Most Christians have been trained to listen to a preacher, but not trained to listen to the risen Jesus.

Posted on November 26, 2017 by Steve Simms

When I was growing up in church, I was trained to listen to a preacher, but not trained to listen to the risen Jesus. (If church doesn’t train Christians to listen to and obey the Jesus, who will?) The reality is that if only one person is expected to speak for God (week after week), everybody else learns to be quietly passive.

After years of hearing Sunday sermons, I went to a meeting where ordinary people spoke of their love for Christ. It was in that meeting that I met the risen Jesus! That’s when I discovered that going to church without going to the risen Jesus is just going through the motions.

I used to go with ordinary people on “Lay” Witness Missions in churches and we would all take turns telling how we met Jesus. I love to hear ordinary people speak when they are prompted by the Spirit and tell what God is showing them and saying to them.

Perhaps Christians need a place to go on Sunday mornings that welcomes them as an active participants and not just as passive spectators. A team that only lets one person use his talents limits its effectiveness. So too a church service.

Sermons come from outside yourself, through your ears, and into your brain. However,
Jesus wants to speak directly to your heart! A preacher can lecture you about the Bible, but you’d be better off to spend that time reading it for yourself and letting the living Jesus explain it to you. After all, the Bible does not say, “Let the redeemed of the Lord listen to sermons.” Also, there is no mention of pulpits (or lecterns) in the New Testament.

Church is often like a gym that lectures people on fitness and then sends them home without letting them workout. So, as you sit though church, don’t forget to go to and view the living Jesus and let Him renew you with a spiritual workout. If Jesus is the Head of the church, perhaps we should gather to let Him speak and then everyone say and do whatever He tells us to.

It’s okay to occasionally listen to a spokesman for Jesus, but Jesus also wants to talk to you Himself. Don’t miss out on that! When Christianity presents “Head Talks” it can be informative; but when we present the risen Jesus, He is transformative!

To listen to a talk about a beautiful fountain is okay, but I’d sure rather watch it freely flow. Same with Jesus! Fountains need to freely flow. So do churches. Cut off the flow of either one and it becomes pretty lifeless.

God is my search engine. When I ask Him questions He pops up answers in my heart or leads me to passages in the Bible.

To be a “a hospital for sinners,” church needs to go beyond a sermon and let its members minister to people individually. A church service without room for openness and brokenness is broken.

I believe God is calling church back to its roots — the Greek New Testament concept of ekklesia. Will churches respond? If we won’t make room for the Spirit to birth something new, we may be acting like the innkeeper who had no room for Jesus’ birth.

Is a preacher the only one who can hear God’s voice in a congregation of Christians? He who has ears let him hear. What would happen if we spent as much time in church listening directly to the Lord as we do listening to a sermon?

Since true worship is a heart matter, it can’t be done as a mere duty or obligation. It has to be more than that! To limit God to the limits of a Sunday morning program is to limit God. Dare to let God loose!

Here’s the bottom line:  Christian worship isn’t about watching a religious program. It’s about openly expressing adoration & obedience to the risen Jesus.

Jesus is speaking directly to you; not just to (or through) a pastor. Hear the risen One; not just the one on a platform. Jesus is Lord (Absolute Master). To tell Jesus, “No, Lord;” is to deny His Lordship.

 

Posted in alternative to preaching, homiletics, lay preaching, Lay Witness Missions, lay witness movement, leadership training, nontraditional preaching, preaching without words, pulpit, pulpit ministry, search engine, sermons, Ted Talks, Train yourself unto godliness., Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

If it’s harmful, don’t do it. If it’s unkind, don’t say it. If it’s tormenting, don’t think it.

Posted on November 26, 2017 by Steve Simms

The thoughts and images that you have allowed in your mind were the seeds that produced the way you feel today.

