhibits intimacy and community. The principal hindrance to the shared life is the big weekly meeting on a Sunday; it hinders if that is the primary expectation for the gathering of the people of God. Sharing of life is minimal and many want it that way; but others come with a desire to be open to one another and with a burden they long to share. The structure of the meeting does not allow for that.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the large gathering for teaching, public declaration and worship, but it is not the context or framework within which love and sharing can grow no matter how much people desire it. That happens in the structure of the small group.
If I am to achieve a life style and Christian behaviour consistent with the New Testament I have to be placed in a situation where I can share to the point where I can understand others, and they me. I need also to be held accountable for my Christian growth by brothers and sisters who hold me precious in the sight of the Lord Jesus. In such a group there is time and space for everyone to minister to one another and so fulfil the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9) without depending on a ‘chief priest’.
A multi-gifted ministry
Being in a small group does not guarantee that automatically the quality of life will reflect the New Testament. Some groups may come under the domination of leadership either from the central church staff or from a controlling person. The small group can also become a microcosm of the large gathering with people only minimally involved. This was the case in Bible study groups where we sat and listened with only minimal interaction, usually at impersonal levels.
Leadership is essential, of course, but that of the servant who seeks to release everyone in the group into the practice of their gifts the charisms which the Holy Spirit is waiting to bestow. The renewal has opened the possibility of the gifts of the Spirit for all, not only for those trained and ordained. Making disciples involves bringing all the people of God into an understanding and practice of their gifts.
John Howard Yoder (1987:18) traces the movement of the ‘multiministry’ of the early church to the ‘monoministry’ of later times. He writes of the ‘slower, more complex tasks of evoking, nurturing and coordinating those gifts.’ Each of those verbs has a crucial process surrounding it and few groups have come to grips with these essentials of making disciples.
Ernst Kasemann (1964:70) elaborates this further noting that ‘the multiplicity of charismata are constitutive of the body of Christ, “the body consists not of one body but of many.” … This multiplicity does not cause the body to disintegrate but makes its true unity possible. … The church cannot find her order in uniformity or rationalisation. Neither must she give so much prominence to individuals among her members that others are overshadowed and condemned to passivity.’
Churches in renewal often shift the modelling of the exercise of gifts from the pulpit to the platform. The ‘healing line’ in which a few people exercise the gifts of the Spirit has not encouraged the full release of all to minister. A manifest personal gifting together with ordination creates a sense of awe and the feeling that ordinary people can never make it.
When a congregational setting is the principle place of ministry it is difficult for people to understand how to go about, for example, praying for healing at work or in the neighbourhood. In teaching the disciples Jesus modelled healing and deliverance right where people were, on the street, in the market place, out in the country, as well as in synagogues.
John Wimber has emphasised, ‘If your church is too large to accommodate this type of learning you probably need to break it down into smaller units for equipping’ (1986:13). Wimber goes on to say that his first experience in exercising all the gifts of the Spirit occurred in a small group. The small unit, however, is not only for equipping but also for ongoing practice.
That ongoing practice or continuous and full exercise of the Spirit’s gifts leads into a consideration of the difference between home groups functioning as supplementary to the congregational meeting and house or home churches which operate as independent units but which may come together for celebration.
A multi-church ministry
Home churches opt to move in the direction of multichurch rather than megachurch. This is the case in a number of places in Australia and in England.
The home group has been an important addition to the life of many churches in renewal. It offers opportunity for the personal nurture, caring and sharing of the members of a congregation which is not possible during the Sunday morning service. The meeting, usually for two hours during a week night and usually excluding children, includes worship, sharing of personal needs, prayer for one another, study of Bible passages often set by the minister, and discussion. From time to time groups organise events aiming to touch nonChristians, but primarily the groups are for the support of members.
The home church, however, takes full responsibility for its life. Everything that you would expect to happen in church happens in the church in the home. The implications of this kind of church in terms of church order, leadership, membership, adherence to core doctrines, times of meetings, accountability, management of monies, and training of members are all matters which are beyond the scope of this chapter.
In personal contact and review of house churches in the United Kingdom and participation in Australian home groups for 15 years and latterly in a home church, I note the following.
1. There is in the home church an intention and vision to be the church. The vision may not always be well articulated because it is constantly unfolding, but there is a strong commitment and responsibility for its realisation. In many respects it is a church planting exercise with all the uncertainty and tentativeness associated with such a project. People coming out of a church focused primarily on maintaining its life are not prepared to handle all the questions which arise. However, once they are free of a set tradition and structure there is all the freshness and vtality of a first-generation experience. This freshness in the Spirit is maintained in several ways as listed here.
2. There is an intention to foster the full participation of all members in the release of the gifts of the Spirit. The gifts and the anointing of the Spirit are granted as the Spirit determines (1 Corinthians 12:79). They are given to people to serve the body, not just for the realisation of their ministry (1 Peter 4:1011; Ephesians 4:716). Within a framework of orderliness everyone or as many as possible contribute to the expression of life in the Spirit in the body (1 Corinthians 14:2633; Ephesians 5:1521; Hebrews 10:2425). In the discipling of people there is encouragement to overcome fear and cultural reticence to enable them to express what God is doing in and for them. Everyone then shares the encouragement; no one is left out.
3. The outward expression of the body and inner growth flows over in service to the immediate community. The home church is neighbourhood based. David Prior (1983:89102) explores the importance of listening for the ‘pain’ of the neighbourhood and the need to be Jesus in that situation and do the works of the Father. The house churches of Brighton Circuit, Brighton, England, make themselves available to the street in which they are located. They seek to be servants in meeting whatever needs are there. This may be the hardest place to express Christian care and to demonstrate the good news. Those helped and healed share the good news in their locality as did the demoniac of Gadara (Mark 5:1820).
4. Each home church seeks to reproduce itself in one to two years; to grow and divide. When growth occurs new issues emerge. Discipleship and Christian foundation courses are developed and people trained to conduct them. New leadership is grown for the new groups and for their overall direction; the pain of separation dealt with. This church planting lifestyle creates an impetus to growth in personal and group life constantly refreshing life in the Spirit. When we remember that over 70% of Australians acknowledge there is a God but over 80% do not have any Christian commitment we see a world outside of our comfortable group life to be won for Jesus.
5. Full use is made of people with theological training and other expertise as resource people and facilitators. Members who have special gifting are given opportunity to receive further training in order to equip others for the work of the kingdom. Some home church clusters, as indeed some denominational churches, establish their own Bible schools and courses to encourage all their members to be biblically literate. When members show they have particular capacity for, say, counselling they are given opportunity and financial help to undertake any courses available. The aim is not only to enable all people to exercise their gifts responsibly but to develop them so that the body is effective in its work and ministry.
6. As home churches grow in number some kind of service and resource centre may be necessary. In one United Kingdom situation 30 house churches are linked together with 600 people who gather for celebration and public outreach in halls and community facilities. The administrative and resource centre is in a shop front in the main commercial area. All the house churches acknowledge the leadership of the total enterprise but this commitment is given by covenant; it is not mandatory. Authority to act flows from the groups. This kind of structure, rather than imposed uniformity, is more likely to lead to unity.
7. Essentially the home church is based on a ‘tent making’ model so that financial resources are freed primarily to build living stones, support ministries in needy areas and developing countries, provide some support for part-time ministries and mission, and to keep expenses for salaries and buildings to a minimum, in contrast to most churches which pour their financial resources into buildings and full-time salaries.
8. In keeping with the unity of the Spirit home churches seek to foster relationships with other Christian groups and churches. In no way does the home church become separatist in character though it will be independent in function in order to stimulate full involvement of all members. There is an aggregation of Christian presence in the community which grows from neighbourhood to suburb to district to region to nation, gathering in streams of different kinds to the swelling river of witness.
A way ahead
In terms of church history it may be said that all of this has been tried before and fallen into decay. Perhaps so, but at the birth of groups and churches in those earlier days and for a considerable time afterward such movements served their generation in the onward sweep of the kingdom of God.
Such groups always emerged in times of renewal or persecution, often challenging the status quo. If they eventually atrophied and died this is no reason why in a new generation these ideas cannot be reworked. To merely retain a present tradition which is no longer relevant to the challenge of this day is most inhibiting. We constantly encourage people to take the step of faith. Failure is not the end of the story, nor ever will be in the kingdom of God.
