Sounds like a Missional Community ala Jeff Vanderstelt and the SOMA communities. I like their heart and purpose--I would be interested in hearing more about their day to day function. It sounds like the believers organise this themselves 40 individual, adult believers doing this intentionally would indeed be impressive.
I 100% agree with you that the church, and its mission, have been fragmented and institutionalized, and the organizations and agencies created prioritize their own success and survival, not Christ’s plan and not the churches.
The problem is that we can’t just jettison Christ’s plan, we have to get back to the being an extended family and with leaders like Timothy & Titus, who are critical to the success of building a global family movement, BUT, their authority is not based on position or hierarchy (like in an institution), but in the gospel, their Eph 4:11 gifting, and in the relational capital they build by investing themselves into churches and clusters. They don’t have membership in an organization or receive a salary from some nonprofit, their team solidarity is built around a common commitment to Christ’s plan and they have figured out how to support themselves (even though the churches should be contributing the the expansion into new fields). Their livelihoods are completely disconnected from both organizations and local churches, yet they invest their entire lives into maturing and multiplying churches and have a familial brotherhood together across a global team of leaders who are all doing the same thing.
Like I said, impressive if they can keep this up cross generationally and cross culturally. I would be interested to know how they are maintaining the spiritual rights of the people of God as they go and also how successful they have been in transplanting what they see as "Christ's Plan" to increasingly non-western peoples. I believe the SOMA communities tried to plant here in Ireland and found it extremely difficult in the North but had more success in the South.
Got it. My only concern about a “bill of rights” concept is that it’s staying within the hierarchical framework (institutional/national), and I think according to Christ’s plan, we are actually a family. Leaders are parenting adult children. That is the way authority works in a family, not lording it over anyone. Leaders are “parents” who want their “children” to mature and be able to manage themselves. That’s the goal.
If you read it you'll see that it is directed at leaders and not the people and opens up communities that would have had lording over behaviour to set their people free. I wrote it coming out of a very highly fundamentalist evangelical background. My heart is to see those SOs brought low and their people set free from spiritual bondage.
This is not just “them” this is a global network of leaders that I am a part of who are doing this across all nine civilizations, assisting one another, learning together, strategizing, celebrating in one another’s fields, etc. But I’m not sure what you mean by “spiritual rights”.
That sounds great! Spiritual rights are derived from commands and corrections in the Word. Jesus tells us not to "lord over" our rule as leaders and so I found it helpful to envision these commands as a spiritual bill of rights that keep the SO from forming. I have a list of 13 that I've identified, and it's a continued work in progress. I keep it as a link on the top of my Substack for continual reference.
Yes, but aspiring Church planters always say they want a New Testament Church and it means very little to me anymore. My work is in identifying Symbiotic Organisations (SO) as they prop up around the people of God and make a mess of what we say we believe vs what we end up doing in the long run. SOs usually prop up in the first 2-5 years (if not before) and sacrifice the spiritual rights and identity of the people of God for safety, legitimacy and provision within the Organisation. As such people who say they want a New Testament Church end up with the same church everybody else has in 2-5 years with all of the same problems and issues.
People have tried everything from keeping the community small through aggressive church planting to trying to cut out hierarchies but the SO always wins where the spiritual rights and identity of the people of God are not kept constantly before their eyes.
How can we become more like this simple church cluster? When we get together, we need to pray together toward that end. We need to ask the Lord to give us a vision of what we can be, what he wants to make us.
I'd love to know more about this group, as it was an inspiring read. Is it possible for me to get more info without compromising anyone's privacy?
Sent you a message.
Sounds like a Missional Community ala Jeff Vanderstelt and the SOMA communities. I like their heart and purpose--I would be interested in hearing more about their day to day function. It sounds like the believers organise this themselves 40 individual, adult believers doing this intentionally would indeed be impressive.
I 100% agree with you that the church, and its mission, have been fragmented and institutionalized, and the organizations and agencies created prioritize their own success and survival, not Christ’s plan and not the churches.
The problem is that we can’t just jettison Christ’s plan, we have to get back to the being an extended family and with leaders like Timothy & Titus, who are critical to the success of building a global family movement, BUT, their authority is not based on position or hierarchy (like in an institution), but in the gospel, their Eph 4:11 gifting, and in the relational capital they build by investing themselves into churches and clusters. They don’t have membership in an organization or receive a salary from some nonprofit, their team solidarity is built around a common commitment to Christ’s plan and they have figured out how to support themselves (even though the churches should be contributing the the expansion into new fields). Their livelihoods are completely disconnected from both organizations and local churches, yet they invest their entire lives into maturing and multiplying churches and have a familial brotherhood together across a global team of leaders who are all doing the same thing.
Like I said, impressive if they can keep this up cross generationally and cross culturally. I would be interested to know how they are maintaining the spiritual rights of the people of God as they go and also how successful they have been in transplanting what they see as "Christ's Plan" to increasingly non-western peoples. I believe the SOMA communities tried to plant here in Ireland and found it extremely difficult in the North but had more success in the South.
I’ll take a look.
Got it. My only concern about a “bill of rights” concept is that it’s staying within the hierarchical framework (institutional/national), and I think according to Christ’s plan, we are actually a family. Leaders are parenting adult children. That is the way authority works in a family, not lording it over anyone. Leaders are “parents” who want their “children” to mature and be able to manage themselves. That’s the goal.
If you read it you'll see that it is directed at leaders and not the people and opens up communities that would have had lording over behaviour to set their people free. I wrote it coming out of a very highly fundamentalist evangelical background. My heart is to see those SOs brought low and their people set free from spiritual bondage.
This is not just “them” this is a global network of leaders that I am a part of who are doing this across all nine civilizations, assisting one another, learning together, strategizing, celebrating in one another’s fields, etc. But I’m not sure what you mean by “spiritual rights”.
That sounds great! Spiritual rights are derived from commands and corrections in the Word. Jesus tells us not to "lord over" our rule as leaders and so I found it helpful to envision these commands as a spiritual bill of rights that keep the SO from forming. I have a list of 13 that I've identified, and it's a continued work in progress. I keep it as a link on the top of my Substack for continual reference.
https://open.substack.com/pub/dlbacon/p/the-christians-bill-of-rights-40e?r=2v2ne0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
They’re part of a network of churches that are reshaping their lives and gatherings to reflect the patterns from Acts.
Yes, but aspiring Church planters always say they want a New Testament Church and it means very little to me anymore. My work is in identifying Symbiotic Organisations (SO) as they prop up around the people of God and make a mess of what we say we believe vs what we end up doing in the long run. SOs usually prop up in the first 2-5 years (if not before) and sacrifice the spiritual rights and identity of the people of God for safety, legitimacy and provision within the Organisation. As such people who say they want a New Testament Church end up with the same church everybody else has in 2-5 years with all of the same problems and issues.
People have tried everything from keeping the community small through aggressive church planting to trying to cut out hierarchies but the SO always wins where the spiritual rights and identity of the people of God are not kept constantly before their eyes.
How can we become more like this simple church cluster? When we get together, we need to pray together toward that end. We need to ask the Lord to give us a vision of what we can be, what he wants to make us.