Posted in advice, do it, do the math, Don't be afraid, harmful habit, harmful thinking, power of words, speak the truth in love, tormenting thoughts, Uncategorized, unkindness, wisdom, word of wisdom, words | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Be a fruity Christian

Posted on November 21, 2017 by Steve Simms

There’s no better stuff than the fruit of the Holy Spirit. But you often need to go out on a limb to get it. After all, that’s where the fruit grows. Are you ready to be a fruity Christian?

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control . . .” –Galatians 5:22-23

“Most Christians, after accepting Jesus Christ, spend a lot of effort trying to behave according to what is portrayed in the Bible. They focus on overcoming their sins and failures, and they do their best to be holy in order to have a ‘good’ testimony. Though these efforts seem admirable, they can become a distraction from doing the things that will actually help them grow spiritually. And if they are not growing, then trying to live the Christian life becomes a very frustrating endeavor.”

ONE poster fruit of the Spirit

“Consider the fruit of the Spirit, that is what the Christian life should be. Fruit is just the product of life and growth, not self-effort and work. If believers will focus on the four essentials for life and growth then the outcome, fruit, includes all the things that make a believer become a duplicate of Jesus Christ. A believer with the fruit of the Spirit, as listed, is certainly one with all believers in the body, and a joy for all people to be around.”

The two quotes are from the book ONE: Unfolding God’s Eternal Purpose From House To House by Henry Hon. Get a copy in paperback or only 3.99 in Kindle @ http://amzn.to/2hHg1Kv 

Posted in character, characteristics of a Christian, content of their character, faith, faithfulness, fruity, goodness, joy, kindness, longsuffering, love, patience, peace, self-control, spiritual formation, spiritual growth, spiritual maturity, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Did Jesus establish a democratic *Theocracy?

Posted on November 18, 2017 by Steve Simms

I believe that what we call church was originally intended to be a democratic *Theocracy — an organic body of Jesus’ disciples, ruled and led directly by the living, resurrected Jesus. Jesus established it by saying, “On this rock (of direct revelation from God) I will build my ekklesia (which is usually mistranslated as church).”

A democratic Theocracy is the kingdom of God. It is God the Father/Jesus/Holy Spirit governing the body of Christ by living inside of and speaking through all of His people. It’s democratic because all can share, but it is Theocratic because people aren’t sharing their own opinions and feelings, but what the living God is speaking inside of them.

God led Israel into the promised land and established them to be a Theocracy — directly ruled and governed by Him. God gave them His law so that they would know what He wanted and He gave them His judges and prophets to rescue them when they got off track and to return their focus to God as their ruler, their invisible King.

Rather than having a national government, Israel was originally established as a loose confederation of tribes to be ruled by the living God, Himself. The tribes were united, not by politics or governmental structures or human hierarchies or a one-man king; but by their commitment to follow the living God as their King and to obey His law.

This made them a very odd country in the ancient world. The almost universal form of government among the ancients was the kingdom — a country or tribe ruled by one man — the king (or the tribal chief). Over several generations, Israel began to ask that God give them a king. God warned them that a king would abuse them and their children and their children’s children, but Israel continued to insist on a king. So God eventually allowed them their desire to be ruled by a king.

A kingdom was basically a dictatorship where one man was the final authority and had no checks or balances. He wasn’t accountable to anyone or anything. If the king’s heart was to do good, a kingdom would experience some degree of justice, however, because the king was human and had his own personal agenda, the justice was always flawed by the kings personal flaws. However, if the king’s heart was to promote himself and his own power, injustice would prevail.

Besides, Israel, I’m only aware of one other ancient country or tribe that didn’t have a king or tribal chief. That was Greece, which was established as a loose confederation of city-states. Originally in Greece there was no strong national government, but each city was a full democracy.

(What we call democracies in the modern world are really republics. In a full democracy, laws and decisions are made by a vote that is open to all of the citizens and there is no head of state. In a republic, however, laws are made by a vote of elected representatives of the people, while daily decisions are made by a chief executive — a head of state.)

The ancient Greek city-states invented full democracy. All the citizens of a particular city were called to gather regularly in an open forum called the ekklesia (city council). In the ekklesia they freely discussed the needs of the city and made decisions by majority vote. Every citizen who wanted to could share his views in the ekklesia.

