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So here’s a diary of all that I’ve got up to this week. Again, if you need clarification as to what anything is then do ask in the comments, and if you don’t know what Crowded House is nor what I’m doing here for three weeks then have a look at my first post by clicking here and my second post by clicking here.

First off, if you don't know what Crowded House is or why I'm here for three weeks then scroll down to my post last week and you'll understand!

Second, I'm going to explain the 'structure' as it stands at the present (though keep in mind that the nature of Crowded House is such that it changes quite frequently). There are two main networks at the moment, the 215 network and the Sharrow network. The 215 network, of which Steve Timmis is a leader, is the one I'm predominantly involved in and is the largest. They have four churches: Sharrow Vale, HuB, Broom Springs and Loughborough. Sharrow Vale meets in a typical (though of course modernised) church building and has two teams seeking to reach out to particular people. So you have the Manor team and the South View team. The hope at the moment is that eventually these teams may become church plants in and of themselves. The other three (HuB, Broom Springs and Loughborough) all meet in homes and Loughborough is expected to plant in the coming months and perhaps will become its own network. The Sharrow network, of which Tim Chester is a leader, is a lot simpler. They have two churches: Abbey and Sharrow. Both meet in homes. I don't know what their plans and intentions are for the near future, as I haven't spent as much time with them!

Third, here's what I've been up to this week. If anything doesn't make sense then do ask in the comments bit and I'll clarify. 

 

	Morning	Afternoon	Evening
Sunday 13th January	Sharrow Vale's out there sunday - house church meetings.	Hanging out with my host family.	South View team meeting, meal and communion, followed by the pub.
Monday 14th January	GTs (Gospel Trainees) meeting, 'sermon' prep.	Lunch with the GTs, outreach project	215 network leaders' meeting, Loughborough leaders' meeting.
Tuesday 15th January	Group hermeneutic exercise.	Outreach project	Tea at Adam and Amy's with the Aussies, pub quiz on the Manor estate.
Wednesday 16th January	GT meeting, prayer with the leader of HuB, Mum's and Tots.	Lunch with the local launderette guy and HuB church people, hanging out with a homeless guy and his mate.	Pasta plus, hanging out at the pub.
Thursday 17th January	Porterbrook Training.	Hanging out with Tim Chester, sitting in on his 1-2-1.	Tea with the Chesters, Greenhouse training, pub quiz.
Friday 18th January	GT meeting, hanging out with Bobby-Jo (a leader of a house church in Tasmania).	Preparing a video for Sundays meeting at Sharrow Vale	Being a waiter at Live @ 215 (Jazz cafe).

 

Fourth and finally I want to reflect on how the evangelism is done here. If like me you don't think that street preaching is the best form of communicating the gospel and that door knocking is not the best way to get into a relationship in order to share the gospel, then you've got to ask the question how can I do evangelism? One answer is to hold 'events' as a church and tag on a token gospel talk at the end. Another answer is to rely on individuals in the church to go out, build relationships and share the gospel themselves and then when their non-Christian friends become Christians they can be brought into the church. I would have said that the best means of evangelism was the last one, that is until I read Total Church and saw how it worked out here at Crowded House.

I've just had a holiday. Like a real grown-up, I've been away, all by myself, for four days in Manchester. I think SAGA (of the zimmerframe speed dating, and not spikey haired hedgehog variety) call it a city break.

Ok, so technically, I wasn't by myself for the whole time (I was staying with a friend), and as I did go to college there, the adventurous aspect of a trip away was somewhat nullified... but I did sit on a train, and go to a restaraunt, and go to the cinema, and go to the theatre and walk around alot all by myself. Proper grown up see.

And the rest was so good. Tomtom bangs on about it, and he's right! 'Rests are so good for the soul' (I think that's why he's having such a long one soon). I was able to read a bit, sleep a bit, pray a little... all these old friends seemed more than willing to have a good old catch up. In fact, like every good preacher, God stated, and illustrated a very clear message that he wanted me to realise [Spoiler alert - if you happen to from our church, there's a strong to excellent chance you'll hear what is about to follow as an illustration some time in the near future].
 
I've been reading 2 Kings in the morning recently, and I've been using Dale Ralph Davies' commentary to help. Very good too...

Incidentally, two thoughts:
i) Doesn't Dale Ralph Davies use a lot of Civil War illustrations?
ii) Doesn't Dale Ralph Davies look a bit like the Green Goblin himself, Willem Dafoe? Just fuzz up the picture a bit; take off the glasses, pop a Jonny Raine wig on his head, bend him over a pulpit and make him pray... Et viola! Spiderman's nemisis is now a Hebrew scholar. 












Anyway; yesterday morning, I got to that strange story about the floating axehead in chapter 6. A bunch of sons of prophets (sounds like some sort of dis, doesn't it?), take Elisha along with them to build a bigger barn for them all to live in. They start chopping wood near a river, and before you even get a chance to make a pun about a bunch of prophets 'caught upstream without a paddle' they're literally caught upstream without a paddle' when one of them swings his axe straight into the deep end.