The renewal of the people of God calls for full participation to go on to adulthood. To keep people sitting in hundreds facing in one direction, going through the same procedures, listening to the same person over years, keeps them in childhood and resists the Spirit of God who is calling all to freedom, service and servanthood.
Finally, what if the worst were to happen in Australia as has happened repeatedly both in the past and in the present, and the church were persecuted and had to go underground? How would we prepare and equip the people of God? Or more optimistically, if we see a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God on this land, would we be ready to gather and conserve the harvest? Either way, given a five year opportunity to prepare the army of God, how would it be done now?
While we speak with awe of megachurches where thousands gather, we should remember that the cell group has always been the energising element in any successful mass movement. The historian Herbert Butterfield says, the strongest organisational unit in the world’s history would appear to be that which we call a cell; for it is a remorseless self-multiplier; it is exceptionally difficult to destroy, it can preserve its intensity of local life while vast organisations quickly wither when they are weakened at the centre; it can defy the power of governments; and it is the appropriate lever for prising open any status quo.
Whether we take early Christianity or sixteenth century Calvinism … this seems the appointed way by which a mere handful of people may open up a new chapter in the history of civilisation’ (Banks 1986:233234).
The experience of house churches in China is a graphic illustration of this principle. What may have served us well in a stable society will not stand the test of an increasingly destabilised and uncertain future. The home church will not be an ancillary unit to the congregation but its basic foundation. In this environment all the people of God, not just a few, will be released into the fullness of the Spirit.
References
David Prior (1983) The Church in the Home. London: Marshall Pickering.
Ernst Kasemann (1964) Essays on New Testament Themes: Ministry and Community. S. C. M. Press.
Robert & Julia Banks (1986) The Home Church: Regrouping the People of God for Community and Mission. Sydney: Albatross.
John Wimber (1986) ‘Releasing Lay People’, First Fruits Magazine, Anaheim: Vineyard.
John Howard Yoder (1987) The Fulness of Christ: Paul’s Vision of Universal Ministry. Illinois: Brethren Press.
Captain Ian Freestone wrote as a Church Army Captain working with the Ruach Neighbourhood Churches in Sydney. Original Renewal Journal article, 1994. For further information see Ruach Ministries on www.ruach.org.au
Out of a desire to see a fuller expression of Christian community in the church and out of a passion to see unbelievers come to Christ and become part of his church, several of us began a network of house churches.
We often refer to them as neighbourhood churches, firstly, because not all of them meet in homes and secondly, because we are wanting to encourage each house church to have a neighbourhood vision for outreach.
God spoke prophetically to us at that time saying, ‘You don’t grow a church from the outside in but from the inside out. The house church is the basis for growth and the key to growth is faith.’
That was in 1990. It has been a difficult road at times since then and we still have a real sense that we are on a journey. We join with many in believing that revival in this nation is imminent, if not upon us, and what is needed are structures that can cope with an influx of new Christians. The establishing of house churches provides one means for us to ride on what the Lord is wanting to do.
Why House Churches?
There is a growing realisation that our present church structures are inadequate to meet the demands of a changing society. It is doubtful whether they are flexible enough to cope with a major outpouring of the Spirit of God. Ralph Neighbour, a pioneer and proponent of cell group churches, has called for a ‘second Reformation’. He suggests that present church structures are woefully inadequate: It is sad, but true: the church structure we have duplicated over and over in this century is shockingly inefficient! The buildings are empty for most of the week. The members aren’t equipped to minister to hurting people. Everything centres on activities within the church buildings’ (1990:14).Unless we are prepared to critically examine the structures in the church, we will continue to be inhibited in our God‑given mission: to be Christian community in such a way that we might ‘know Christ and make him known.’
John Smith recognises our failure in the Australian Church to reach ordinary people for Jesus: ‘To the average Australian, the church always has been, and still is, a foreign culture. Nor has there been sufficient attempt to change that image…The church is a subculture from abroad: it still has a distinctly colonial air about it. … If we are ever going to communicate to the majority of Australian people, we will have to make some savage changes to our church agenda’ (1988:214‑215).
What we need therefore in the church are bridge builders: people willing to work towards new models of church life and ministry (Kaldor 1988:23). The church in the house is one of those bridges. Yet it is more than a bridge. In our opinion it is the most appropriate context for the expression of Christian community. We share Robert Bank’s belief that ‘on biblical and contemporary grounds the Home Church is fundamental to any quest for renewal’ (1986:39).
The problem with our present church structures is that we have developed what Howard Snyder calls an edifice complex. He suggests that we have patterned the organisation of the church on the temple model. We have confused the building the church meets in as the church itself instead of seeing the church as the people of God. In a powerful critique of present day church buildings, Snyder points out that our church buildings are a witness to our immobility, our inflexibility, our lack of fellowship, our pride and our class divisions (1975:69‑73).
Ross Paterson makes some provoking comments concerning Chinese House churches: ‘Churches which lost their buildings and their corporate life (after the cultural revolution) became centred around and rooted in the family, as meetings had to be held in homes… This lack of structure has proved of enormous benefit to the church in China’ (1989:195).
Many have sought to introduce small groups within churches to address our crisis in the West but, as David Prior states, there is ‘disillusionment with the widespread proliferation of such groups.’ He adds, ‘This is in no sense to decry the real benefits which individuals have undoubtedly received as members of prayer groups, Bible‑study groups, etc., it is simply to underline their inadequacy in terms of discovering what a local church is intended by God to become’ (1983:9).
Robert Banks, as part of his argument to say the same, quotes C. M. Olsen: Although small groups have been utilised as a church renewal scheme, they have rarely been legitimised as a full expression of the church. They have been conceived as an adjunct for the personal growth of the participants… Meanwhile the ‘real’ church gathers in the sanctuary at eleven every Sunday… the small group is relegated to serving as a means to a larger end… In this role it cannot become anything more than a halfway house’ (1986:15).
Theologically, church buildings can be no more than convenient places for God’s people to meet in larger numbers. We talk about church as something we ‘go to’ for an hour or two once a week. We say that it is important to ‘go to church’ to fellowship with God’s people. But often the nature of the church service and the way things are structured actually work against the kind of ‘koinonia’ the Bible speaks about. As Snyder insists, ‘Church buildings are not made for fellowship… homes are. And it was in homes that early Christians met to worship’ (1975:71).
According to the New Testament, the most common place for ‘church’ was in the home. Kevin Giles makes clear the point that you can only begin to unravel the workings of early church leadership when you understand that the background to the epistles is church in a house setting (1988).
It seems that the temple courts provided the believers with a place for large‑scale public witness while the needed community life could be developed through the home: ‘Every day they continued to meet in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts’ (Acts 2:46).
The church in the house was not an extension of the real thing, an appendage to what we would know as a formal Sunday gathering. Nor was it a deliberate ‘church growth strategy’ of the apostles to fulfil the need for fellowship and encouragement outside the main body of the church. The church in the house WAS the church!
They did all of what we try to do inside our church buildings (and more) and with much greater effectiveness. As others have noted, the absence of church buildings was not a hindrance to the rapid expansion of the church; instead, in comparison to the situation after AD 200, it seemed a positive help.
There are numerous people in the New Testament, both men and women, who are said to have held church meetings in their homes. Among them were Priscilla and Aquilla, Gaius, Nympha, and Philemon.
The concept of the church in the house is not a new one. Throughout the history of the Christian church there is evidence of God’s people meeting in homes for church. Over many years and in many different lands God has been calling his church home. This is illustrated in recent days in the Basic Christian Communities in Central America, the revival taking place in Communist China, the growth of ICTHUS fellowship in London, and Faith Community Baptist Church in Singapore, as weas the number of independent house churches that have begun worldwide.
How the Lord is leading us.
* Within the house church everything happens. It is the church! Bible teaching, fellowship, worship, breaking of bread, exercising of gifts, collection of money for God’s work, pastoral care, and reaching out into the community all take place through the ministry of the house church.
* House churches are not seen as an extra on top of the real thing, that is, church on Sunday. On the contrary, the house church is the church; the nucleus of the church’s life and ministry.