I believe that one of the reasons that God came in the flesh as Jesus was to establish the kingdom (the direct rule) of God. Jesus said “The kingdom of God is within you.” God wants to rule individuals from the inside out — by His presence living within them and flowing through them, out of their innermost being.

Jesus also wants God’s direct government to go beyond ruling within individuals to ruling His body of believers and and making them the salt and light that influences the surrounding human society toward God and His goodness. That’s why Jesus chose to use the term ekklesia. (His choice wasn’t an accident.)

By choosing that ancient Greek government word, Jesus combined the two forms of ancient government that weren’t human kingdoms, into the kingdom of God. He takes the Theocracy of Israel and the democracy of Greece and unites them as a democratic Theocracy.

In His democratic Theocracy God governs by speaking within the hearts of many people and by promting them to share what He tells them when they gather in Jesus’ name. Unfortunately, church has replaced ekklesia with a hierarchy and attempted to rule over the body of Christ with the human authority of making one man the practical head of a local church while still proclaiming Jesus as the mere figurehead. However, in the body of Christ, the kingdom of God “comes without observation” or pomp and circumstance, because King Jesus rules invisibly from within the various individuals in a gathering of His body, as they humbly obey His internal promptings.

Nowadays, Christ is restoring His democratic Theocracy. The ancient Greek ekklesia met when a herald called the people to gather in the city center. Today the Holy Spirit is heralding for God’s people to gather around the living, resurrected Jesus; to listen to His voice in their hearts; and to say and do whatever He tells them.

After writhing this I went to Facebook and the first thing I saw was this “Memory” that I wrote a year ago today:

“The working of God in and through everyday people is hidden and ignored in church. The living God is doing amazing things in the lives of all of the people present, however, only one person is allowed to speak, while the rest must politely listen. Thus the living message of God speaking through His many people is eclipsed by putting all the attention on the same man, week after week.”

–If you want to know more about ekklesia go to http://amzn.to/2zPlXvt

democratic Theocracy

*I choose to capitalize Theocracy in this post because Theo is the Greek name for God and ocracy is the Greek term for government, making Theocracy mean the government of God.

 

 

Posted in ancient Greece, ancient history, ancient Israel, body of Christ, ekklesia, Greek city state, Head of the church, Israel, On this rock I will build My church, organic chruch, oxymorons, politics, tribes of Israel, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lecture-ship or discipleship?

Posted on November 17, 2017 by Steve Simms

Church has replaced discipleship with lecture-ship. But no discipleship equals no New Testament Christianity!

Jesus came to give you direct access to God. You don’t need a human go-between to lecture you once a week.

Jesus said to make disciples. He never said to make sermon-hearers. 10,000 sermons won’t make you a disciple. You’ve got to stand up, speak up, and live the Gospel! Jesus didn’t say go hear a sermon once a week. He said, “Follow Me.”

church lectureship

Christians sit in rows and hear talks about the Gospel. But why not meet together and actually do the Gospel stuff? Discipleship is not the theology we’ve heard preached; it’s how free we are to flow in obedience with the Holy Spirit.

Discipleship is not about merely instructing the mind. It’s about transforming the heart and the lifestyle!

Discipleship is relational. It must be based on genuine heart connection, not on following a curriculum. Trying to preach someone into discipleship is like trying to preach a non-swimmer into swimming. It takes more than preaching.

Many churches say they believe in “the priesthood of the believer” but then they expect one person to do almost all the ministry. But, why should we expect only one person in a congregation to get a word from God when God is speaking to all?

Faith in Christ doesn’t come through a religious institution. It flows from the heart. So why are churches so against letting ordinary people speak out in worship services?

In the book of Revelation, gatherings of Christians are called lamp stands, not lecture halls. Preaching tells unbelievers about Christ, but once Christ is living in you, you can listen directly to Him and share what He tells you with others!

