Drunken Mystic

The first step to guard your heart, as a teacher/leader or even giving a teaching, is realizing that the people don’t need your explanation.

Some people may have bristled that I said that.

We must begin with the heart of truth, I think, and the truth is “the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth” and “you do not need anyone to teach you because you have an anointing that resides within.”

We must realize at the outset that we cannot speak a truth from the Spirit within us that doesn’t already exist in the Spirit in another believer.  (you can read that twice if you need to …)  So, if God uses me to teach, I must realize that it is the Spirit within them that needs stirring, needs addressing, needs empowering, and that happens most ideally when I follow the Spirit as I teach.

Now this assumes you have the Spirit.  If you don’t have the Spirit, you’ve got bigger problems than whether or not you believe or hear what I say.

Any wonder why Paul felt it so necessary that those who had only been baptized in John’s preaching be baptized and anointed in the Holy Ghost … like, immediately?  This is quite mystical, I agree, or can seem so if you don’t realize that Truth is spiritual, not logical.  Spiritual wisdom is different from logic.  And you have to have the Spirit to understand the Spirit.

And we also must realize there is ONE Spirit total, not many little Holy Spirits running around individually, that the same Spirit in me is the same Spirit in you.  Then we can see how true teaching is “deep calling unto deep.”

This perspective is very practical for our spirituality.  It places the responsibility for revelation where it belongs, on the Spirit of God and not on my ability to use wise words.

Haven’t we all, in some way or another, seen how God can use any teaching to speak anything He wants to others?  I have the perfect argument and someone walks away confused.  I teach one thing, and yet someone repeats back to me a different message, as if I spoke it, thanking me.  I am not as in control as I’d like to think I am sometimes.

Some could point to a deficiency in my teaching or their listening, but most of the time I said exactly what I needed to say and they heard exactly what they needed to hear.  The Word of God is living, alive, breathing.  He’s a wild man who has never liked any box we seem to want to put Him in.  You can either be frustrated or thankful.  I choose the latter.

The next principle is on a related note.  Why are you teaching?  Is it out of obedience to God or to hear yourself talk?  Are you teaching for the edification of others?  1 Corinthians 14 states clearly the main lack in their meetings, “doing more harm than good,” and that was they were not operating in the gifts for edification.  They were using spiritual gifts and open worship to show off or draw attention to themselves or be rude or disrespectful to their husbands, but not for the edification of them all.

Even rebukes should be done to build another up.  All teaching should inspire more commitment to Christ alone, love for the brethren, and righteous holy living … none of which can be separated from the others.

I’ve been a guest speaker from time to time in very neo-traditional settings.  While He has the complete right to do so, the Spirit has never led me to take up a large portion of their time with the validity of an organic church paradigm over their bad neo-traditional structures.  If He wanted me to, I would, but He hasn’t really … yet.

(The closest I got was a short – like, 5 minute – biblical teaching on open, spontaneous worship related to a larger teaching on corporate worship I was doing … at a Baptist church.  But the Lord did put it on my heart to say, so I did.  We had a great and marvelous time of Spirit-led worship that evening.  And then I got in trouble with the pastors … which I kind of expected.)

The next principle I will discuss is “not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought.”  Be honest and real enough with God and ask Him what your responsibilities are, what He has purposed for you to do.  For some this can be a humbling realization, and He has you wait more than you like.  For others, the Lord shows you areas where you need to do more and step up.

Most of the time, the Lord has to remind us to step up and pay more attention to relationship than message.  People are often better taught by your example than your words.  They might remember what you said.  They will always remember how you lived.  This takes a willingness for people to really live life together and stop being so isolated, though, and it can be difficult in a neo-traditional setting with professional leaders and laity.  But if you’re willing and patient, God will open doors.

In the end, God is way more concerned about your character than anything else.