* They are networked together in a ‘pastorate system.’ The house church is the church, but the house churches also meet together at times for a Celebration Service in a rented hall. This is not to try to ‘do church’ but to simply celebrate in all that God is doing through his church. These celebrations happen in districts at least once a month and then every few months the districts join for a combined celebration. These gatherings of praise and worship are helpful to remind the neighbourhood church member that he or she is part of a wider community of God’s people. This provides both for the intimacy in a home‑church context as well as a regular opportunity for a combined celebration.
* Each is led by an unpaid pastor. These pastors meet regularly with the pastorate leaders for training and encouragement.
* The members of a house church comprise the total family. All age involvement is encouraged.
* It is a commitment beyond the two hours spent together. House church members are involved in interacting meaningfully outside the meeting time.
* Retreat centres are used so that 2 or 3 house churches can go away together. These are times of refreshment, restoration, empowering and equipping.
* All the house churches are urged to reproduce another house church thus avoiding the tendency to just get bigger and become just another independent church.
* There is an emphasis on creative ministries in the house church and in celebration services. This has led to the writing of many home‑grown community worship songs that have been recorded.
The development of House churches is a strategy God is giving to grow the church from the ‘inside out’. We believe that if the basic unit of the Christian community became the church in the home, then many could be reached with the Good News of Jesus.
Notwithstanding the above, house churches are not to be established merely as evangelistic ventures. The house church system is not simply a program or a technique to win the unconverted. The emphasis is to build biblical Christian community that leads to a powerful witness to Jesus in the neighbourhood area. House churches are begun to enable the Body of Christ to be the body of Christ. They are set up to ‘be the church’ in the place in which they are planted.
This new wineskin of house churches that the Lord was revealing to us did not arrive in a spiritual vacuum but in the context of a community which had been on a journey of renewal. This should be a warning to any group which thinks they can simply transport the house church vision into their own context without being mindful of the necessity for spiritual renewal as the foundation for real growth.
A house church whose members have not tasted of the new wine may have new structures but little spiritual life. The journey of renewal will be critical for any group desiring both new wine and new wineskins.
References
Banks, Robert and Julia (1986) The Home Church. Australia: Albatross.
Giles, Kevin (1988) Patterns of Ministry amongst the First Christians.
Kaldor, Peter and Sue (1988) Where the River Flows. Australia: Lancer.
Neighbour, Ralph (1990) Where Do We Go From Here? USA: Touch Publications.
Olsen, C. M. (1973) The Base Church: Creating Community Through Multiple Forms. Atlanta: Forum House.
Paterson, Ross (1989) Heartcry for China. Great Britain: Sovereign World.
Prior, David (1983) The Church in the Home. Great Britain: Marshall Pickering.
Smith, John (1988) Advance Australia Where. Australia: Anzea.
Snyder, Howard (1975) The Problem of Wineskins. USA: IVP.
Watson, David (1978) I Believe in the Church. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Adrian Commadeur comments on charismatic renewal and Christian communities. This account of his discoveries, following eight years as a Redemptorist student, is adapted from Chapter 4 of his book The Spirit in the Church.
The gift of the Holy Spirit, with accompanying charisms, has the purpose of empowering the Christian to witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus.
This has been the experience of many in the charismatic renewal, both to desire and to be able to share the good news of Jesus Christ within the Christian community and to the world. While it belongs to the very nature of the church to proclaim the gospel, I grew up with the notion that the church was there to keep Catholics fervent, and reach out to the pagans in Africa or Asia to evangelise them.
Since the coming of the Holy Spirit in a fresh personal Pentecost, the call to evangelisation has stirred me strongly. At times I have responded according to my ability.
Life in the Spirit seminars
One of the early leaders of Renewal in the United States, Steve Clark, developed a series of
teachings in 1971. It was based on early Church practice of introducing catechumens or serious inquirers into the community of faith.
On the basis of the perceived needs of those seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the series consists of seven weekly sessions of teachings and discussions and prayers. Life in the Spirit Seminars have been used worldwide to bring people from either unbelief to faith, or from belief to deeper faith and the release of the Holy Spirit.
The seminar is an effective means of spiritual growth through teachings on basic Christian themes and daily biblical reflections between weekly sessions. A participant’s book including daily Scripture readings and prayers is made available to each person. More than one million copies have been printed.
For the team presenting the Seminar a Team Manual was prepared, showing in detail the method of conducting the seminar and the contents of each of the teachings. By 1974 already 100,000 copies were in use.
The Life in the Spirit Seminar has been, and continues to be, a most effective way of bringing people into a new and personal relationship with Jesus Christ by means of the release of the Holy Spirit. It is a marvellous way of renewing faith, clarifying the basics of doctrine, incorporating people into a community of faith and love, and introducing them to the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit which enables them to become more effective witnesses to the risen Jesus.
For nonbelievers, especially young people who have not heard the gospel (even though it may have been presented to them either at school or in church), it is an introduction to Christianity. For those who have been lukewarm in faith, or uncertain of their beliefs, it is a renewal, especially through an introduction to the person of Jesus. To those who search for a deeper life of faith and prayer, it is a fulfilment of the heart’s desire. For all, the Life in the Spirit Seminar is a fulfilment of the promise of Jesus, `You will receive power, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you’ (Acts 1:8).
Prayer groups
Prayer Groups are a wonderful means of evangelisation and introducing new people to a fuller life in Christ and the Spirit. There are approximately 450 Catholic charismatic prayer groups around Australia. They meet in churches, church halls, meeting rooms, school rooms, chapels and homes.
They range in numbers from as few as three or four, to around 300. The average size of the 90 groups in the Melbourne Archdiocese in 1991 was 25 participants. On special occasions like a healing Eucharist, there can be twice the normal number in attendance. If a conservative estimate of 20 people per meeting were accepted, then some 10,000 Catholics meet every week in charismatic prayer groups around Australia. Some 20,000 could be said to be active Australia wide.
While Covenant Communities are the major alternative, prayer meetings are the normal local expression of the Catholic charismatic renewal. This means that the prayer meeting should be a significant place for evangelisation into the local church community.
Renewed parishes
Across the spectrum of the Church there are now a number of exciting examples of renewed parishes where people flock to join in worship, fellowship, Christian formation and service. One of the major tensions that Catholic Charismatics must resolve is their commitment to their prayer meetings and to their parishes.
On the one hand, the prayer meeting often provides for warmth of fellowship, ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit, strength and conviction in praise and worship, and teaching that is based both on Scripture and on the spiritual experiences of the speaker. In addition, there are times of social activities and regional and national conferences, retreats, seminars and similar `celebrations’.
On the other hand the parish provides for Sunday and weekday Eucharist, the sacraments such as reconciliation, and pastoral care in sickness. Parish activities are multifaceted and provide for schooling, caring, sporting, social and adult education activities. In this way the different needs of the charismatic parishioner are met.
Ideally both these needs should be met in the parish that is renewed in the Spirit, in which there is a spiritual vitality that can attract others to its worship and lifestyle. On the one hand, people are satisfied with a deeper spiritual journey through the prayer meeting. On the other, the necessary and the obligatory elements of the faith are satisfied.
Certain principles apply in all parish renewals. It seems that there needs to be a sovereign
initiative of God and a parish clergy and leadership open to the Holy Spirit. One of the principal methods seems to be the formation of the Parish Group (Cell) System, to enable informal formation at a personal level.
The pastor at St Boniface’s, Fr Michael Eivers, outlines six factors that are keys to the success of the cell system.
* The cell system must initially be directed by the pastor and continue to have his support.
* Cells are community related, and reach out to people in the members’ neighbourhoods and work environments.
* Cells are selfmultiplying groups.
* The cell system is the parish way of life, not just another program.
* Cells are highly evangelistic, missionary groups.
* Continuous training and motivation of cell leaders is critical (Perini, p. 9).
I hope that in Australia there will soon be parish priests with their parish teams, who will dare to renew the sacramentalized and evangelise unbelievers in the power of the Holy Spirit and through the cell system.
Covenant Communities
One eloquent expression of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in charismatic renewal has been the formation of Covenant Communities.
Covenant Community is a group of Christians who have been led by the Lord to bind themselves to Him and also to one another in the form of public commitment. Its call is to live a Christian lifestyle, in family and single life, through openness to the charismatic gifts, worship and prayer, sharing and teaching, and support for one another (Emmanuel Covenant Community, Brisbane).