A Christian & a minister or preacher are the same thing. Christ lives in all His followers, not just in preachers. Let all proclaim His reality. The silence of Christians can keep Christ hidden, but open, heart-felt sharing makes Him known! Perhaps pastors need to recognize that the Holy Spirit can use ordinary Christians to freely speak out in church services.

Some people want to follow Jesus without the Holy Spirit; others without the Bible.
I desperately need both. Many want to ignore the Bible. Some want reverence it. I want to read it & live by it.  Do you want a more powerful message than any preacher can give? Open the Bible, ask God to speak, then read!

When church is lite, it doesn’t make people uncomfortable. When it is light, it does! How can ordinary Christians get in the game and let their light shine, when church has trained them to merely sit on the bench and be lite? Jesus said: “Let your light shine,” not “Let your lite whine.”

Casual sermons produce casual Christians. The fire of God produces spiritual warriors. “Send the fire!”

A gathering of the body of Christ needs input from numerous people, not just from one! (1 Corinthians 14:26) When Christ-followers begin to meet to engage in spiritual warfare as a Spirit-led team, all Heaven breaks out! Church presents a formal talk about the Light. Ekklesia let’s the Light shine.

To claim grace without obedience to Christ is ingratitude and disrespect. Let’s be grateful to Jesus for His free sacrifice for our sins and follow and obey Him with all of our heart!

“To speak the Gospel without attempting to perform the Gospel is a false proclamation of the Gospel.” –William Willimon

“The preaching that this world needs most is the sermons in shoes that are walking with Jesus Christ.” –D.L. Moody

“If Jesus preached the same message minister’s preach today, He would have never been crucified.” –Leonard Ravenhill

Get beyond preaching with Beyond Church available on Amazon at http://amzn.to/2hI2ru9

Posted in body of Christ, Book of Revelation, casual church, cost of discipleship, disciple making, disciples, Gospel, how to be a disciple, Leonard Ravenhill, making disciples, ministers, New Testament, preach the gospel, preacher, preachers, preaching the Gospel, priest, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Are church greeters biblical?

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Steve Simms

A handshake, a smile, a kind word, and a bulletin (and perhaps occasionally a hug) — that’s pretty much the job description of a church greeter.  So are church greeters in the Bible? And if so what was their job in the first century?

The book ONE: Unfolding God’s Eternal Purpose From House To House, talks about greeting. It says: “Paul charged the believers in Rome to go and greet other believers. Greeting in this sense is proactive. Paul commanded the believers to go and greet the people he listed. The word ‘greet’ is not just saying ‘hi’ when walking past someone. The word for ‘greet’ in the Greek means: to embrace, to be joined, a union, to visit or joyfully welcome a person . . . Greetings include intimate dialogues with another person . . . Paul was commanding whoever received his letter to take continual action to go and greet those he listed. Because believers today are to obey the Scriptures just as the first century, they should take similar action and go and greet brothers and sisters in other groups.”

ONE goes on to say: “Today, most believers are segregated and isolated in their church or in their home. If believers accept Paul’s directive to seek out other believers and greet them, the Lord will have a way to build up the assembly, His body. Although there are so many churches and Christian groups today, believers can still heed Paul’s command to go and greet fellow believers in other groups. In God’s eyes all of His children are in one family, in the one body of Christ. As such, believers should not acknowledge any division.” Get a copy of ONE in paperback or Kindle on Amazon @ http://amzn.to/2hsJ2tf

So biblically, a greeter doesn’t just stay in her/his own church and welcome the people who happen to enter on Sunday morning. Biblically, a greater goes out and finds Christians in other groups (what we call denominations or churches), gets to know them on a personal basis, and has ongoing spiritual fellowship with them. A greeter makes friends with and accepts people as brothers and sisters Christ; across doctrinal, racial, socioeconomic, and denominational lines.

Will you be a New Testament greeter? Will you get to know and enjoy Jesus with Christians from different theological persuasions? That’s what God used Paul in the book of Romans, to instruct us to do.