One last note.  If you area teacher/leader, raise up other teachers.  Get out of the way and let them teach, let them lead.  You’ll know who they are, and you might need to step aside in some areas and give some responsibilities up so that you can guide someone else into leadership.  Don’t get a guest speaker (like me!) to come in when you go out of town, let those already in the fellowship with gifts and authority step up.

And don’t be upset if it is an amazing meeting when you’re gone.  If you are a true leader, that just means you’ve been doing your job.

Peace.

Saji and I were discussing this the other day — wanted to expound upon it here.

In dealing with the Body of Christ, I feel some fellowships do a good job encouraging and edifying people to hear the voice of the Lord and obey that voice.

But something that is largely untaught, not to mention not taught well, is the Lord speaking a word and leading a group collectively.

While many of the principles are the same, too often we bring our own individual revelations when making group decisions.

The principle is simple.  Individually it is: what is God teaching me and what would he have me do.

The principle for a local fellowship of believers committed to one another is: what is God teaching the group and what would he have the group do.

This might rattle a cage or two, but God can actually be teaching you something individually that is different from what he desires the group to do.  And it takes discernment to tell the difference.

Not separate revelations, as if in enmity to each other, but different enough that you might be at a different stage in faith and maturity than the group.  You are probably either more or less mature than the group, and rarely do they go completely in sync.

The discernment part is central, divorcing your desires and agendas from the decision as you allow God to share with you what he would have for this group in this situation.

In search of “community”, many times we try to have formulas that approximate what only the Spirit can do, and He will not often do things the same exact way twice.  He’d rather have your faith in Him than a formula.

I’ve seen formulas where everyone has to agree (like a democracy) before things are done, or maybe a council of elders is given the authority to make decisions, or some singular leader makes all the decisions.  But the more you stick to one formula the more mistakes you’ll make.  Because they all have their validity in time and situation and season.

Any local fellowship is really only looking for one person’s vote, and it’s not the pastor’s … or the apostle or bishop or priest or whatever you happen to call your leader.  That person is God.  And He loves to make himself known.  He loves it even more when He is followed, no matter who He happens to speak through to make His point.

You can have the right ideas, the better arguments and the perfect system, and God can lead the group in a completely different way.

Because it is not your group, it is God’s.  She is His bride, not yours.

The most dangerous thing you can do is walk into a new group and start demanding your own way.  And because we’re so individualized in the hearing of the voice of God, we get upset because we equate what we want/need with what God might lead a group to do.  And make no mistake, this is not in any way a sign of your maturity.  Quite the opposite.

I don’t mean for it to sound like if you disagree with the rest of the group, you’re wrong.  Sometimes it takes one person’s input to change the whole mind of the group, and that can be directly from the Spirit.

The difference is motivation: Do I have genuine reservations in the Spirit or am I just uncomfortable with something new or different than what I want?  Are my ideas designed to make it more comfortable for me or is this the direction I feel the Lord desires for the group to go in?  Is this about what I think should happen or what God thinks should happen?

If you don’t know the difference, then find out.

This all goes back to every member submitting themselves to the Lordship of Christ over his Church; and to be willing to seek His heart on even very practical matters instead of choosing what seems to work to our own eyes.

Remember when Joshua received the men from Gibeon?  Gibeon was afraid, duly, of being wiped from existence, so they deceptively approached Israel to make peace.  Joshua made peace with them.  His failing?

He didn’t inquire of the Lord.  That was a test Joshua failed.  God would have told Joshua exactly what to do and what the truth was had he taken the time to listen.

We are only looking for one person’s vote as a fellowship grows or makes decisions or whatever faces a us.  It is the place of the Spirit to make the Father’s will known, and the Spirit will do so, teaching all truth.  Those who are willing to put aside their own agendas and ideas for whatever God might do will see God working and moving if they are patient and have His character.

Peace.

Looking at the title, some might say, “Hey, aren’t you a teacher?”

