Chapter 3 Advancing the kingdom

Ken was trembling uncontrollably as he finished handing out the last communion cup.

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"The Lord," he replied in a shaky voice. "He's here with us, I just saw him."

We had just finished our worship time and Ken was leading the communion service. He had looked around at the people in our small house church and poured nine servings of grape juice into small plastic cups. He then knelt by the coffee table and said "The body of Christ" to each member of our group as he handed them their cup. But he had poured one cup too many, and kneeling before the empty sofa seat he explained what had happened.

"As I was getting ready to do communion, I looked around to see how many servings of grape juice I should pour. I had my head bowed, so I could only see people's legs. I counted nine people present including the guy sitting at the end of the sofa who was wearing jeans. So I poured out the juice and moved around on my knees distributing it. When I got to the end of the sofa, the guy wasn't there. Then I realized that none of us were wearing jeans today—it was the Lord who came to share communion with us!"

We looked at each other in amazement at what Ken had just shared. Why would the King hang out with a handful of ordinary disciples like us? What could we be doing that could possibly interest him? The truth however is that this isn't the only time something like this has happened in our home fellowships over the years.

Making disciples

Recall from the previous chapter where we identified four guiding principles that help us answer the question of what is church. Instead of repeating these principles in point form, let's combine them into a single "mission statement" for doing church:

The mission of the church is to advance the kingdom of God. This is accomplished by making disciples who are obedient to Jesus as King. Discipleship primarily takes place in home fellowships because that's where church really happens.

Home fellowships are the crucible where disciples are formed. Once formed, disciples are then able to take the blessing and power of the kingdom of God out into the world. To illustrate the process of forming disciples, this chapter examines some of the ways that disciple-making happens, formally or informally, in home fellowships. Nine key areas of discipleship will be covered here: healing, deliverance, inner healing, the prophetic, evangelism, teaching, leadership development, loving relationships, and ministry to the poor. Each area will be brought to life through real stories shared of things that happened in home fellowships.

Healing

Let's start with healing. Jesus healed the sick and told his disciples to do the same (Matthew 10:7; Luke 9:2 and 10:9; also implicit in Matthew 28:20). This means we should do it too, but first we need to learn how. Jesus basically used a "show and tell" approach for teaching his disciples how to heal the sick. His disciples began by watching him model for them how to heal the sick. Next, the disciples tried healing the sick and Jesus gave them feedback. Then once his disciples were trained, Jesus sent them out on their own to heal the sick. Wimber called this the "discipleship loop" method and it can be used for training in any kind of ministry.

Unfortunately we didn't have Wimber around to instruct us in our early home fellowships. But we did have his series of teaching tapes Healing 1 through 4 and we used them as our instruction manual. Very soon we saw healing begin to occur, sometimes dramatically and other times gradually over a period of time. Ken shares this story for example:

When I joined the house church I was experiencing back pain almost continuously. The group prayed for me every Sunday for over a year until my back was finally healed. I received a lot of love from that group and it encouraged me to pursue God and pray for healing for others.

Ken's story illustrates the persistence we had in our fellowships for praying for the sick. Ingrid's story next illustrates another aspect of illnesses and praying for healing:

I was asked by a member of our fellowship to pray with him for a lady who had cancer. After our first prayer session I discovered a lump in my breast. I told Mitch and we laid hands on it and commanded it to leave. Nothing happened immediately, but the next morning the lump was gone. I was relieved!

This story illustrates another key point about healing ministry: once you start praying for the sick you can be certain of experiencing spiritual warfare! The story also raises another issue worth reflecting on. I've often heard stories from missionaries about how those converted to Christ through their efforts still end up turning to witch doctors and similar traditional healers when they experience a serious illness. Western Christians sometimes make fun of this, but is it any different if the first thing we do when we become ill is visit our doctor or go to emergency instead of asking those in our church to lay hands on us and pray for healing?