As early as 1971 the first members of prayer groups in the USA felt the call to bind themselves together in a shared lifestyle. It may have been relatively easy to do so for students and graduates of the various universities. They had both the idealism and the freedom to commit themselves to one another, without such other commitments as family or mortgages.
Some of the earliest communities were True House, led by Joe Byrne, and People of Praise, led by Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan and Paul de Celles, in South Bend, Indiana, near the University of Notre Dame, and the Word of God, led by Ralph Martin and Steve Clark and others, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, around the University of Michigan.
On visiting them in 1973 I was impressed by the strength of numbers and commitment to the cause of renewal of the Church through a return to the lifestyle of the early Christians. Even within each community there seemed different levels of commitment. Many lived in households and some shared their goods and possessions, including their socks!
Australian communities
A number of Covenant Communities have developed within the charismatic scene in Australia. They range up and down in numbers and influence. If some have a lower profile they still have qualities shared by most other communities. There are also signs of new or renewed religious communities which give rise to hope for new sparkling life and ministry of the Church in Australia.
The Brisbane based Emmanuel Covenant Community was formed in 1975, with four men and their families responding to the call to bind themselves together in Community. First members and leaders of the Community were Brian Smith and John Carroll, with their wives, Lorraine and Penny, and their families. As early as 1976 Emmanuel became affiliated with other communities, notably in the United States, and later to others around the world in an International Brotherhood of Communities (IBOC), and in The Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships (1990).
Associated with Emmanuel in Australia are a number of Communities that have been helped by them in their establishment. These include Bethel in Perth, Hepzibah in Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide, and Disciples of Jesus in Sydney and Melbourne. Other communities include many small groups of people who have committed themselves to the Lord and to one another, but have not grown in strength or numbers. Although the membership of most Communities includes a majority of Catholics, a number of Communities could be said to be ecumenical such as Servants of Jesus in Sydney.
Membership of Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants and perhaps some Pentecostals requires sensitive leadership and acceptable common activities. Within ecumenical Communities, Catholic fraternities have at times been structured, to enable a specifically Catholic identity to be expressed, especially in the liturgical life of the Community.
Communities commit themselves to be of service in the Church and to the world. At times they do outstanding work either through large organised groups such as the National Evangelisation Team (NET) or through small teams of evangelists who travel within or outside of Australia to preach the gospel. Many Communities have developed a specific ministry such as to the poor, for unmarried mothers, or visiting the lonely.
Charismatic community lifestyle
Most of the Communities share a basic lifestyle which is expressed in certain practical ways. Membership of the community is demonstrated by participation in:
* general community gatherings.
* smaller groupings for discussion, sharing, and support.
* a Christian formation program for family and single life.
* informal gatherings for social activities.
* teaching and evangelistic outreaches according to the opportunities offered or initiated.
* leadership exercised by a group of elders, the number of which is determined by the needs and size of the community and supported materially and financially by the members.
* members seek to live in close geographical proximity for easier fellowship and support.
* traditional Eucharistic and liturgical prayer.
Communities are making a significant contribution to the renewal of the spiritual life of the
church. They promote a commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and a mutual love of members of the community. Extensive teaching programs and pastoral oversight have strengthened the life of faith and sharing among their members. Numerical strength and the pooling of resources have been made possible. This has enabled leaders to be constantly in touch with leaders worldwide and so have maintained bonds and standards of renewed community life.
Fraternity of Covenant Communities
On 30 November 1990, a significant event occurred in Rome. On that date the Pontifical Council for the Laity promulgated the decree which inaugurated the Catholic Fraternity of Covenant Communities and Fellowships. The decree noted that Covenant Communities from Australia, Canada, France, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United States were ‘motivated by the desire both to assure greater dialogue and collaboration among themselves and to deepen their communion with the Successor of Peter as an essential element of their Catholic identity.’
The decree recognised the Fraternity as a Private Association of the Christian Faithful within the Catholic Church. It expressed the hope that this recognition would consolidate and promote the Catholic expression of the charismatic movement, might increase its spiritual fruits and encourage intensified apostolic activity in the work of evangelisation.
At the inauguration, Brian Smith from Brisbane, was elected President of the Executive of the Fraternity. He noted that the declaration was the most significant event in the history of the charismatic renewal since the 1975 Holy Year international conference and the acknowledgment it received from Pope Paul VI at that time. He said, ‘It is the first time that the Renewal has had formal, canonical recognition by the Vatican.’
Communities of life and service
A further expression of the charismatic renewal has emerged in the church. Groups of committed people have established themselves as communities of life and service. These include the establishment of houses of prayer, teams of service, or new religious houses or communities of lay people married or single with a focus on such ministry as street kids or contemplative prayer. Localised and adapted to cultural and religious circumstances, these communities add greatly, but often unobtrusively, to the life of the church at large. All of them would consider themselves to be part of the main stream at the heart of the church.
One of these communities of life and service is the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community. Frank and Lu Feain lead this community with three houses in Melbourne and Perth, have a circle of collaborating tertiaries to support them financially, materially and spiritually and work for homeless `street kids’. This community brings the love of God to drug users and victims of domestic abuse, through `friendship evangelism.’
Another group is the House of Prayer at beautiful Carcoar, NSW, conducted by Helen and Neville Bowers and serving both the charismatic renewal and the local diocese. The ministry includes the provision of retreats, seminars and days of prayer.
Another significant development over recent years is the number of Schools of Evangelisation. Young people especially, receive formation in mature Christian living, and practical training in the skills of sharing the gospel with others.
The church exists to evangelise
All of the expressions of Catholic charismatic renewal demonstrate the creative activity and
ministry of the Holy Spirit. While some may judge one form or lifestyle or expression superior to another, all expressions of charismatic renewal aim to assist in the growth of personal holiness and to serve the church and world with the proclamation of the gospel.
In conclusion, the experience of successful prayer groups and communities shows that a dynamic lifestyle where each has a sense of belonging, plays a significant role in the community, and is accountable to someone else best attracts new believers, and keeps them as effective members of the church community.
References
Blum, Susan (undated) ‘A Parish Where Everyone Evangelizes’ in New Evangelization 2000, issue 5.
Perini, Pigel (undated) ‘New Evangelisation in an Ancient Basilica’ in New Evangelization 2000, issue 7.
Leaders of Emmanuel Covenant Community in Brisbane included Moderator Shayne Bennett and Founder Brian Smith (3rd & 4th left). Shayne Bennett wrote as an elder of the Emmanuel Covenant Community.
I will never forget January 1975. I was in Melbourne as the representative of a youth prayer group to attend a national conference on charismatic renewal. It was a time when the charismatic renewal was riding on the crest of a wave. Thousands of people had gathered from across the country as well as overseas to hear a line up of exciting speakers. They represented many denominations and the gatherings were marked by an incredible sense of joy and freedom.
During this conference, Fr Vince Hobbs, Brian Smith and John Carroll, three leaders from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Brisbane, began to share a vision of developing covenant community. They also took the opportunity to speak with Ralph Martin, one of the conference speakers, who was also a leader of a charismatic covenant community in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The Statement of Community Order Document (Section B.1.) explains that ‘A covenant community is a group of Christians who have been led by the Lord to express their love and commitment to him and to one another as part of a divine call or vocation. They do this through a public life-long commitment called a covenant.’
A time to begin
I still remember Brian Smith coming to me at the conference saying, ‘I really believe now is the time to build community.’
The idea of charismatic communities was not new. We had been in contact with them from as early as 1972 when Brian Smith first went to the United States. The hesitation about moving towards community was always a question of timing and maturity. Until now, no one was ready to step out and make that first move. That was about to change.
On their return to Brisbane, Brian Smith and John Carroll with their wives and families began to meet with two other couples to pursue this sense of call. In February of 1975 the four couples washed each others’ feet as a sign of their commitment and as an expression of their service to one another, not just in spiritual matters but in the whole of their life circumstances.
A new foundation was being laid which others would soon be invited to join. These couples shared their vision with the people of the prayer group at Bardon, which was the principal meeting place for Catholics involved in charismatic renewal with about 400-600 attending.
Responses varied. Some were excited at the new iniative because they had been looking for an opportunity to be more committed and for a way of including their children in this charismatic experience. Others were cautious and questioned this new direction.
