Most of these villagers were not Christians. Our mission was clear: encourage the few Christians who were there and give a clear gospel presentation to everyone else. I remember how nervous I was as I spoke through an interpreter. I had read stories of missionaries who had been killed for going into hostile territory. What I have learned since then is that Ghana is an extremely hospitable country.  We were never in any real danger.

Since then I have been back to Ghana six times. I have learned a lot. One thing that I have learned is that it is always more effective to train indigenous people to be trainers than for us to try to communicate to another culture. We now go and train the trainers.

Now imagine you are the one going to a new village to give them the message and hope of Jesus. You are the missionary assigned to this village. You have been trained, you even have a coach close enough who you can contact for help. You have the Holy Spirit as your guide. Now it is up to you.

The fact is that this is exactly the reality that you are in now. Look at your neighborhood as a village. This is your mission field. Training and coaching is available to you. But it is up to you to do it. The indigenous people are your neighbors. You have to GO and talk to your neighbors. You have to be creative in how you reach them. Get into your mission field.

Most Americans don’t know their neighbors. Why not? Is it because of fear? Do we believe that they have all heard it before and building a relationship with them is just a waste of time? You would be surprised.

Let us show you how to get to know your neighbor.

Wouldn’t it be great to see the same thing happen here? God has been really putting my neighborhood on my heart lately. He is reminding me that it is my mission field. I have been praying for my neighbors and looking for opportunities to witness to them.

There are basically two types of people in the world:non-believers who need to be witnessed to and believers who need to be trained to plant new churches.

The Well is uniquely positioned to reproduce simple house churches anywhere, anytime. If you want to learn how to train trainers, contact me. We can see a Church Planting Movement happen here in the US.

Press on Church!

Ken

Relationships are not always easy. In fact, I know that the more I relax and become more intimate with others, the more difficult things can become. Things become real. My family and I have been part of a simple church for 5 years now and it has been the best and most gratifying and growing experience of my life, as well as some of the hardest. We always say, “The decision to do what we’re doing is not easy.” We choose the more difficult intimate gathering for many reasons; one of those being the greater potential for personal growth. I say potential because even in a house church people can keep themselves distant and hide various issues that they struggle with and stifle their own growth. Yet, when we allow ourselves to be open to instruction, God can do amazing things. Being a part of a house church has taught me to be a servant – without expecting others to be that to me (though they do). It has taught me to continue to put others above myself, to think of what they would want before what I would want. Even more huge for me, is the fact that simple church has taught me that my brothers and sisters in Christ are to be closer than family. We have disagreed, been hurt, frustrated, even argued over the years, and yet we have made the commitment not to walk away from one another, but to stay and choose to love. This has impacted my life more than anything. These are people that I know I may disagree with again, but they will never abandon me. They have proven themselves…they are my family. When God created the church, he created us for Christ. We are his Bride. We are one. Not only will we be with one another for eternity so we should “get along”. It’s much deeper than that. We were created to be a loving family in an atmosphere for safe growth. Paul says this in Ephesians 4. We should be “humble and gentle,” “patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace…Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Eph 4:2-16)

How comforting that we are all in this together. That we have a family which can be closer than blood. My prayer is that you all continue to grow in your love for one another and that you fiercely hold on to the relationships that you are forming right now.

Also, this year The Well will be introducing a way to take the organic church to local   neighborhoods through existing churches. We will be partnering with pastors   who have the heart and courage to go beyond the church walls and allow people to be missionaries to their neighborhoods. The Well elders have been working on a strategy that starts with love and ends with a new church community.

In the meantime here are some things you may want to do as a  part of the Well family.

1) Pray. Pray for your local house church, the   people in your neighborhood, and the “brick and mortar” church close to you.

2) Stay tuned to what God is doing around you.

3) “Like” The Well on Facebook and join us on Twitter

I look forward to see what God has for all of us in the coming year.
]]> http://leavethebuildingblog.com/2012/02/28/update-from-the-well/feed/ 1 Ken Eastburn http://leavethebuildingblog.com/2011/12/09/the-church-is-going-mobile/ http://leavethebuildingblog.com/2011/12/09/the-church-is-going-mobile/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:21:13 +0000 Ken Eastburn http://leavethebuildingblog.com/?p=508 ]]> The early church was nomadic. It was packed full of refugees and criminals and it went against everything that the established religious system stood for. It was on the move, on the lamb, free and dangerous.

Then something happened. About year 313 it was no longer illegal to be a Christian. So, the church took roots. It settled down, took out a loan and bought some property. Instead of being anti-establishment it was the establishment. Now, instead of being dangerous it was becoming safe. There is nothing wrong with being safe, right? But safety is not always what its cracked up to be.

With safety comes structure. Structure. The word itself feels safe. We want our kids to have structure in life because with structure comes discipline, routine and predictability. Soon the church was developing structure within a structure. The church was becoming a building rather than a movement.