Well, yeah, I guess at times I function that way in the Body, and my profession has been teaching for ten years, so … sure.  But that is exactly why God has taught me so much about the gift and function of teachers in the Body.

Every gift of God is meant to be a blessing to the whole Body.  But every strength and gift has with it the potential for abuse, and therefore an inherent weakness if not used properly.  That is what I will discuss today.

The function of a teacher (or a teaching) is mainly interpretive and instructive.  Therefore, there is a greater judgment for teachers and teaching.  They are filters for the Word to the Body.

Not that I’m that strict on delinieating what teaching really is.  I’ve been praying and started teaching, teaching and started prophesying, and other strange combinations that only seem so strange if you feel the need for scholastic categorization.

Which leads me to the first of three problems with teachers.  In any subject of study, this is what happens.  We feel, in order to understand something, that we need to break it down into individual parts to categorize and better explain.  That dismantling then takes labeling and ultimately a new specialized language evolves around the subject.  That’s all fine and good when dealing with mechanical engineering or economics, but the Kingdom of God shouldn’t work this way.

Because, not only do you get an unnecessary gap between “believers” and non-believers based on terminology alone, but you also get teachers whose authority is more based on their ability to speak a specialized religious language than their ability to encourage the Body in holiness, righteousness, love and good works.

This categorization also creates division.  If one scholastic categorization of the Trinity doesn’t line up with another, they call each other heretics, when in fact the whole scholastic and worldly approach to the spirituality is the heresy.

This categorization also leads to a professional class, which results in a priest class isolated from the “laity”.

God once told me, ten years ago, in what almost amounted to an audible voice, “You can be a Pharisee about house church, too.”  He was teaching me much of what I know about what people call “organic” church over the years, but it takes constant diligence to disallow your own view to devolve into religiousity and another form of legalism.

Pharisees are easily created with worldly scholastic approaches to scripture and spirituality.  And they don’t usually even know they are Pharisees.

What made Jesus upset with the Pharisees (and other religious leaders of his day) was not their dedication to the Law.  In fact, they were soundly accused of NOT obeying the Law … not obeying the HEART of it, at least.  They had added, based on their own interpretation and instruction, more to the Law than it was meant to include, and then they made these additions a priority, even at the cost of the very purpose of the Law itself.

This is how you get cookie-cutter reproductive models (the franchise mentality) from both mega-churches and organic churches.  Models and paradigms are easy for teachers to come up with and even easier for others to follow.  Shrink wrap it in a book, stretch some scripture to back it up, and it can spread like wildfire if it worked in some little corner of the world.  Following the Spirit alone is much more difficult.

I do believe in better ways and better principles, but usually it is much simpler and direct than many teachers want to make it.  And despite their motivation (I quickly assume good motivations for the most part), they end up pulling people away from the simplicity that is Christ and overburdening the Body with traditions from men instead of the leading of God.

I’ve spent most of the time on the first reason because I’ve never heard anyone directly address it.  I’m still relatively young and don’t hear everything, so that is fairly subjective, but I’ve heard enough to make it significant.

Then next two are easier to see, I feel, so should go a lot quicker.

The second weakness in teachers is the temptation to draw people to yourself instead of Christ.  Again, it is really easy when you start talking and people are locked into every word you say and taking notes and complimentary after you are done.  And in our modern religious culture when they put your name in lights and have you sit in special chairs, it is all an invitation to pride and self-seeking.

If you associate this 2nd reason with the first, then this self-seeking can become a career-minded path that places more responsibility and recognition on a single individual than is spiritually healthy, both for the Body and the individual leader.

In other words, you get people who agree with you because you said it, unquestioningly and unreservedly.  There is a fine line between honoring spiritual leadership and hero worship.  The former is godly and builds the Kingdom.  The latter is of the enemy and builds worldly kingdoms.

Third and last, since the function of teachers is interpretive and instructive, this is how bad doctrine finds its way into the Church.