Interestingly, it was not only illnesses that got healed when we prayed for people and their needs. Ken tells another story from one of our early fellowships which illustrates that as God's children we can ask our heavenly Father for anything:

During this period I was attending both an independent midweek home fellowship and a local charismatic church. On Wednesday at our fellowship Mitch said we should never be afraid to ask God for anything. Then on Sunday as I was coming out of church I met Betty and she lamented about her car. She said she kept getting it repaired but it kept breaking down again. Suddenly I remembered what Mitch had said and I felt the Spirit tell me to be bold. So I said to Betty, "Why don't we pray for your car?" She agreed, so I laid hands on the hood and said "Let this car be healed in Jesus' name!" Betty got in the car and it started OK and she drove off. Three weeks later I saw her again and she said, "You wouldn’t believe it! I haven't had any problems with my car since you prayed for it!" Her car continued running well until she sold it six months later, and it still ran well for the new owner!" This experience convinced me that God really cares about all the needs in our lives.

Ken's story is one of many similar ones I could share about laying hands on appliances, vehicles, electronics, even house plants. The lesson perhaps is that when something breaks down, the first thing we should do is pray and ask the Father for help, either to fix the problem or provide direction about what we should do. And we should pray with expectation in our hearts.

We had a fair amount of success praying for the sick in our early home fellowships. I kept extensive notes during this period and after ten years had passed I analyzed them and discovered that about 15-20% of people Ingrid and I had prayed for were healed immediately while about 40% either saw some improvement in their condition or experienced gradual healing over time with persistent prayer. The rest at least felt loved, for if anyone didn't get healed we blamed ourselves for lack of faith, not the person being prayed for. Those who were healed often went on to pray for others who needed healing, and they carried this ministry out into the world by praying for their family members, at their workplace, and even in the streets. Having taught and modeled healing ministry for those in our home fellowships, Ingrid and I eventually led ministry teams and held workshops where people from different churches could learn how to pray for the sick.

Deliverance

Jesus also cast out demons and gave his disciples authority and mandate to do the same (Mark 6:1). We have the same authority and mandate for advancing the kingdom of God. In one of our early home fellowships a young theology student joined us. He told us he had been experiencing horribly immoral dreams and asked for prayer. Upon interviewing him it was revealed that he had dabbled in Eastern religious practices while travelling overseas. Suspecting that a demon might be afflicting him, we arranged a time for him to visit us privately. He came to our apartment the next evening, and I began ministering to him as Ingrid prayed for me. It's always good to work as a team when you minister to the demonized.

I was nervous because I had never done this kind of ministry before. I commanded the demon—if one was present—to manifest itself. The young man shrieked loudly and ran into the corner of the room. I followed him there and looked into his eyes, and I was relieved to discover that the demon was more frightened of me than I was of him! Eventually after repeatedly commanding the demon to leave and with much bedlam and noise resulting (yikes! what's our neighbor going to think?) the demon left and things calmed down. The young man's demonic dreams stopped at this point and he stayed with our fellowship several more months. Then a few years later I heard that he was now happily married and doing well.

While deliverances like this can take place in Sunday church services, my experience is that they don't happen there very often. The reason for this may be that it's easy to hide your problems when you're surrounded by people you don't know well and who don't know much about you. Churches that encourage their members to also attend midweek home fellowships likely can see more people freed from demonic oppression as well as more sick people healed.

Not all deliverances need be so dramatic. One time there was a lady in one of our fellowships who had been experiencing frequent dizzy spells for several weeks. I volunteered to pray for her and asked if I could lay my hand on her shoulder. She agreed and closed her eyes and I began to pray. After a while I asked her if anything was happening, and she replied "Still dizzy." I prayed again for a while, but still no healing occurred. Then I thought, I'm doing this wrong, I need the Spirit's help.

So I laid my hand on her shoulder again and told her we would wait awhile for God to direct us how to pray. After several minutes the word "stroke" came into my mind and also a sense that there was some sort of spirit involved. Speaking softly I said "Spirit of stroke I command you to leave." The woman trembled for a few seconds, then she opened her eyes and said "I feel like something is gone." Are you still feeling dizzy, I asked? "No" she replied. A few days later I called her on the phone and she said her dizziness hadn't returned. Several weeks later I checked in with her again and she was still feeling fine.