Of course, once again, it's God to the rescue, through Elisha. The big man sticks a... er, stick into the water, and miraculously, the axehead starts floating. Panic over!

Now I know that the whole thing may not seem like too big a deal to us; but then again, most of don't rely on axes to cut wood for shelter, or to cut wood for a fire to cook food... for us, a lost axe means a quick visit to B&Q; but for them, a lost axe, would probably have meant a close brush with death. Here's the story;

The company of the prophets said to Elisha, "Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan, where each of us can get a pole; and let us build a place there for us to live." And he said, "Go." Then one of them said, "Won't you please come with your servants?" "I will," Elisha replied. And he went with them. 

They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees. As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead fell into the water. "Oh, my lord," he cried out, "it was borrowed!" The man of God asked, "Where did it fall?" When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. "Lift it out," he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

One of Davies' comments is so simple - look how the whole story hinges around Elisha simply 'agreeing' to go with them to play lumberjacks. Had he said no, the axe would still be at the bottom of the river. But simply because of the small detail, Elisha saying "I will", they survived.

So that's the stating. Now for the illustrating...

Later that day, I'd just met with a college friend, and walked with them to get their bike. Once they left, I checked my watch, and knew that if I was to get back to the other side of the city in time to get to the Hacienda exhibition I would have to walk quickly. I got half way back up Oxford Rd before realising that I hadn't given another friend the book I'd bought for him, and turned back around. It added a lot of time. I wasn't going to make it.

I got to Ellis' coffee shop; we chatted briefly, and he gave me a coffee to go, and, more significantly, £2 to get the97 from the stop across the road, it was the only way I'd now make it in time. There's about 3 buses a minute on Oxford Rd. I wasn't waiting long. One arrived, and I got on. Within a couple of minutes, I was talking to the girl next me about Jesus. She wasn't a Christian, but her parents are. This sort of thing has never happened before, but within another few minutes, we'd both got off the bus at the same stop, and after talking some more, I was praying with her outside Marks&Spencer's.  

It almost never happened that way. But I see the point. Had I not remembered to take Ellis that book, I would never have got on the bus. Had I not spent a few minutes talking with him in the shop, I would have missed that bus. Had Elisha said 'no', then a bunch of Prophets would have gone hungry and cold. But God was there in the small detail.

Some one challenged me recently that not enough of what goes on at proGnosis (and the rest of the Christian blogging world) was very positive. As in, "An awful lot of what you guys write about is, 'the problem with this is...'"

Actually I thought it was a fair point, a lot of what we write about is in that vain (although I still reckon if you trawl our archives there's a lot of positive posts, my series on reasonable faith for example).

Anywho, I thought I'd take the time to share some guys who've been a real positive influence on us here at proGnosis and can hopefully be a positive influence on you guys.

I'll start off with the preacher whose probably impacted me most over the last year, Mark Driscoll. You can download all his sermons, audio or video, from the Mars Hill Seattle site. What's most evident with Mark is his passion and ability to preach the gospel and be enjoying it.

I know a lot of the guys also listen to Tim Keller over at redeemer Church. Carson loves him and so does proGnosis. A very good communicator with some great takes on scripture and culture.

Then there's those over at Sovereign Grace. JT is a big fan of them, maybe he can fill you in as to how they are a help to him.

John Piper is always a good one to mention, I think you get his stuff through the Desiring God website.

Which preachers, authors or theologians are helping you at the minute and why?

"The Crowded House is a group of church planting networks in Sheffield and Loughborough." Well that's what their website helpfully explains. What they're known for is their emphasis on community as well as being gospel centred. They talk more about planting churches not just growing churches and do so using a 'house church' model. Everyone is involved in ministry and church is not an event that happens one day a week, it is their lives lived with gospel intentions. If you want to understand more of where they're coming from, check out their values and doctrine or if you want a more in depth understanding then read Total Church written by two of its leaders, Steve Timmis and Tim Chester.

Whilst in Bible college we are expected to go for three weeks on a placement with a church or Christian organisation or something. In my interview with my lecturer to decide where I'd be going this year, I said, "I want to go somewhere different." Then paused, then said, "I want to go somewhere small, traditional and denominational." Because I've never been in that situation. My lecturer said that he had thought I'd meant something like Crowded House when I said that I wanted to do something different. Not knowing what Crowded House was, I asked and he explained and it sounded a lot more appealing than something smal, traditional and denominational! So now I'm here and I've just done my first week. First, here's what I've done then below I'll give a reflection. I have two more weeks left so you can expect two more posts.