Posted in Christian Denominations, Christian unity, denominations, interdenominational, one in the Spirit, team, teamwork, Uncategorized, unity, working together | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The best thing to do with a bad thought

Posted on November 11, 2017 by Steve Simms

A human mind, polluted with various forms of negativity, produces a life overflowing with the same pollutants. I think, therefore I am . . . not going to think negatively!

One thing I’m positive about is that thinking negatively is never as effective as positive thinking! A disciplined and discerning mind has much more peace than a mind that is continually open to destructive thinking. Here’s a prediction: To repeatedly think or do a negative thing without restriction, will eventually lead to addiction.

The best thing to do with a depressing thought is to deliberately drive it away–to determinedly delete it from your deliberation. I’ve heard; “You can’t not think about a pink elephant,” but even if someone mentions a pink elephant, I think about other things. There are so many wonderful thoughts a person can think, why waste time on pitiful ponderings?

Without inner peace and joy, everything you do or possess will leave you unsatisfied. A mismanaged mind makes much misery. A person who won’t control his thoughts is often tormented by them.

Your brain is a chemical plant that makes its own drugs, but your ongoing thoughts write the prescription and help determine your brain’s chemical makeup. An unfocused mind goes through life in a chemical blur.

Without antivirus a computer can be overcome by destructive programming. Without discernment and wisdom, a human mind can be too. Like a mine field, happily navigating through life requires caution, patience, wisdom, humility, and learning from those who are in front of you.

For many people the concept of “controlling their own thinking” is either an afterthought (after they’ve made a mess) or a fantasy they never try. Those people drift aimlessly in their individual stream of consciousness; I prefer to direct mine toward positive, uplifting thoughts.

The thoughts and feelings that you have accepted and embraced over the years, have created your current mental and emotional state. The thoughts that you allow to remain in your mind release brain chemicals that create your feelings. To change your habitual feelings, change your habitual thoughts. To be continually conscious of the crummy will crush your hopes of contentment.

What kind of environment have you created within your own mind? Depressing or delightful? Freedom lets you decide. Have you decided to embrace great thoughts or garbage thoughts? Ungodly thoughts are mental idols that require their possessor to bow at their altar. Nature’s beauty calls my thoughts back to harmony, awe, and wonder!

Don’t tolerate tormenting thoughts. It’s your mind, rise up and drive them out! Thoughts are like mushrooms. Some are poisonous and will mess you up. Others are nourishing and will make you strong! Choose carefully.

Troublesome thoughts and feelings aren’t almighty! They can be resisted & driven out. You can draw a line and say no way! Take every tormenting thought and trump it with a tremendous thought!

A mind obsessed by negative things is a terrible waste. (Use your mind for good!) If stinking thinking has stunk up your subconscious mind, air it out by thinking about sweet smelling scents. Cultivating a clean climate in your consciousness, helps you overcome controlling cravings & complusions.

Don’t be a puppet and dance to every thought or feeling that breezes through your consciousness. Disobey destructive feelings and desires!

If you believe bad things are happening you’ll feel bad–good things you’ll feel good. The truth is that both are happening at the same time.

Feelings are deceptive. To direct your life only by how you feel is to give yourself a bum deal. Command and control your feelings. Don’t let them command and control you and make you dance like a puppet on a string.

Here’s a definition of insane: To blindly follow your feelings without using your brain. To go with the flow of destructive thinking is to be slowly swept into despair.

Just because something feels good, doesn’t mean it’s not a trap set to spring on you and hold you in habitual helotry. The words you use can make you win or they can make you loose. Think and speak wise words.

My way often detours off the highway and into a ditch. However, God’s way always gets me through.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in addiction, depression, do it if it feels good, don't think about a pink elephant, feelings, happiness, inner peace, joy, optimism, overcoming depression, pessimism, stream of consciousness, think on these things, Uncategorized, unhappiness | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Against the gates of Hell with toothpicks or a mighty battering ram?