Discipling people in deliverance ministry also necessitates teaching on the subject of spiritual warfare which is really something that all Christians need to know about. Such teaching should focus on the reality of Satan and his opposition to God's kingdom. Satan's strategies commonly include tempting, deceiving and accusing God's children. If these efforts fail he can also stir up persecution against us. Remember that whatever he tried to do to Jesus, he'll also do to us his followers (John 15:20).

Inner healing

Inner healing can be variously defined but essentially involves helping an individual become emotionally whole through the intervention of God's power. Individuals are often hampered in their spiritual growth by painful things that happened to them in their childhood and growing years. Often the person is not even aware of the problem or what may have caused it. Others may be aware however that the individual has a problem, typically because of unhealthy behaviors they manifest such as chronic anxiety, depression, substance addiction, or suicidal tendencies.

Home fellowships can be the place where those in need of inner healing can receive it because the love they experience from others in the group fosters a sense of trust that gives them courage to share their deepest hurts. Ken, who had been healed from self-destructive behaviors including drug abuse and suicidal thoughts when he became a Christian, shares next how he received inner healing in a home fellowship from feelings of rejection and abandonment:

I always did risky things as a kid, like drinking heavily and mixing different kinds of drugs together. I overdosed a couple of times, and I often felt like I had some sort of "suicide mark" on me. One winter day as a teenager, I decided to end my life. So I went to the highway and drank a whole bottle of booze and lay down in the culvert thinking I'd slowly pass out and freeze myself to death. But the trouble was, I got so cold I couldn't fall asleep! So I got up and went home.

A few years later after I had become a Christian, my mom confessed to me on her deathbed that she had tried to abort me when she realized she was pregnant. I began wondering if this might lie behind my suicidal behaviors, so I went to see the couple who led our house church and told them about it. After I shared my story, the woman picked up her guitar and began singing a Vineyard worship song that starts with "I will change your name, you shall no longer be called wounded, outcast, lonely or afraid." I immediately flopped on the floor and thought "This is so weird." A deep feeling of rest then came over me. I felt something break and I forgave my mom.

Inner healing like this can also occur in home fellowships that are part of the infrastructure of a larger church. Ken tells another story of a time when he and his family were attending an inner city church:

The church we attended had lots of needy people, so the leadership decided we should start meeting in homegroups for encouragement. So we started a group in our neighborhood together with another couple. We tried to make our group open and inviting, and one day one of the fellows in the group confessed that he had been molested as a child. We gathered around him and prayed for him and he was soon on the floor weeping. When we finished praying he said that at last he felt clean. His life was healed and soon he was on fire for the Lord. Afterwards he married a great girl and they had kids.

Not every God story ends happily however, and we'll return to Ken's story later in Chapter 5. But both of the above stories illustrate how genuine love combined with Spirit-led ministry can heal the deepest needs of people's hearts.

The prophetic

In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul encourages them to eagerly desire manifestations of the Spirit and especially those associated with the prophetic (1 Cor 14:1). My first remembrance of this happening in the church was in one of our early home fellowships. We were feeling discouraged as a group because some sick people we had been praying for weren't improving. As we were earnestly praying for God to send his power to help us, I suddenly noticed that Ingrid was trembling. Then she groaned deeply and said, "Use what I have given you." This struck me deeply as it made me realize again that Jesus has already given us as his disciples both the authority and power to heal the sick. All that remains for us to do is actualize the presence of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. The group took encouragement from Ingrid's word which had been delivered to us through the gift of prophecy. We continued praying for healing for the people we had been praying for. Some of them got healed but others didn't.

The gifts of word of knowledge and word of wisdom are closely associated with the gift of prophecy, and home fellowships are a safe place for people to begin to move in these gifts. My own first experience exercising these gifts happened in a ministry training workshop I had signed up for at a Vineyard church we had started attending. After the instructor finished teaching us, he told us we were all going to wait on the Lord and see what he wanted to do. He then encouraged us to ask God if he had anything for us as we waited upon him.