It is no coincidence that when Paul dealt with bad doctrine he also dealt with those who taught it.  Bad doctrine doesn’t just show up.  It usually comes through teaching, which requires a vessel, a teacher.

And what counts as bad doctrine is not what you might think.  Bad doctrine either questions or misrepresents basic truth (like the gospel) or unduly adds traditions and philosophies of men to the power and simplicity of Christ.

Good doctrine “stirs up love and good works” not “vain arguments”.

Like I said before, and you’ve read here on this blog, I believe wholeheartedly in higher and better ways and that a major paradigm shift is needed in the Church.  But you can only take it so far before it becomes about a formula and not following God at all.

I’ve seen people in very wrong paradigms live holy and righteous and full of love and compassion and dedication to the Lord.  I’ve seen people in the right paradigms have very little of the character of Christ.  I’m not justifying wrong systems or diminishing correct principles, only putting them in their proper place.  God will not allow even correct paradigms to define or limit the immensity of who he really is.

I’ll go into some ways to guard against these things in a post soon.

Peace.

The more I think about it, the more I like the term “organic church” better than house church.  It might not ultimately matter, but I think that the term “house church” doesn’t fully express the idea of what I feel Church is really all about, not to mention what we do.

Do I believe there are some practical advantages to meeting in homes?  I do.  But is it more spiritual because it is in a house?  Of course not.  In fact, I’ve seen and experienced some of the most unhealthy groups that happen to meet in a house.

I’ll go into more detail on this soon – I’ve got a new series coming that should piss most people off – but I do believe there are some real limitations with the building mentalities that much of the western Church seems to cling to.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean homes, per se, are the answer.

All this to say, Frank Viola has a paragraph of a definition on his blog about organic/simple/house church.  He’s been, for better or worse, a fairly prominent voice in the modern house church movement.  Anyway, I liked the paragraph.  Here is the link for his blog.  The paragraph is below:

Organic church life is profoundly simple yet endlessly complicated.  It satisfies the deepest longings of the human spirit but frustrates the soul and bids death to the flesh. It’s at the same time rewarding and maddening–it is without a doubt the greatest spiritual experience a mortal can know. Why? Simply because God has chosen the ekklesia in her organic expression to reveal the glories and the riches of His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to bring to this earth the fellowship that exists within the Trinity.

Now, the reason that I like his “definition” is that it exposes one of the most important but little discussed aspects of organic church life.

Let me say at the outset, that I’ve read much of Viola’s stuff, and our fellowship is one of the few, if not the only, group in the Atlanta area that I know of that actually lives out the principles that he expounds upon.  If there are other groups, I don’t know about them.  Some have made valiant attempts, but they have come and gone.

This is not pride on my part.  It just happens to be true.  Our fellowship is truly built on two main foundations: open worship and living the Christian life together as a family.

I’ve seen others attempt open worship, but it always breaks down when you have neo-traditional type leadership that feels it is their job to control things.  I’ve seen many attempt to have more “community”, but ultimately they resort to programs and special events to try to get people to “show up.”  And most “small group” ministries have a hard time just getting people to participate, much less go deeper in real love and living life together.

Part of this is that many of us still think that church is something we “go to” not something we “are.”  The “go to” part allows us to separate the rest of our lives from the fellowship of the saints.

But another part of the difficulty is what Viola describes as “rewarding and maddening.”  True church life “satisfies the deepest longings of the human spirit but frustrates the soul and bids death to the flesh.”  To call it “simple”, while true, misleads some because it becomes “endlessly complicated.”

We love the rewarding part.  But we quit way too easy with the maddening aspect.

Viola is describing a reality that few are willing to deal with.  Like I said, I’ve seen groups come and go, and ultimately, these “house churches” fail because they are unwilling to make the fellowship of the saints a priority, sacrificing other parts of their “individual” lives.  And then when they do try to get deeper with others, not only is it extremely inconvenient, but now it becomes difficult to love people when you see them in their entirety, as works of progress with issues that are near impossible to love … only possible with the grace of the indwelling Christ.  Oh, and not to mention, we have to be vulnerable enough to let others see the same imperfections in our own heart and life.