After some weeks the community had its first intake. Thirteen families expressed a desire to be part of this new move of the Spirit. In the first year the community grew to nearly 200 members.
I observed the community from the beginning, preferring to remain part of the youth prayer group that had also begun to develop a strong sense of community. I had some suspicion about how this Brisbane Covenant Community (as it was then called) was going to develop. Would it begin well and simply become another prayer meeting or would it actually begin to achieve the goal of building a Christian way of life?
By the end of the first year it was obvious that the community was not only talking about a way of life, it was actually living it.
Early in 1976 our youth group of around 30 people decided that our call was to a community way of life and that it was better to join with the Brisbane Covenant Community than attempt to go in our own direction. After a few months formation our group made covenant, committing ourselves to follow the Lord in the context of this people called the Brisbane Covenant Community.
A time to build up
The first years of the community were life the beginning of a great adventure. It was the time of laying the foundationstones. The dynamism of the charismatic renewal had flowed into the community. Charismatic gifts played an important role in bringing depth and richness into our praiseand worship.
As well as gifts that we’d come to appreciate in prayer groups, we realised there were so many more gifts that we hadn’t thought about as charisms. As we shared life together as a community, other things became important.
Different ministries with children and young adults began to emerge as well as gifts of administration and various roles of service. Our horizons were broadening. We grew in our appreciation that charisms were given for the building up of the body.
We had a growing consciousness that this Christian community lifestyle was important both for the church and for the world. Cardinal Suenens had already begun to articulate the need for the church to offer pilot projects as a prefiguration of the kind of human community for which the world is searching so painfully… From a human point of view, it might seem paradoxical to make the future of the church dependent upon small Christian communities which, no matter how fervent, are but a drop in the ocean… But if we consider the spiritual energy released by every group which allows Christ to fill it with the life of the Holy Spirit, then the perspective changes, for we are putting ourselves in the strength and power of God (A New Pentecost, pp. 151-153).
If the Church is to fulfil its mission, communities which demonstrate this Christian way of life are an integral part of that mission.
A study conducted by Fusion, a Christian organisation committed to evangelisation in the Australian context, spoke of Australians as ‘people who think in terms of the concrete rather than the abstract, and very often thought forms that are used to express the Christian message are alien to them… What Australians need is a model. Once it’s seen in action they are quite capable of recognising its meaning’ (Fusion 1986).
This challenge to be a Christian community for the church and for the world was somehow at the heart of our mission.
One of the other hopes which was born out of this community life was a longing for reconciliation between Christians. While the founding members were predominently Catholic, there were also two Anglicans among them. This experience of sharing life together, coupled with the general enthusiasm of the 70s with regard to ecumenism, caused the community to hope that through the charismatic experience and a committed way of life it might find a way through the problems and divisions of a separated Christianity.
In late 1976 the name of the community was changed to the Emmanuel Covenant Community and with the change of name was a growing confidence that God really was with us and leading us in building this way of life. From the point of view of structure, the community lifestyle encompassed four main expressions, as outlined in the Emmanuel Statement of Community Order Documents (Section B.5.):
1. The General Community Gathering which is a meeting of the whole community to worship, to receive teaching and to maintain a common vision and fellowship;
2. Small group meetings are opportunities for share the Christian journey and receive encouragement and support;
3. Formation teaching courses are conducted to provide teaching on the spiritual life and everyday living as well as giving a clear orientation on the life of the community.
4. Social life in the community plays an important role in developing a genuine and balanced Christian lifestyle.
While these basic structures were important, the community had to offer more if it was to be a model to the church and the world. One of the most important developments in this area was the forumation of clusters.
In 1978, members of the community began tomove geographically closer together so that the community dimension would take moreconcrete expression. Community had to be demonstrated in practice, not just in theory. As families and single people moved closertogether, more and more opportunities presented themselves for the building of authentic Christian community. These included travelling to work together, sharing mowers, syupporting people when they were sick, providing practical care for widows, and other expressions of support.
Localised community expressions also enabled Emmanuel to be more effective in its local outreach and to contribute something to the wider community. Taking initiative at the local level to hold football games, Australia Day celebrations, picnics in the park, and Christmas carols were but a few ways that we endeavoured to share our lifestyle and contribute to our local community.
These were bridges of friendship which were built in local neighbourhoods to let others know we were ordinary human beings and not aliens from another planet ready to capture them and take them with us (which was one rumour circulating about us). Time and good will helped to break down some of the initial fears that were encountered when devloping clusters.
A time to reach out
While the initial concentration of energy in Emmanuel was in trying to become that which we claimed to be – a Christian community – we didn’t cease to reach out to others in local parishes, at national conferences, and in assisting other groups in both Australia and New Zealand in their desire to develop community.
In February, 1980, when I was conducting one of those outreaches to northern Queensland, I received a phone call asking me to serve as an Elder of the community. ‘An Elder is a leader in the community who together with a body of Elders exercises a governing role in the community’ (Statement of Community Order Document, Section D.3.).
My first response was a sense of awe as I reflected on God’s call in my life. The second awareness that I had was the sense of responsibility in leading and caring for this people that God had called into being. The prophet Jeremiah came to mind and his exclamation to the Lord when he protested that he was too young. ‘Say not, “I am too young.” To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you, you shall speak’ (Jeremiah 1:7). I was 25 years old at the time, married for three years with one small daughter. In the days ahead, that scripture gave me a lot of strength.
In November of 1980 the Emmanuel Community began its most ambitious missionary outreach. Responding to requests for assistance, three teams of five people travelled to six south east Asian countries to conduct leadership and training programmes for the Catholic charismatic renewal. I led the team which went to West Malaysia and Indonesia.
For each one of us who participated in these outreaches our lives would never be the same. Asia and her people had taken deep root in our hearts and in the coming years God would give some of us many opportunities to return, to live amongst the people and assist them in the devlopment of their own covenant communities. Today there are at least six covenant communities in Malaysia with new groups forming year after year.
Our outreach to Asia was not just a matter of going to Asia and giving out. We received more than we could ever hope or imagine. This was true for Emmanuel as a whole, especially when Asian brothers and sisters would visit us. In sharing life together, we were changed by their humility, love and commitment to Christ. Through our contact with them we became aware of our own poverty.
This experience of our own poverty was to be relived over and over again as future teams would go to Papua New Guinea and Fiji sharing life with the people and growing in love and understanding of their culture and way oflife. For Emmanuel, the key to outreach is living the life.
The people who participated in these outreaches were not experts but ordinary people who gave up their own holidays and paid their own way. What they had to do share was not so much what they had read in books but what they had experienced in trying to live the Christian life day by day in the context of a community. These were things that people could relate to, whether they lived in the highlands of Papua New Guinea on in the coastal villages of Fiji. Through outreaches like these the community grew to realise the importance of being faithful to the challenge of living the Christian life day by day.
A time to die
The first ten years of the community, although facing many challenges, were rather like when the apostles walked with Jesus and never ceased to be amazed at what he could do. Then just as the apostles were called to a baptism of suffering, so were we although I don’t think we really anticipated what we were about to experience.
Our baptism into Christ emcompasses his life, death and resurrection. All of these elements are imporant. What is it like for a community to be baptised into the death of Christ?
For Emmanuel, there was no single event but rather a series of them which brought about a real sense of dying in the community. At a very human level, people were tired of living such a committed life year after year. It was demanding and the cost was high. People struggled with their commitment and asked the question, ‘Is it worth it?’
At around the same time ecumenical tensions arose as well. We found ourselves struggling with the same ecclesiological problems that the wider church was experiencing. Despite our early hopes and many years of hard work, we had to admit our own limitations and faced the fact that it was not possible to build the ecumenical community we had once dreamed about.
Added to this was the breakdown of international relationships amongst covenant communities resulting in divisiveness and resentments. The once young and healthy community was suffering through its own sin and human limitations.
Perhaps the greatest test of trust was to come on 1 February, 1988. We had just celebrated Eucharist at our community office when we received word of an urgent phone call for Brian Smith. No one could have anticipated his words as he emerged from his office: ‘My daughter Teresa has passed away.’ The next twenty-four hours would reveal the truth of Teresa’s brutal rape and murder.