I sat there with my eyes closed and waited together with two dozen other participants of the class. Nobody said anything and several minutes passed away in silence. Then I noticed something like a tiny round disk in the center of my field of vision. That's probably just an artifact of my visual nervous system randomly firing away, I thought to myself, or maybe a burnt-out spot on my retina from when I used to stare at the sun when I was a kid. But then I thought, what the heck, maybe it might be something from God since it looked a bit like the disk on the kind of medal soldiers get for exhibiting bravery. Not sure what to do next, I asked God to show me more. Immediately I thought I heard the word "burt" whispered to me. Could there be someone here named Burt? Maybe it was just my imagination. So I waited some more and then I thought I heard another word "hurt" whispered to me. At that point I mustered some courage and put up my hand saying "I think I have something. Is there someone here named Burt who maybe is hurting in some way?" I turned around and looked at the group and one man seemed to be leaning sideways looking at me. Nobody responded however, and I quickly grew embarrassed. The instructor asked why I was asking this, and I shared how I also thought I saw something that looked like a medal that's awarded for something. At that point the man who had looked at me said he felt the medal was a word for him and that God was telling him "job well done" by it as he had been struggling over some issue which I can't recall. I asked him what his name was and he replied "Hubert." I said "Hurt. Burt. Hurt-burt. Hubert. Ha! I'm in touch with the supernatural!" The group erupted in applause and the instructor came over and gave me a hug.

After this initial experience I began asking God for words of knowledge in the home fellowship meetings we attended, and soon I was receiving accurate words like knowing people's names and things that had happened to them without any prior knowledge. Often such revelations led to fruitful ministry to individuals in the group. Of course I also got some words wrong, but with practice I slowly improved. Soon I began receiving similar revelations when I met people in public places like shopping centers. Eventually I started giving out words of knowledge during ministry times on Sunday mornings and at a few Vineyard conferences, sometimes with dramatic results.

My point in sharing all of this is that it was in the safety of home fellowships that I grew in this gifting area, and I believe that spiritual gifts are most easily learned through practice in such environments.

Evangelism

Evangelism typically doesn't take place in home fellowship gatherings since those who attend are usually Christians seeking fellowship and/or discipleship. Time spent in home fellowships however can imbue those participating with skills both spiritual and practical—and also with compassion for the lost and hurting. Singly or together, members of home fellowships often end up sharing their faith with their extended families, work colleagues, and strangers they meet on the street.

For example once Ingrid and I found ourselves praying for a man who was related to someone we knew from a previous home fellowship we had been involved with. The man had a serious lung condition that required constant supplemental oxygen. He wasn't a Christian but he was willing to let us pray for God to heal him. Both of us felt helpless as we'd never prayed before for someone in such a state of ill health. We began by asking the man to close his eyes and invited the Holy Spirit to come and minister healing to him. A short time passed when I suddenly heard Ingrid quietly speaking what sounded to me like a bunch of nonsense syllables. The man suddenly burst into tears at that moment and cried out "Jesus come into my life!" We were stunned but recovered quickly and continued to pray for healing. I asked Ingrid afterwards if she had spoken in tongues since neither of us had experienced that gift previously. She nodded and said "I think so" and we reflected on how God seemed to have released power unto salvation through that gift.

We continued praying once a week for the man over the next few weeks. He was having his blood oxygen level tested weekly during this period, and it appeared to be slowly inching upwards. He was even willing to let us take him to a Vineyard conference happening locally, and I still remember him up there on the stage with people surrounding him laying hands upon him. Shortly after that however a friend suggested he seek a medical treatment being offered at a prestigious hospital. At that point he placed all his hope upon this treatment and lost interest in being healed spiritually.

After expending a great deal of money, the man gave up on medical treatment and returned home in disillusionment. His heart appeared to be hardened towards any further prayer ministry. But something must still have been happening inside him, because some months later he invited his daughter and her husband who were Christians to come over for a visit. He then asked them a series of questions about what it meant for someone to repent, and they excitedly tried to answer all his questions honestly. When the discussion was over he thanked them for coming and clammed up again. Several months later the man died. But we're hoping that God honored his request for Jesus to come into his heart, because "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13).