Posted on November 10, 2017 by Steve Simms
What can knock down a gate? 40,000 individual toothpicks or ONE mighty battering ram? Think about it.
40,000 toothpicks couldn’t do much damage to a gate and definitely couldn’t overcome it and knock it down. However, ONE might battering ram could flatten the gate.
Now think about the gates of Hell. Jesus said said that those gates will not prevail against His body, His people united around Him. (Most English translations use the word “church,” however, the Greek New Testament uses the word “ekklesia” which can be more correctly translated as “assembly.”)
Unfortunately, Jesus’ body is not united around Him. Instead, we are divided into more than 40,000 denominations worldwide. (This doesn’t include all the individual, independent churches that aren’t affiliated with a denomination.) So we are like 40,000+ individual toothpicks, each one trying to knock down the gates of Hell. No wonder we don’t see greater results in our fight against evil!
In John 17, Jesus prayed that all His people be one, even as He and the Father are one. ONE mighty battering ram, surrendered to the direction and control of the risen Jesus, could indeed prevail over the gates of Hell!
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s be more than toothpicks. Let’s be Christ’s mighty battering ram. That’s the theme of the book, ONE. The principles it teaches can help us come together, not as a mammoth organization, but as the family of God connected to the risen Jesus and to one another, heart-to-heart!
Read the book, ONE: Unfolding God’s Eternal Purpose From House To House free at onebody.life.
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We shouldn’t let unfathomable evil desensitize us

Posted on November 7, 2017 by Steve Simms

(This article was first posted on the ONE Body Life webpage at onebody.life.)

How can we deal with the ever increasing number of evil acts of mass murder and terrorism in America? When horror becomes widespread, our natural tendency is to begin to ignore it, to harden our hearts, to retaliate with anger and violence, to become desensitized, to accept evil as normal.

But evil isn’t normal. Love is God’s norm. Wickedness is a horrible perversion of good, a demonic distorting of God’s desire that human hearts and human society be filled with goodness.

I wept while watching the news report of the terrible evil that was done against the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas, where one man surrendered his life to horrible wickedness and cruelly murdered 26 people worshiping in church, wounding many more.

I heard the pastor of that church, Frank Pomerory, who was away with his wife on a trip during the shooting, but whose 14 year-old daughter was one of the people murdered, say: “Whatever life brings to you, lean on the Lord rather than your own understanding, I don’t understand, but I know my God does.”

It’s important to soften our hearts, not harden them. The antidote to evil is soft hearts that are broken before God and that allow the risen Jesus to work in and through them. Evil is overcome when people allow Jesus’ work on the Cross to completely transform them and to flow through them to others.

Acting on the words that Pastor Pomeroy spoke can resensitize our hearts in the midst of unfathomable evil and open us up to God’s presence, love, goodness, healing, comfort, and forgiveness. Like Francis of Assissi said; “Where there is hatred, let me sow love.”

“Lean on the Lord!” In pain and agony, don’t harden your heart and lash out at others with angry words or violence. Instead open your hurting heart to the living, resurrected Jesus Christ! In brokenness surrender to Him and He will lift you up and unite you heart-to-heart with His company of people who have lived through fire and been tempered and molded to be like Him.

That company of believers is the genuine body of Christ (from “every kindred and every tribe”). As they humbly (yet boldly) love and serve one another and all the people they meet, they can awaken all mankind to the goodness and glory of God that overcomes the rampant evil in society and even the hidden evil in our own hearts.

Posted in comfort, comfort for grief, evil spirits, good and evil, gun violence, How Evil Works, overcoming evil, problem of evil, source of evil, stop the violence, Uncategorized, violence epidemic, violence in society, where does evil come from, why mass shootings | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sermons are not enough! We need more!

Posted on November 5, 2017 by Steve Simms

No sermon can ever compare to having your heart ablaze with the living Jesus! “Church shall have a sermon,” is not the 11th Commandment. In fact, it isn’t a commandment at all!

Christianity isn’t about a man teaching a weekly religious lesson. It’s about daily obeying Jesus! I’ve never been much convicted by a sermon; but the Holy Spirit frequently convicts me to change my thoughts, words, & behaviors.

