My big brown Strong’s Exhaustative Concordance, or how I think the Bible is being read badly

(I’m going to sound grumpy, but I’m not, I’ve just been thinking a lot about the use of the Bible.)
It concerns me how badly the Bible is used by most evangelicals.  Much of it stems from a failure to understand what sort of book(s) the Bible is.
When I was nine, an elder in my Baptist [...]

Roman House Churches for Today

I’ve only just come across this book.  It was published last year and is written by Reta Finger, a Mennonite theologian who also wrote a significant book on common meals in the early church. I’m looking forward to reading this; here’s the publisher’s description as found on Koorong’s site:

Placing the biblical book of Romans in [...]

Discouraged by a man who hears from God

I spent yesterday at a day long seminar which was meant to be about house church but wasn’t really. I came away with a heavy heart. The speaker was an American with an international ministry, but focused on India. He starts a lot of house churches, mainly by discipling people.
His big focus seemed to me [...]

The failure to be friendly

I think committed Christian communities – new monastics, house churches, emerging churches and other variations – are the most exciting thing happening for the kingdom of God at the moment. But today I was struck afresh by our main failing: unfriendliness.  I’m not talking about something new, but it needs thinking about.
There’s this balancing act between [...]

Book review – Evaluating the church growth movement : 5 views

This is an important book for me to have read. Throughout the book, several references are made to common misunderstandings of the church growth movement. The problem is that people like me associate it with megachurches and seeker-sensitive services and don’t know the historical roots.
This book starts with a good historical sketch to correct such [...]

Body life #4: The open meeting

This is the fourth in a series of six articles first published in Oikos in 2007. They are a simplification of John Yoder’s Body Politics Simplified – this time with a specifically house church audience in mind.
Paul told us how to conduct our worship meetings. We just haven’t listened.

 
Let two or three prophets speak, and let [...]

Body life #3: Everyone has a gift for the church – Priests are out of work!

This is the third in a series of six articles first published in Oikos in 2007. They are a further simplification of my ‘John Yoder’s Body Politics Simplified’ – this time with a specifically house church audience in mind. 
Baptism brings people who were enemies into one body. Eating together as the church shares food, money and [...]

Body Life # 2: The Lord’s Supper – Putting the eating back into meeting

This is the second in a series of six articles first published in Oikos. They are a simplification of John Yoder’s Body Politics Simplified – this time with a specifically house church audience in mind.

 

Our life together as a church is an important part of the good news we announce to people. This good news is [...]

Emerging church V house church

An important difference between the emerging church and the older house church movement is in mission. The emerging church seems a very missional church, at least in the Australian incarnation. It attracts not just Christians who are disaffected with institutional church, but Christians who are both disaffected AND want to reach their local communities. I [...]

Body life #1 : Baptism is entry into a new people

This is the first in a series of six articles first published in Oikos. They are a simplification of John Yoder’s Body Politics Simplified – this time with a specifically house church audience in mind.
Our life together as a church is an important part of the good news we announce to people. This good [...]