The question on everyone’s lips was how could God allow this to happen. Like many other people in the community, I had known Teresa since she was a little girl. She was a real character, full of fun, life and faith. That evening as Brian and Lorraine Smith were interviewed on national television, they spoke of their forgiveness for Teresa’s murderer. As the Emmanuel community attempted to comfort Brian and Lorraine, so too did they comfort the community by continuing to speak of forgiveness and the need to surrender to God’s will.
While Teresa’s life had a wonderful impact on the lives of many, I would dare to say that her death had a greater impact. There is no doubt that she was a servant of God in both her life and in her death. As we trusted in God to raise Teresa, his servant, from death into fulness of life within him, it somehow gave us all a little more courage to believe that God would raise Emmanuel from its despair and bring it to new life.
A time for healing
The resurrection for which we hoped was not immediate but it did happen. It did not come as a result of good planning or skilled leadership but purely through the action of the Holy Spirit. Members of the community were renewed in their commitment. There was a new enthusiasm to move on. It was a different enthusiasm from that of the beginning. It was one marked by realism and a desire to give in to the will of God.
This was especially evident among the young people in the community. While the community is now clearly Catholic and not ecumenical in its entity, the heart to work towards Christian unity still remains an important charism.
A fruit of the difficulties experienced between communities internationally has been the development of two international associations for communities.
The first is the International Brotherhood of Communities (IBOC) which provides a meeting place for all the different expressions of covenant communities around the world. It is ecumenical in its expression and seeks to encourage leaders of communities as they respond to God’s call.
The second group is the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Communities and Felowships. Inaugurated in Rome in November 1990, the Catholic Fraternity had very humble beginnings. While fewer than 40 delegates from 13 communities gathered for the inaugural meeting, we experienced a conviction that God intended to do great things from this small beginning. More than 200 covenant communities from around the world have sought information on becoming part of the Fraternity. The Emmanuel Community in Brisbane was not only a founding member of the fraternity but did much of the preliminary work which culminated in a formal recognition by Pope John Paul II. This is the first time a cononical approval has been given by the Vatican to any charismatic group.
Conclusion
As I look back over my years of involvement in the Emmanuel Covenant Community, some things are clear to me. The contribution of covenant communities to the life of the church and the world must come out of brokenness and humility rather than pride or arrogance. The path to humility is the way of the cross and whether we like it or not, Jesus calls us to embrace it. ‘Whoever does not take up his cross and follow in my steps is not fit to be my disciple’ (Matthew 10:38).
We are not people who have it all together, but people who are on a journey, people who experience the same trails and temptations as anyone else. Unlike our early years when we thought we were going to save the whole world, we have come to find that our only boast is the cross of Christ. The cross is our redemption. As we surrender to the cross, so too do we dare to hope in the resurrection.
References
Fusion (1986) ‘Understanding and Reaching Australians’, a Position Paper.
Dr Dorothy Mathieson was the Australian Coordinator of Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor, and lived and worked in the slums of Manila in the Philippines as well as travelling to support Servants staff internationally.
*
*
Dr Tim McCowan served for eight years with Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor in Mainila
Only the Spirit can bring forgiveness, love and patience,
so essential to community building
________________________________________________
We are called to community with one another and with the poor in the slums.
This is one of the principles of a group of crosscultural workers called Servants in Manila,
Bangkok, Phnom Penh and other Asian cities. We are trying to respond to God’s heart for the poor. We have embarked on a journey of vulnerability discovering gradually how increasing intimacy with the Father leads to opting for the poor and the despised, not for the systems of power and control. Only the Spirit can empower this.
Servants’ principles are not just abstract Guidelines but living realities, forged in the context of the joy and struggles of welding teams together and living with the poor.
Incarnation calls us to the poor, to live with them, learn from them, discover the poverty of our rational, materialistic worldview and stance of western accomplishment.
Simplicity calls us to live focussed lives, discovering the freedom of releasing as many resources as possible to God’s agenda of lifting up the downtrodden.
Servanthood reminds us that followers of Jesus must live as he lived, as a servant. Then we will be eager to empower and liberate the poor through relinquishing our own agendas, expertise and control.
Holism calls us not to function with a limited mandate in the context of a complicated poverty and injustice. What is the gospel to the starving mother, the prostitute supporting her extended destitute family, the community worker jailed illegally? We are called to preach the word, show compassion, plant churches, heal the sick, but also to do justice. The whole gospel for the whole person means the Spirit must be allowed to operate so the good news comes truly in word, deed and in power.
Community challenges us to forgo our cherished individualism and private agendas and to
discover how others are totally necessary for our survival, effectiveness and spiritual growth. But it is here that we founder. We need a clear theology of community and we need to flesh out what this means for us.
Tim McCowan of the Manila team has worked on this:
Servant’s Community: Theological Basis
Christianity is a communal faith. ‘Individual Christianity is a contradiction in terms’ (McAfee Brown, The Bible speaks to you, 202). We cannot live the Christian faith in a vacuum, or without others. This belief is based on the following theological foundations.
1. God is ‘a community’
As Christians we believe God is a trinity of persons, called Father, Son and Holy Spirit. An intimate communion of three making one. Distinct but unified. A community, selfsufficient yet desiring to reach out and include others in their extravagant love.
2. God’s image
According to the evangelical German theologian, Karl Barth, we most accurately reflect God’s character and image when we are in community. God ‘created man in his own image … male and female he created them.’ The image of God is not so much ‘our rationality’ or volitional capacity, but our communality. God’s image therefore is only properly reflected when we are together in our differences and complementarity. Art Gish in his classic, Living in Christian Community (p. 21) says that the phrase ‘Let us make man in our image’ indicates that the fellowship in the Godhead created the manwoman community to reflect God’s concern for fellowship and communion. The human ‘we’ identity is to be a reflection of the divine ‘we’.
3. God is a covenant maker
God delights to make covenants to show his concern for ‘peoples’ rather than just individuals. All his covenants, although made with individuals, are focused on affecting his people or the nations. They embrace communities, not simply individuals.
4. Jesus is a community builder
Jesus intentionally called a group of disciples, and gathered them together into a community. They were to be ‘with him and to be sent out’ (Matthew 10:1; Mark 6:1; Luke 9:1, 10:1). Jesus’ central teaching was to the so called kingdom or reign of God. But
if it is true that God’s reign concerns history … we who live nineteen hundred years after the event [of Jesus’ living, death and resurrection] must share in its power, not merely by reading of it in a book or hearing it in a verbal report, but by participating in the life of that society which springs from it and is continuous with it … The centre of Jesus’ concern was the calling and binding to himself of a living community of men and women who would be the witnesses of what he was and did. The new reality which he introduced into history was to be continued through history in the form of a community, not in the form of a book (Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret, pp. 5758).
He called them to leave their families and previous vocation and stay with him. They lived together, shared a common purse, and adopted an alternative lifestyle from the surrounding society. He also sent them out in pairs to preach, heal, cast out demons and invite others to join their wider band. He therefore formed them into a ‘community in mission’.
5. The church is a community
Throughout the New Testament, the church is described in communal terminology. It was a community of believers, centred on Jesus Christ, more than an institution. The Reformers, living in a time of ‘Corpus Christianum’, sought to define the church by its various functions, i.e. the teaching of the Word of God, the administration of the sacraments, and right discipline. Yet this misses a fundamental point. The church does not consist of those who merely do certain things, but by those who are ‘in Christ’. It is a fellowship of persons, entirely without an institutional character. It is the body of Christ; the family of God; a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people (1 Peter 2:9).
Tim applies these biblical principles to Servants.
Servants’ community in Manila is:
1. A ‘missionary band’
We are expatriates in a foreign land, called and committed to a single, broad missionary mandate. We are not a community just to share our struggles and a few possessions, but to engage in holistic mission amongst the urban poor. Like the Moravians before us, we are a ‘community in mission’ that seeks to find empowerment for ministry through our communal life together. In other words, we are bifocal, aiming to keep community and mission holding hands. We live separately, but come together two days a month, in order to be sent out again. This is our missionary spiral, if you like.
2. A valiant attempt
Trying to engage in strategic ministry whilst living with the urban poor, plus maintaining a viable communal life, places us in an unavoidable tension. We often feel torn between the calls of our squatter neighbours and our own community. Where is the priority? Not wanting to lay down hard and fast rules, and keeping our bifocal vision, means we have sadly seen some fall through the gaps. We are still not sure how possible it is for us to ride this gigantic wave of the Spirit, who calls us with such amazing patience, to trust him for ‘the impossible’.
3. A fragile association of ragged radicals
Every Servant starts off as an idealist. We are all very different, but we all come out generally to see the slums transformed. Pretty soon we realise that most squatters are set in their ways, and are not so open to being changed. When all our plans have filled the waste bin, we discover just how much we need each other in the team. Maybe our self esteem or a particular project is in tatters, so that our frustration level is up and our energy level is down. These are the times when we come into ‘teamtime’ wounded, bruised and broken. This is why we are unashamedly committed to each other, to be burdenbearers, available to be agents of the Lord’s healing for each other.
4. An ‘open circle’
Servants is not a selfperpetuating community. Our real empowerment for mission comes not just through our corporate life together, but our corporate worship life. In our fragility and brokenness, we unashamedly open ourselves up to our Healer, Redeemer and Lord. The depth of our need goes beyond ‘the water’ each of us can contribute. We need ‘the living water’ that only he can give. He is the reason for our leaving family, friends and earthly treasures, and embracing the pain and joy of serving the ‘little ones’. Beside the extravagant generosity of our God, we are mere grateful beggars, trying to encourage some others to accept his gracious invitation.
5. A ‘little leaven’
Servants is a small daring minority, that seeks to be an agent transforming both the squatters and their slum communities. Although we boldly cling to such a grand vision, few outsiders know of our existence as a community. It is ‘hidden’ and seemingly insignificant to any social analyst. We are seeking not to multiply our organisation, but our distinctive ethos and values. Slowly, yet wonderfully, this leaven is spreading through ‘the dough’. Others (both Filipinos and Westerners) are now joining us as we follow the Lord into difficult discipleship amongst the poor and marginalised.
6. An unfinished story
We have made many mistakes on our journey as a ‘community in mission’. We don’t claim to have the whole truth, or to be on our last chapter. We are on a big learning curve, wanting to keep listening to the Lord, each other, the poor, and our brothers and sisters in the wider body of Christ. We’re not builders laying concrete footings, but sojourners putting down a few tent pegs, that we may just have to pull up tomorrow. Our structures, our leaders, and our composition have all changed, but the One who calls us on is faithful and he will accomplish what he has set out to do (1 Thessalonians 5:24). We don’t wish to put ourselves up as the only model of mission amongst the urban poor, but to be faithful to the vision and invitation that the Lord has given us in this small corner of his world. Please pray for us.
Community only possible through prayer
The theology is sound; the derivative principles are inspiring. But the gaps created by the reality of community living are glaringly obvious. We discover that our desperate inadequacy for the huge task reveals not only our own weaknesses but those of other team members. After the first thrill of involvement, we reach the awful conclusion that we don’t like one another, doubt the others’ callings, disrespect their motivations.
Closeness lowers the barriers, then we fear losing control. We dissolve, become belligerent, too passionate for side issues, too reformist about others, too accusing of our own shortfalls. The more and more we try to create unity, we destroy it. The high call to selfsacrifice that community issues jars against our pervading personality preferences, impressive education, theological training and expertise.
Only the Spirit can bring forgiveness, love and patience, so essential to community building. And it is happening, but it’s so fragile. We have to abandon ourselves to the dynamic of the Spirit, not to legislation or to past successes. What will the Spirit reveal next …. in me …. in us …. in new directions?
As we respond to his painful and joyful refinings, we can build ourselves into communities which the poor can see and say in amazement, like the earliest observers of the faith did, ‘See how they love one another.’
The Rev Dr Charles Ringma taught at the Asian Theological Seminary in Manila and Regent College in Vancouver and was the founding Director of Teen Challenge in Australia. He reflects on Christian community in our homes.
If you had seen her in a crowd you would have been none the wiser. She probably would not have arrested your attention although she was attractive. Deena was a prostitute supporting a drug habit. Her small inner-city flat was her place of work.
Deena’s life was spinning out of control with a failed marriage, a small child in tow, poor health, hassles with the police, an expensive drug habit to maintain, and an increasing sense of loneliness and despair. At this point our paths crossed through my involvement in regular street work.
After several conversations it became obvious that Deena did not need a hospital or a psychiatrist. She did not need a treatment centre or a drug rehabilitation program. Rather, she needed a place of safety in which she could start again and rebuild her life. So Deena eventually came to live in our home.
Caring charismatics
In this we were not alone. One way in which charismatics and pentecostals, particularly during the 1970s, sought to demonstrate their concern for others was by taking them into their communities and homes. This was one way to help broken and wounded people who were not only on the fringes of the church but also on the fringes of society.
There were many reasons for this development.
1. Charismatic renewal was not yet heavily institutionalised. The focus was on people more than programs. Ministry took priority over buildings and projects.
2. The empowerment of the Spirit was celebrated as equipment for service, not as an enhancement for personal wellbeing and selfdevelopment.
3. The new discoveries of renewal brought the church into closer contact with the wider
community. This happened through the use of theatres, general community buildings, and the creation of dropin centres and coffee shops as ways of reaching out to nonchurch people, especially youth.
4. Renewal had not only brought new life to church members but had also brought new people into the church.
5. Inspired by such books as David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade, Christians
touched by renewal believed that something could be done through the power of the Holy Spirit for people with lifecontrolling problems.
For these and other reasons the church seemed to be closer to the person in the street.
Christian community
There are several reasons why ‘caring charismatics’ became involved in these types of initiatives.
1. One factor was that, unlike the traditional churches, charismatics were not overwhelmed with seeking to maintain massive institutional structures. They were therefore free to explore other ways of expressing their social concern.
2. Another factor was the rediscovery of small groups in homes where people could share their lives, pray for one another, discover and use spiritual gifts, and involve friends in informal activities.
3. A similar factor which helped to direct the particular expressions of their concern was the renewal’s rediscovery of community. Christians in the 1970s believed that being church had something to do with being together and sharing life. As a consequence both institutional and informal Christian communities were established as well as house churches.
What characterised this impulse towards Christian community? It was not introversion and
escapism. The purpose of sharing life together was not simply to celebrate God’s gift of new life in Christ. Nor was it simply to care for one another. Instead, this life together, consisting not only of spiritual fellowship but also of sharing resources, sought to provide a context into which we could bring those needing help and encouragement.
Furthermore Christian community was seen as providing a way to make the good news in Christ more visible. This does not mean that the life of the community takes priority over the Word of God. It simply means that Christians sharing life together could demonstrate something of what it meant to be part of the body of Christ.
An underlying idea was that if others could see Christians sharing life together in common
worship and service then they would gain some idea of what the Christian life was all about.
Some might see this as a high risk strategy. They may believe that it is better for ‘seekers’ to be exposed to the purity of the preached word. However, those practising a community approach of life together believed that ‘seekers’ should see something of the warts and all life style of Christians.
The intake process
So Deena came to live in our home. She was not the first and certainly not the last. Nor was she the most difficult. During a period of fifteen years, my wife Rita and I have invited a range of young people into our home.
The most difficult were not drug addicts or prostitutes but those with major psychiatric
disturbances. But for them all, the invitation to live in our home was not a haphazard process. Early in the piece we had learned some valuable lessons from young people who needed help but in fact took advantage of our generosity.
This caused us to develop a simple but multipronged intake strategy.
First of all, Rita, Jenny (a wonderful Christian fellow traveller who shared our home), the children when they were older, and I would discuss and pray about taking in a certain person.
This person was then invited to share some meals with us over a period of several weeks and was then invited to stay for a weekend. The purpose was to build some relationship. Our concern was to determine whether our situation best served this person’s needs or whether he or she required a more structured environment such as a rehabilitation centre.
Certain guiding principles emerged.
1. Our home was not a crisis centre nor a youth refuge. It was an extended family practising hospitality to people who were invited to stay with us for a period of time.
2. The invitation to join us did not depend on the person being a Christian. In fact, the opposite was the case. Nearly all those who shared our home were not Christians when they joined us. Nor were they made to understand that they had to become Christians during their stay. What was made clear, however, was that we were Christians, that we sought to honour Christ in our life style, and that we practised certain disciplines which included devotional times.