So we quit.  It is much easier to have an organization make things more convenient for us than to show up and be held accountable for the divine nature that lives within us.  It becomes discouraging when you don’t see people change.  It becomes disheartening when you don’t notice a change in yourself.  It hurts when people don’t notice you the way you feel they should.  It becomes “maddening” when things seem insecure and all you have to fall back on is the love of Christ within the Body.

And that’s not even counting the little practical issues that you deal with in a smaller, more organic setting.  Someone says something theologically you seriously disagree with.  Do you still listen when they speak the truth from the Spirit other times?  Or the guy that was kind of a jerk to you yesterday has an important teaching that the group needs to hear.  Can you get over that?  Or the kids were too loud and rambunctious in the meeting, making it difficult to concentrate.

And no solution to any problem is permanent.  There are always new situations, new challenges, new things for everyone to deal with and endure as a family.  What worked last week didn’t work this week.  What is God revealing to us through His Spirit about what to do next week?  That takes a maturity most people would rather pay a pastor to be for them.

Believe it or not, these things accumulate quickly.  And the enemy does a great job of getting you to think about “what you need” and “what is right for you” and “your rights” and suddenly you’re out.  That’s it.  It’s just too hard.

We have a lot of visitors to our meeting.  We have several “peripheral” people who always have a list of excuses as to why they can’t come.  Most of the time, I feel much like Jesus, who never once gave validity to any excuse.  Either you’ll give what it takes to have the reward of such an organic life or you won’t.  And those who put their hands to the plow and “look back” aren’t even worthy of the Kingdom, or in this case, the true rewards of organic church.

Most of the time I say something like, “Wait six months.  This issue you have will be resolved.  It will seem unimportant and minuscule.  Then a whole new problem will present itself and you’ll have to endure and grow through that, too.”  In twenty years, most of the things we get so upset about seem pretty freaking silly.  But quitting instead of enduring has eternal consequences on our character.

What is funny to me, is that sometimes people invite others to our meeting who are confused and “seeking”, thinking that “house church” is more conducive to people who aren’t sure about their walk with Christ and have lots of questions.  They are always more than welcome.  But, to be honest, organic church only works for those who are completely dedicated to Jesus Christ and to loving His people without exception.  Organic church is “seeker-friendly” if what you are seeking is the end of yourself and a healthy challenge to live a righteous, holy life.  You either “man up” and commit yourself to these things or you bolt for a myriad of excuses.

Let me close by saying that Viola is describing a reality that a few of us have truly laid hold of in our fellowship.  And the difference is astounding.  But the frustration was more than many are willing to even consider.  So we see them when they visit and love them when we can.  I cannot, however, “buck the system” by bending over backwards and giving into every demand or validating every excuse.  I would be shortchanging the reward waiting for those who would endure past such things.

As a side note, I’m not trying to say we’re the only church around that does anything right.  I know many sound fellowships and godly people who do not choose to buy into organic church, at least enough to live it out.  But if you’re interested in the kind of organic church that Viola and others discuss in books, we are living it out in reality.  We are a bunch of imperfect vessels that have much room to grow, but we’ve tasted something that most only read about in those books.  I’ve been committed to these principles for years.  What some call “organic church”, I just call the Church and the truth.  I am unapologetic about it being a better, higher way.  I would be doing something different if I felt it was equal among other paradigms.  This is too hard, otherwise.

There is no other option for me.  When I get discouraged or disheartened, I realize like Peter answered Christ when he asked, “are you going to leave me, too?”

There’s nowhere else to go.  I’ve seen and tasted the fruit of true Body ministry in my own life and the lives of others.  That’s the revelation it takes to endure.  Without that revelation, I would have quit “organic church” years ago.

Peace.