	Morning	Afternoon	Evening
Sunday 06th January	Sharrow Vale main church meeting.	Walking in the country with my host family.	Hanging out at the Timmis'.
Monday 07th January	Gospel Trainee (GT) meeting, HuB leaders' meeting, coffee with the Aussies.	Lunch with the GTs, Sharrow Vale leaders' meeting.	Crowded House network prayer meeting.
Tuesday 08th January	Group hermeneutic exercise, cleaning, sermon outline.	Hospital visit.	Tea at Adam and Amy's with the Aussies, pub quiz on the Manor estate.
Wednesday 09th January	GT meeting, hanging out with the GTs and cleaning, Preparing questions for the trip to Glossop.	Trip to Glossop with the Aussies and Steve.	Pasta and communion followed by the cinema.
Thursday 10th January	Porterbrook Training	Porterbrook Training	Tea at Sylvia and Trevor's with some of the Manor estate team.
Friday 11th January	GT meeting, sitting in on a counselling session.	Hanging out at the Kurdish bar playing cards.	Tea with my host family, playing chess with their 11 year old!

So here are some reflections. The first thing to say is that it's not all that different to how any other church I've been in. I suppose it wouldn't be though since fundementally we all believe the same things. And I've only been to the church meeting that meets in a typical church building not any of the house churches meetings. So we sung, we read the Bible, we prayed and had a sermon. They then had a meal together, but that's not all that uncommon in the churches I've been to. Then during the week they do do a lot of seeing each other, hanging out and spending time together, which people will do in other churches though not necessarily as often as the Crowded House people do. I even did a hospital visit! But whatever background or tradition we're in (unless you're dodgy) fundementally we all believe the same things so it's not going to look all that different really is it.

So now some reflections on what did strike me. There really is a real buzz about the gospel amongst the people. It's obvious that it is what they are passionate about. It's obviously in part down to good and consistent biblical teaching, but I wonder if this buzz is heightened by their emphasis on communities, their emphasis on keeping it smaller and planting rather than growing a mega church and because of their willingness to change as situations change all for the good of the gospel.

One other thing that struck me is that these people really are all involved with one another not just on a social level but also on a spiritual level. It's what I've decided to call the allelous element (since allelous is the word for 'one another') because it sounds cool. This allelous thing is Biblical. We're told many times to be loving one another, teaching one another, encouraging and admonishing one another, in short being devoted to one another. And as I've been amongst the people here, they have very naturally opened up the Bible together, prayed together and got onto spiritual conversations together, and I don't think it is just because they have the Bible College student around who they've got to impress, that's just what they do. Again, I'd say it's because of the community emphasis and the size.

Well, I want to have something to say next week, so I'll leave it there.

So I've been thinking about church. Feel free to shoot me down in flames here (as if you wouldn't if I han't given you permission), but is it possible that we make church waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more complicated than the Bible does?

That was my dynamic introuction. Now let me explain myself. I've been wondering about why the New Testament gives us so little pratical/logistical teaching about how to organise a church. Of course it gives us plenty of teaching about what a church is, but not a massive amount on how to go about doing it. Our minds go straight to 1 Corinthians of course, but apart from that, what other passges can you think of that give practical instruction about what to do (and what not to do) in church? Where do we get instruction about whether to organise a small-programme? If so, how to do it? How about kids work? I can think of a few passages which tell us what we should teach our kids, but not any which talk about how.

As much as I like to think I'm the first person to have noticed this, I very much doubt I am. I imagine it must be a mystery to most people who have grappled with organising a church's activities.

So I ask again, could it be that we have simply made church over-complicated? You still not getting me? What does the NT teach us about the early church's activities. Well, we know that they met on the first day of the week, to pray and have fellowshiup together. It seems that remembering the Lord's Supper was a regular (if not weekly) occurence. They showed hospitality. At least some appear to have been involved in social action. They pastored each other, they shared with each other in need. Apart from that, much of the ethos of a healthy early church can be gleaned from what is commended (or rebuked) in the epistles... But when I compare that with the church I attend, I can't help but feel a difference. For example, the sheer volume of meetings is overwhelming (the prayer meeting is usually the least well-attended incidently), if you are a child or a teenager, your week can be organised for you. Small groups, nurture groups, student groups, mums & tots, internationals, musicians, specail events for men, special events for women, etc, etc.

Now please don't misunderstand me here (deliberately or otherwise gentlemen...) I am not knocking any of these ministries. And I am not taking a shot at my church. I would be the last person to say cut back on kids' evangelism, or on internationals ministry, or anything like that. But is it possible that in the business of church life (not to mention the business of our 'personal' lives, to make an unhelpful distinction...) that we forget the main point of belonging to a church? Because, it seems to me that that point is this - to meet together, to teach each other the gospel, through the teaching of God's Word, to pray, to have fellowship with the purpose of sending each other out to make disciples.

That's the hard bit, the "sending each other out". And is it possible that that is what we forget to do in all our activity? Can we be tied up with going to so many meetings (or organising them, or overseeing them, or co-ordinating them) that we have no time, no energy and no motivation left to go about the business of the Great Commission?

I'm just starting to think about this, so I'm open to a battering. But maybe this can serve to get us thinking a bit?