Last week I had lunch with a pastor who has just been called to a new church. He suggested that they get rid of Sunday school and move into home fellowships. He told me that they looked at him like he was crazy. You would think that by now people would be beyond saying that we need to do something because “that’s the way we have always done it.” Seriously?

These people felt safe and secure in their structure. They had always met before the Sunday morning service to have an hour of “Sunday School.” It was safe, predictable, routine.

But safety is an illusion. Our security is not in a structure, institution or denomination. If our security is not in God then we are in big trouble. Only when we can walk away from the structure and into the place God is calling us can we be really secure.

The lessons learned in Sunday school about Abraham, Daniel, Jonah, the Children of Israel and so on are lost because of our unwillingness to do what they did.

We serve a missional God. When Jesus said, “Go” and make disciples, he really meant it.

So, church is becoming more and more mobile. We are learning to go and have church in our neighbor’s houses, schools, café’s, etc. We are beginning to take a page from the 1^st Century Church playbook.

As I drove by the local high school last week I noticed that just about all the kids crossing the crosswalk were looking down at their smart phones. When I took my son to Disneyland recently I spent much of my time in line checking my Twitter account or reading the news on my phone.

I don’t write sermons anymore I write blogs, emails, tweets and status updates. We live in a time of increasing mobility. It is forcing the church to do exactly what we were meant to do. It matters little that it is in person, over the Internet or on video the mandate it the same: Go!

I have known some missionaries. On the mission field their lives are radical. They do whatever it takes. Their goal is not comfort; their goal is their mission.

I have been on a few short-term mission trips. They were cake compared to what most long-term missionaries go through.  Those missionaries live on the edge. They eat what is put before them, they sleep wherever they have to, they travel until they get there, they are not committed to comfort or safety. They are on mission.

Do that in your neighborhood for a while and see what happens.

One Criticism of the organic church is that it is too unstructured and without order. It is too spontaneous. Others like the fact that it is not bound to an order of service, structure or time constraints.

But what about the plan? Is it ok to be “organic” and goal oriented at the same time? Is the Holy Spirit strategic? It seems to me as though the entire Bible is one long strategic plan played out in space and time using individuals and people groups to flesh out Kingdom work. Most of these people probably had no idea about the importance their role in history. Maybe we don’t either.

Last week I had a six house brainstorming session with the Holy Spirit. It consisted of prayer, bible reading, a large white board and several colored dry-erase markers. What I ended up with was several parts of a plan that God has already birthed. It will continue to evolve as time goes on.

Training 100 leaders and starting 100 churches will take careful planning. At the same time it will be organic. If we don’t listen well and respond accordingly, the “plan” will be a disaster.

The goal is to have a good strategy and execute the plan well while holding it loosely and allowing it to become organic in nature. “Or-tee-gic” if you will. Did I just invent a new word?

So what are we doing in the church? We are marketing to customers. We provide a “service” that people pay for in the form of a “tithe.” The “services” we provide are professional music, entertaining videos and inspirational messages.

Godin goes on to say that the loyal customers get neglected while most businesses advertise to acquire new customers (half-off for new customers while the loyal ones pay full price).

Let’s be careful not to shape the gospel to meet the needs of the crowd.

Most house churches don’t think they need any help. They think they are handling things just fine and that they could improve but they will figure that out together, on their own, “organically.” Organic is good, right?

When our son was born we took him to the doctor a lot in his first year. He needed his shots and checkups. He was healthy, but we weren’t taking any chances. The older he got the less we had to go and see the doctor. Now we take him in once a year for a checkup. Unless, of course, he is sick of has a problem that we can’t diagnose.

If more groups sought out outside help early they would be healthier. In their first year they should seek out a coach often, ask a lot of questions and be open to advice. Pride can kill a church quickly.

As they get older they need less check ups. They still, however need good diagnostic tools and help along the way.

A few months after starting my first house church I found a great coach. Being hundreds of miles away, we corresponded on the phone or by email. But he talked to me every other week over the course of two years. His coaching was invaluable.

Are coaches essential for long life? Preventive medicine never hurts.

So, everything “leavethebuilding” is going away. We will have a new Well Global web site, blog, twitter and facebook page.

The question some of you “leave the building” fans might be asking is, “why?” Why spend most of the last two years building the “leave the building” name only to leave it now?

Let me answer that with a short example. Recently I was at a meeting with a group of pastors at a mega-church outside of Atlanta. During the conference I asked a friend if I come across “anti-building.” He laughed as he responded, “um, you do have a web site called leave the building.” I guess it should have been more obvious from the beginning. But I’m a little thick at times.

Our desire was never to be divisive or subversive. We were never saying that a building is bad or that people who worship in a building are out of God’s will. We were just trying to tell our story. Our story is that we left the “traditional” meeting areas to move into homes and smaller venues.

However, we can’t seem to get away from those who think we are putting others down by having a website called leave the building.

So, in the interest of never wanting to harm or be disrespectful to others in the body of Christ, we would rather change our name than be misunderstood.