3. We attempted to make it clear that the person was not a client, a patient, nor a family member, but a guest of the family. The focus, therefore, was not rehabilitation nor psychiatric counselling. We offered a safe place in which the person could reevaluate his or her life and begin to rebuild it.
Within this context, counselling was informal. The key strategy was to encourage the person to begin to live a life of responsibility and integrity.
A theology of hospitality
A set of theological ideas undergirded our practice of hospitality to Deena and other troubled young people who came to share our home.
It should be noted, however, that the ministry of hospitality was not a formal ministry for us. It was simply a part of living life. We were all involved in other areas of ministry.
1. One of the broader concepts that guided our action was that God calls his people to
demonstrate to others the quality of love that God has shown to them. Put differently, God wants us to reflect to others something of the kindness and goodness he has shown to us.
While there is an emphasis in Scripture that this care for others should be demonstrated within the community of faith (see Deuteronomy 15:1215; Galatians 6:10), there is a corresponding emphasis that this requires a wider application.
In the Old Testament both those within the community and those who were strangers and aliens were to be treated with similar fairness and justice (Deuteronomy 24:1718). The reason for responding in this way was because God is his great goodness had liberated his people from slavery. They were commanded to treat aliens with similar generosity and goodness.
The New Testament also requires this. Not only is there a persistent emphasis on caring for brothers and sisters in the faith (Romans 12:13; Galatians 6:2), but acts of service must also be extended to those who were outside the Christian community (Luke 6:3435; Galatians 6:10).
2. A supporting theme is the emphasis in Scripture on the ministry of hospitality (Genesis 18:15; 19:12; Judges 19:1520; Job 31:32; Matthew 25:3446; Acts 9:43; 16;15; 1 Timothy 3:2; Hebrews 13:2).
A key inspiration for this type of ministry is a concept central to the work of Mother Teresa in India. It is that when we minister to the poor and needy we are somehow ministering to Christ himself. This idea comes from Matthew 25:3446. It is also supported by other passages of Scripture. The statement that ‘whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’ (Matthew 18:5) conveys a similar idea.
We can also put this a little differently. By inviting a needy person into our lives we are involved in a process of seeing that person grow into wholeness. Where that leads to a Christian commitment we are seeing that person’s awakening to the Christ who was already there calling him or her to the fullness of life he has for them.
In this sense a guest, no matter now broken that person may be, is a very special person. While the temptation is to become fixated on this person’s needs and problems, the challenge of Matthew 18:5 (welcoming Christ) is to focus on what is yet to come into being and to emerge in that person.
So the practice of hospitality for people with lifecontrolling problems involves receiving them in hope and to trust for the emergence of Christ’s life within them. This can be an exciting adventure.
3. A third ideological foundation for this kind of ministry is Isaiah 58:612. Some themes in this significant passage should be noted. The most basic is that God desires us to convert our spiritual disciplines into strategies of social concern. Fasting can be expressed in seeking to set oppressed people free and to practically care for their needs.
A related theme is that genuine ministry is a twoway process. Working with wounded people makes us all the more aware of our own needs and imperfections. We too need further healing. As we serve others God promises that our own ‘healing shall spring up quickly’ (58:8).
Finally, working restoratively with individuals means that not only will their individual lives be renewed but that potentially families and communities will also be transformed (58:12). A healed person can also mean a healed marriage, family, or wider set of social relationships.
A rhythm of restoration
Our ministry of hospitality was supported by these theological ideas. They also helped to guide our practical application in living together.
1. A basic issue in our praxis was that the normal rhythm of our life as an extended family could act as a way to orient our guest towards more normal behaviours and attitudes. Most drug addicts, prostitutes, or people with lifecontrolling problems live highly irregular lives with little routine or structure. We found the experience of a more disciplined life style helped to orient them towards a more realistic approach to life.
2. A related idea is that life involves responsibility. Deena was not with us for a holiday. She was a guest of the family with corresponding benefits and responsibilities. Along with all the others she had her part to play in the functioning of the household. For all of us this meant cleaning, food preparation, shopping, cooking, and gardening.
The idea behind the involvement of all of us was that no one was more important than someone else and all had responsibility. Coupled with the joy of working alongside of each other, this had the effect of reinforcing the idea that we have to act responsibly in life. Life is not merely a number of arbitrary forces. I am not simply the victim of my circumstances. Life is also what I make of it and how I choose to live.
3. A further idea is that hospitality involves creating free space for the guest. Simply put, we are not there to entertain and look after Deena twentyfour hours a day. The home is neither a prison nor a fun parlour. This means that Deena has the responsibility to manage some of her own time. It also means that she has time for reflection and solitude.
Personal space for reflection is particularly critical. Many people with lifecontrolling problems are people who are in flight. They find it difficult to face their pain and disappointments. Yet, however slowly this may occur, these do need to be faced so that like a boil they can be lanced.
The framework then for the rhythm of restoration was realism, responsibility and the creation of a free space.
Journey to wholeness
The outworking of restoration varied according to each person. No one makes the same journey on the way to wholeness. But there are some common factors.
The first issue that usually occurs early in a person’s stay is the temptation to return to the old and the familiar. Because the shape of the new is not yet clear there is a pressure to revert to old habits. This occurs even when a person was thoroughly sick of their previous life style and desperately wanted to change.
Clearly, when this pressure takes place the person must take more time in order to begin the rebuilding process. This critical transition phase requires that the other household members provide much encouragement and quiet intercessory prayer for the person.
A second feature is that the guest begins to question whether the new is really possible. This is the crisis of hope. Questions emerge. Can I really make something better of my life? How can I overcome my past problems? What will my new life look like?
In this phase the guest usually begins to probe the spirituality of members of the household to see if that may possibly provide the bridge to the new life. Questions are asked. What does prayer mean to you? What does it mean to have faith? What is Jesus supposed to do for you?
At this point it is important that time is given for these questions to be explored properly. A guest should not be pressed into an easy decision for Christ. In our experience, people took many months to settle these issues.
Once a person came to faith in Christ and began to grow in his or her discipleship, issues of restitution and reconciliation with others began to emerge. This was usually followed by
questions of future life direction.
Somewhere within the space of the year that a person on average stayed with us there would come various crises of faith. These crises usually led to the realisation that further inner healing and renewal were required.
Facing the world
Our home was not the end of the road. It was the beginning of a further journey for people. This journey would also take them beyond our situation. Our place was only a temporary stopping place. It attempted to provide a place of safety and normality in which people like Deena could begin to rebuild their life.
It made no attempt to provide anything magical. Nor were easy solutions offered. The invitation, instead, was to face life realistically and responsibly. Living with Christians gave these people a close look at what the Christian life was all about for us. It allowed them to observe and to ask questions. It furthermore allowed them to explore what Christian spirituality might mean for them and what answers the Christian faith held for their lives.
We made no attempt to live a special life in front of these people. We were ourselves. We also made time for our own special family needs and for the other priorities in our lives. We made no attempt to make our home a little haven for people. They, like us, had to come to terms with the real world. So as time went on the issues of employment, where to live, vocation, calling and further life direction became issues of discussion, reflection and prayer.
Just as the intake was a careful process, so leaving us was a series of moves that gave Deena increasing responsibility. Beginning moves for her to create a life of her own included more free time, weekends away with family and friends, and eventually employment with the additional choices a steady income provided.
A final reflection
God calls the Christian community to be salt and light in a dark world. The church is to be God’s instrument of transformation. That transformation, however, must be conceived holistically and it must take place at various levels.
While on Sunday the church is the gathered community, during the rest of the week it is the scattered church. As such, Christians find themselves in families, neighbourhoods, and in a great variety of work situations where they are to be God’s instruments for good, reconciliation and reconstruction.
This means that Christians are involved in all of life. They work with the poor and in areas of policy and economics and get their hands dirty in areas of microreform.
What we must keep in focus is that we lack credibility when we pontificate on the big issues but never become practically involved with individuals and their needs. Here the example of Jesus is practical and to the point. His was the task to usher in the kingdom of God and to build the new community of faith. But Jesus also made time to heal and care for those who came to seek him out. Thus, while we seek to practice social justice to bring about a more just society, we can also lower the drawbridge and bring this ministry into our own homes.
Also in Renewal Journals, Bound Volume 1 (Issues 1-5)