Jesus told His disciples, “Go…preach,” not “Go hear a preacher.” If your heart’s on fire with the risen Jesus you don’t want to hear a formal talk about Him. You want to tell the world about Him! Biblically, it looks to me like preaching was to share the Gospel with unbelievers. But believers met to minister to one another.

Even the very best sermons can’t do the work of the Holy Spirit! Christians need to listen directly to and obey the Spirit! Tell me and I forget. Help me listen to & obey the Spirit and I’m transformed! It’s educational to be taught information about Jesus; but it is life-changing to humbly interact with Him.

If hearing a sermon makes you brag about the preacher, something went off track. There are plenty of churches where you can hear a sermon, but where can you experience open sharing based on 1 Corinthians 14:26.

Why won’t churches offer an alternative to those who want something besides the sermon-based church format? Miracles happen when people fall back & obey Mary’s words about Jesus: “Whatever He says to you, do it.” (Try it & see!) An alternative to sermon-based church: 1) Gather in Jesus’ name; 2) All listen to Him; 3) All say and/or do what He tells them to.

By “gather in My name” I think Jesus means to meet & to focus our minds & hearts on Him & on His supernatural presence among us. When a group surrenders total control of a church meeting completely to the risen Jesus, He takes the wheel & does amazing things!

Some people act like they think that the risen Jesus isn’t capable of running a worship meeting all by Himself. Of course He is! If Jesus can run the Universe, how hard is it for Him to run a worship meeting without a human program?

The “God-tells-the-preacher-and-he-tells-the-church” model, puts the preacher between you and God. To make one person in church “the expert” is to make everyone else dependent on him. If you’re a Christian you have direct access to the living Jesus & don’t need to go through a preacher.

God wanted to personally be Israel’s King, but they wanted a man instead. Today Jesus wants to be the Head. Will we let Him?

Would you rather hang out with a celebrity; or listen to me lecture about him or her?
Hang out with the risen Jesus!

Support groups (like AA) trust people to share responsibly and meet without a sermon. So why can’t church? Is this a contradiction? The Bible says “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,” but church makes them sit and listen. Jesus said, “Shout it from the house tops,” but we prefer to hear it in the church house.

Why does Christianity in the New Testament look so different than it does in church? The New Testament calls Christ-followers “a royal priesthood,” acknowledging all believers to be priests. There is no laity. The term “lay Christian” is an oxymoron. All Christ-followers are called to courageously stand up for and obey Jesus.

To force expressive Christ-followers to fit quietly & submissively into a passive “service” is to quench the Holy Spirit! Where’s the fire, the passion, the spontaneity in modern Western Christianity? It’s gone because it doesn’t fit the program! Church lethargy makes me sad. Liturgy usually leaves me lethargic, but the presence of the living Jesus fills me with spiritual life!

If we are afraid to put down our program & let the Holy Spirit lead a church service, how can we trust the Spirit in daily life? To follow God’s order of worship we need to go beyond our programs!

When you love someone you want to spend time with them, not to hear a lecture about them. I love Jesus!

For fear of fanaticism we forsake God’s fire for familiar formalism. Instead of letting God’s fire burn freely in church, it’s easy to stomp it out with the program. It’s easier to tone down a fanatic than to fire up a bored spectator. Fired up Jesus fans aren’t good pew-sitters. They are overflowing with spiritual insights they need to share from their heart! If Christ is in you, let Him flow out. Don’t dam up His living water.

How was Christianity reduced to merely attending a weekly religious lecture? Church should overflow with Christ’s power, not just entertain us for an hour.

Christian ceremonies without the experience of the actual presence of the risen Jesus are “a form of godliness” without the power. However, when Jesus is truly obeyed and adored, no one will be bored! Jesus rose to release spiritual flows; not so we can passively sit in rows!

Posted in 1 Corinthians 14:26, church services, go into all the world and preach, Holy Spirit, how to conduct a church service, Jesus' name, organic church, priesthood of the believer, Spirit-led, teaching, two or three in My name, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment