Chapter 2
What is church?
As I mentioned earlier in the Introduction, John Wimber in his book Power Healing developed what he called an "integrated model of healing" by which any Christian can learn how to pray for the sick. Wimber's actual purpose in writing his book however was to help churches learn how to incorporate healing ministry into their overall mission. My goal in writing this book is similar, except it deals with growing home fellowship ministry not healing ministry (although healing often takes place within home fellowships). In addition, the model I present applies to implementing home fellowships both within and independent of a larger congregation or denomination.
In outlining his approach for implementing healing ministry in a church, Wimber used the analogy of trying to build a house. To accomplish this you first have to lay down a solid foundation. Then you put up your walls, after which you add wiring, plumbing, air ducts, and so on. In Wimber's understanding the foundation for doing any kind of ministry is the set of principles on which the ministry is based. These guiding principles are non-negotiable and are solidly rooted in Scriptural truths and tested by experience. Principles are then expressed through values, which are like the walls that establish the identity and presence of your home in the neighborhood. Values are things we feel are important and govern how we allocate our resources of time, energy and money to the ministry. Principles and values then guide the development of practices (learned behaviors), programs (steps for achieving goals) and procedures for identifying and training personnel to accomplish our ministry aims. While principles never change and values are relatively constant, practices, programs and personnel must be adapted to meet specific situations and circumstances for the ministry to remain viable.
This chapter begins answering the question of what is church by identifying four key principles that help us understand the purpose and nature of church. While these principles apply to church in general in all its forms of expression, the particular focus here is on doing church in home fellowships. The next chapter explores how these principles determine our values for home fellowships. These values will be illustrated through stories of some of the things that I and others have seen God doing in home fellowships. Chapter 4 then explores some of the mechanics of doing home fellowships, how to start and run one so that fundamental principles are adhered to and values are properly expressed. The chapter covers the three p-words of practices, programs and personnel along with a few other practical matters. Chapter 5 then deals with another p-word that probably should have been explicitly included in Wimber's paradigm but wasn't. I'm talking about how to deal with and survive the various kinds of problems and challenges that typically arise in home fellowships.
One final word before we proceed. Wimber expressed something important in his book Power Healing that is often overlooked when pastoral leaders try to birth an effective healing ministry in their churches. He wrote that he often received letters from pastors saying they had tried doing the things they had learned from his healing seminars—using the five-step model for healing prayer for example—but had grown discouraged because they weren't seeing the kind of results Wimber saw when he prayed for the sick. Wimber's response was that at least part of the problem may involve their not having fully grasped and assimilated the principles and values underlying the Vineyard's approach to healing the sick.
I believe that this same consideration applies to starting and growing home fellowships. If you focus only on the mechanics of how to do a home fellowship but don't fully grasp the underlying principles behind what home fellowships are supposed to be (i.e. the church in its most authentic form) then you're probably going to miss out on much of what God can (and wants!) to do in your home fellowship. So please don't jump ahead and try to get to what you feel must be the meat of this book, the nuts and bolts of how to do home fellowships. Instead make sure you read this chapter carefully and ponder it thoroughly, even if it seems a bit theoretical. Don't worry, we'll get to more exciting stuff soon!
Guiding principles
Some years ago I was trying to understand the concept of the kingdom of God as it is presented in the New Testament. I had read several books on the subject including Wimber's Power Evangelism and also some books by George Eldon Ladd that Wimber recommended. But I was still struggling to grasp the essence of what the kingdom of God meant. At one point I threw up my hands in frustration and said, "Lord, I don't understand! What is this thing you call the kingdom of God?" Immediately a scene from the movie Fight Club with Brad Pitt came to mind. In the scene Pitt is explaining to the club's wannabe participants that "The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club. The second rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club." Then suddenly it hit me: the first rule of the kingdom of God is that God is king and I'm not. I'll let you guess what the second rule is!
This gives us our first foundational principle concerning church, which simply states that Jesus is king. (Matthew 28:18, Ephesians 1:20-21) I don't think any of you reading this will dispute this important truth, but what are the implications regarding church including home fellowships? It simply means that Jesus is the head of the church, not you or me. We may cooperate with him in achieving his goals and purposes, but the bottom line is that we're labor, not management. Think about that for a moment, especially if you're a pastor or home fellowship leader.
Our second guiding principle is that the purpose of the church is to advance the kingdom of God. An assumption behind this principle is that the church is defined by its purpose, not by its practices, programs, personnel or property. Jesus came to announce that the kingdom of God had arrived (Matt 4:17). He demonstrated this by healing the sick (Matt 11:2-6), casting out demons (Matthew 12:28) and doing other signs and wonders through the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18). Jesus then commissioned his followers (us) to do the same (Luke 9:1-2 and 10:9; also John 20:21).