Reflecting on this and similar experiences confirms why Jesus linked preaching the gospel of the kingdom with demonstrating God's ruling presence through healing and deliverance miracles. In Luke 9:1-2 it says that Jesus gave his disciples "power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal." Healing those who are suffering from illness or demonic oppression often provides an opening to share the good news about Jesus and lead them into God's eternal kingdom.

Teaching

Teaching is an important ministry of the church. We know this because Jesus taught frequently and so did his disciples. Sound understanding of the Scriptures is essential both for spiritual maturity and Christian ministry. The best place to learn and grow in this gifting area is of course in home fellowships.

I call teaching ministry a gift because true teaching is inspired by the Holy Spirit. "I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak" (John 12:49). If this was true of Jesus then it's also true for his disciples, which means us. "Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God" (1 Peter 4:11).

The wonderful thing about teaching in home fellowships is that you can fall flat on your face and get up again more easily than if you preached on Sunday to hundreds of people. In a healthy home fellowship people know and love each other, so there's less embarrassment when you goof badly compared to in a regular church service.

I had the fortune (and misfortune) to be offered opportunity to preach several times from the pulpit of several churches during the first few years of my being a Christian. The leaders of these churches made the mistake of thinking my rapidly expanding head knowledge qualified me for teaching Sunday mornings. I won't share the incredibly dumb things I said in some of my early sermons, but will simply mention that it soon became clear to me when God was giving me something to teach and when it was merely my own overly inventive mind at work. Ken already shared earlier in this chapter how something I taught in our early home fellowship sunk into him and led to fruitful ministry in healing someone's car. I don't recall saying that at all, which is probably a good way to evaluate whether something you taught is from you or from God! The main thing I want to recommend here is that if you're ever asked to bring the message at your next home fellowship meeting, cry out to God and ask him what he wants you to say. You'll walk in good footsteps if you follow this advice. John Wimber's own two favorite prayers were "Help!" and "O God O God O God."

Leadership development

Different denominations have argued for centuries about what the right model is for church leadership. One thing they all agree on however is that churches need leaders. Home fellowships are no different in this regard as a leaderless group is unlikely to make much headway in advancing the kingdom. Bonnie shares a story from the time of the Jesus People movement concerning a mission-style house church called the House of Peter:

The House of Peter arose on the heels of the Jesus People movement. It was filled with new believers from different walks of life including former gang members and people from off the street. We were mostly young people—untrained, inexperienced, fresh, impressionable, and eager. We met twice a week for church and Bible study in a storefront building in downtown Winnipeg. The place had a coffee house type of setting where we all sat around tables. It was an exciting time, one felt free-spirited and there was a sense of a "first love" revival happening. But discipleship was loosely organized and there was no central leader or core teaching/training. No one was really held accountable and as a result there was the potential for wrong teaching to arise. For example one individual who led a Bible study had a controlling personality, and he tried to implement an extreme form of discipleship among us. Later we found out he had no job and had been in prison. The lack of good leadership and young age of most of those involved also resulted in romantic liaisons happening with no teaching or oversight. Some who were new believers left the faith because they weren't really being discipled.

Stories like this might make some Christians shy away from independent house churches. But the reality is that these kinds of problems can (and do) arise in traditional churches, and one can make an argument that the damage there can be greater because of the greater number of people who are affected.

One can make a good argument that home fellowships, whether church-affiliated or not, are the best place for identifying, recruiting, nurturing, training and releasing new leaders, both for starting new fellowships and for church planting initiatives. In this regard the key thing is that emerging leaders can fall flat on their faces in a home fellowship and get up without feeling too embarrassed because of the small size and level of intimacy in the group. Leadership development in home fellowships is thus similar to how training in teaching ministry takes place, with the same key principle that leadership, like the ability to teach, is a gift from the Holy Spirit.