A straightforward reading of the Book of Acts makes it clear that the remarkable growth of the early church resulted from a combination of bold proclamation of the kingdom message and its demonstration through signs and wonders. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) and we are called to carry on his work in the same way that he did—through words and supernatural works by the power of the Holy Spirit. Not that we are capable of doing any of this ourselves, but we can expect our King to rule when we proclaim the message of the kingdom.
Our third principle builds on the second one by stating that to accomplish its task the church must make disciples (Matt 28:19). But what does making disciples actually mean? Let me digress here with another story from my early years as a Christian to illustrate some of the difficulties with making disciples.
After I had been born again, I began devouring Christian literature to try and understand what it was that I had been born into. Being used to learning academic subjects through concentrated study, my first attempt at learning Christianity involved reading theological books by Bultmann, Barth and Bonhoeffer. The preacher at my church did me good service at this point by suggesting I put that sort of stuff aside and read books by John Stott and C.S. Lewis instead. So I continued reading voraciously, but this time all kinds of solid Christian books. But I soon came to the conclusion that I still didn't understand what it really meant to be a Christian. I knew I was a Christian, because I had met the living God! But I didn't know what I should be focusing on doing, other than trying to stop sinning, which was difficult.
In desperation one Sunday morning after the service I approached the preacher and asked whether he could possibly disciple me. Unfortunately he replied that he couldn't as he was just too busy, so once again I found myself left on my own. I was also involved with The Navigators during this period, and my Nav leader told me that he wanted to disciple me. But he wouldn't explain up front what discipleship involved or how the Navigator discipleship program worked, and this made me feel suspicious of his motives so I stopped attending Nav meetings.
By this time I had been a Christian for several years, but I still didn't know what my role in the church was supposed to be or how I could learn to be a disciple. I used to think that if the church was the body of Christ and Christians parts of the body, then I was the left earlobe, or maybe a pimple on the tip of the nose.
Then one day I encountered the teachings of John Wimber and the worship songs of the early Vineyard movement. At this point several significant changes happened in my Christian life. First, I learned how to worship, which caused my heart to begin growing instead of just my head. Second, I discovered that while Evangelicals place high value on Jesus's redemptive work, they often give little attention to the works he performed during his life. This realization flipped my theological grid and I soon began learning how to "do the stuff" as Wimber taught. And third, Ingrid and I started a home fellowship with some people and we soon began to see the kingdom of God coming in power. It was in our home fellowship that I began to learn what being a disciple is all about and how disciples are made.
My point in sharing all this is that it's not enough for the church to believe that we're supposed to make disciples; we also need to understand what it means to be a disciple. The answer is actually quite simple. What did Jesus teach his disciples to do? To heal the sick, cast out demons and proclaim the kingdom of God. What did the disciples do after Jesus left them and ascended into heaven? They healed the sick, cast out demons and proclaimed the kingdom of God.
But this can't be all there is to being a disciple, can it? No, of course not. As disciples we're also called to live lives devoted to God like Jesus did, walking in holiness and resisting the Devil. We're called to build up one another in love, do good to the poor, welcome those society rejects, and so on. The problem however is that when the church teaches us to do these kinds of things but doesn't teach us how to do the stuff that Jesus taught us as essential to being a disciple—healing the sick, casting out demons and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom—then the result is usually incomplete disciples who can do some good but don't have the power to transform people's lives by extending God's rule over their hearts.
There is one additional principle that helps us answer our question about what church is, and it specifically deals with home fellowships. This fourth and final principle is that home fellowships are where church really happens. Although I could argue this position from Scripture, I'll simply present it here instead as a pragmatic conclusion. Based on my personal observation and experience over several decades, home fellowships are the ideal place for believers to learn how to worship, minister, serve, help, love, forgive, move in spiritual gifts, reach out to others, walk in holiness, and so on. Home fellowships are also a place where new leadership can emerge and be nurtured in areas such as teaching, healing, evangelism, the prophetic, pastoral care and ministry to the poor. And new church plants can even be birthed as the Holy Spirit imparts vision and authority to home fellowship leaders.
A corollary to this last principle as far as large churches are concerned is that your home fellowship leaders are the real pastors of your church. Pastors of churches having hundreds or thousands of members face the difficulty of knowing what the needs of their people are and how best to meet those needs. This usually leads to increasing church staffing levels, which brings extra financial burden upon the church. Leaders of home fellowships however only have to oversee a small number of individuals. As a result, they usually know exactly what's happening with each person, provided the environment in the group makes people feel comfortable with opening up to share with one another.
Churches have traditionally viewed home fellowships as programs that fill needs that Sunday gatherings aren’t able to fulfill. They may see them as a point of entry for newcomers into the community, and as a place for members to provide support to one another during the week. This is fine and good, but home fellowships are—or can be—much more than that. In the next chapter we'll examine what home fellowships can be if only we choose to let God do what he wants us to do with them.
---> Go to chapter 3