Ingrid and I once experienced this ourselves at a Vineyard church we attended in another province. When we first joined the church we looked for a homegroup to attend in the part of town where we lived. We ended up attending a group of around 30 people who were led by a mature couple. The teaching was good and the fellowship vibrant, but the group was too large, so after several months they decided to split into three smaller homegroups. Three couples including ourselves who were already attending the group were identified by the leadership couple as potential leaders for these new, smaller groups that were planned. The pastors of the church invited the three couples along with several other couples to a six-week leadership development program. After completing this program, the large homegroup split into three smaller groups and all three groups did well the following year. Eventually the couple who led the original homegroup were released to start a new Vineyard church in another part of the city.

Independent house churches can also develop new leaders that can successfully start new house churches. The difference is that leadership development usually proceeds organically using the discipleship loop approach rather than programmatically as is usually done in large churches. While I have no problem with programmatic discipleship and have used this approach myself for equipping people to heal the sick, my experience is that the show-and-tell approach Jesus used to train his disciples is usually more effective. Perhaps the main reason for this is because the approach Jesus used is based on relationship: "He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach" (Mark 3:14, emphasis mine). And relationships are easier to establish and maintain in smaller groups.

Loving relationships

Which brings us to the issue of relationships between Christians attending a home fellowship. Another story shared by Bonnie is of crucial importance here:

My first real understanding of what Paul means when he talks about the church being the Body of Christ came when I started attending a home fellowship whose members were stable and mature, not new Christians. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:26 "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together" and that's what it was like—one felt like you were growing together by sharing and experiencing one another's lives through their struggles and challenges. It was there that I had my first experience of personal ministry and found myself being held accountable for my spiritual walk.

I said previously that home fellowships are where church really happens. And a big part of "doing church" is to learn to love one another. "A new command I give you: Love one another" (John 13:34). Loving one another is something that Jesus commands his followers to do. But you can't learn to love people if you don't get close to them. Home fellowships are where people learn to encourage one another, exhort one another, forgive one another, even rebuke one another. Home fellowships are where sin rises to the surface instead of being hidden down among the pews or in the pastor's backroom office. Home fellowships are by their very nature relational in expression, where you can find fellowship with God and with one another.

Ministry to the poor

So many broken people came to our home fellowships over the years! Those of us who started and led the groups were still broken ourselves to some degree, but the needs—material, emotional, spiritual—of many who came overwhelmed us! We had widows and unloved wives join us. Orphans and unfathered men. Couples who were struggling financially and even bankrupt. People with deep needs for acceptance. Our fellowships had single moms, couples having marital problems, parents in pain over their children, men fresh out of prison, women in bad relationships. Some had been sexually abused as children, a few had even attempted suicide. Then there were those who hid their pain or shame and lived lives of quiet loneliness and despair.

When Jesus said in answer to John the Baptist's query that "the poor have good news preached to them" was evidence of who he was, Jesus meant the whole spectrum of people I've just described above. And also the sick, and the infirm, and the elderly, and the mentally ill, and those suffering demonic oppression. Ministering to the poor is part and parcel of the church's mission to advance the kingdom of God. But you often don't need to go out looking for poor people to minister to—they're right on your doorstep or in the apartment next door.

Many who came to our home fellowships over the years received comfort, counsel, guidance, even financial help as we were able. Some matured towards healthy, confident, self-reliant individuals; others did not. The reason is that while the kingdom of God was inaugurated with the arrival of Jesus, it's not yet fully here. The powers of the age to come are breaking through today into our fallen world, but the fullness of God's kingdom won't be here until Jesus returns.

Fundamental values

Reviewing the stories in this chapter enables us to express some key values concerning home fellowships. In simple point form, home fellowships are:

A place where you can experience God's kingdom in this present life.
A place where you can learn to love and receive love from others.
A place where everyone gets to play and not just the select few up front.
A safe place where you can step out into ministry and leadership without worrying about failure.
A place where you can become more like Jesus.

In the next chapter we'll talk about how this happens from a practical point of view.

---> Go to chapter 4