Live from the empty tomb, it’s Jesus Christ!

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Steve Simms

Live from the empty tomb, it’s Jesus Christ!  Is Jesus in the room or in the tomb?

When Christ-followers gather in His name, the living, resurrected Jesus is in the room. We can 1) talk about Him like He’s still in the tomb. Or, instead, we can 2) roll away the stone of human control and programming, and allow Jesus, Himself, to directly run the meeting!

Two ways to celebrate Easter:
1) Go hear a talk about how Jesus rose from the dead;
2) Listen to Jesus speak to you and then do what He says.

May the Biblical Head of the church (the living, resurrected Jesus Christ), be the actual, literal, and operational director (head) of every meeting that calls itself a “church” on Easter and every other Sunday through out the year!

Posted in church, church meetings, church services, gathering, He is risen, He lives, He rose, He's alive, Head of the church, how to celebrate Easter, obey God rather than men, obeying Jesus, Spirit's flow, Spirit-filled, Spirit-led, spiritual church, Uncategorized, When you come together, worship, worship gathering, worship service | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Easter Means Jesus Is Actively Engaged In The 21st Century

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Steve Simms

What does the risen Jesus do today? In the 21st Century, Jesus . . .
* Transforms hopeless people into passionate, faith-filled Christ-followers!
* Takes captives to feelings, cravings, and compulsions and sets them free!
* Speaks to people and gives them amazing insights and instructions!
* Makes the Bible come alive and burn in people’s hearts!
* Releases people from guilt and shame and gives a fresh start!
* Gives people power to live a victorious, fulfilled life.
* Manifests His presence through supernatural gifts of the Spirit.
* Heals both emotional trauma and physical illness.
And . . . * Directly leads church meetings, like a conductor directing an orchestra.
— However, the living Jesus will do few of these things if we resist Him, intentionally disobey Him, and/or disbelieve Him. “Quench not the Spirit!”
? Will you let Jesus work on and in you?

Posted in Bible, gifts, gifts of the Spirit, hearing God, hearing Jesus, power, Quench not the Spirit, resurrection power, risen from the dead, voice of God | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Early Morning Thoughts On Good Friday (2014)

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Steve Simms

Thoughts (About Death) In Bed Between 2:30 and 3:30 on Good Friday Morning
–Yesterday while my wife and I were walking outside, a prophetic friend called me and I put him on speaker phone. He told us that the night before he had dreamed that I had died. About that moment, my wife gasped and jumped to the side. I looked down and my foot was about a foot away from a long black snake that uncurled and slithered away into the grass.
–My friend didn’t know what the dream meant, but he was concerned about my safety. These thoughts came to my mind.
–For the past 5 years my heart has been breaking about a situation. A couple of years ago, God told me “to die to it,” to lay down my longings and desires for the situation and trust Him. Almost every day, I have to lay it down and “die to it.”
–When I was a new Christ-follower and in college, I was being deeply tormented over another painful situation and although I can’t sing very well, I wrote a song: “Watching your old man die, makes you want to cry; Seeing all your hopes and dreams, take their wings and fly, And I know that old man, his name is ‘myself,’ But I can’t help him now, he belongs to someone else. ‘Cause Jesus, I gave myself to You, Said You could do whatever You want to; But watching him die, is such a painful thing, Although I know, new life it will bring. And it’s hard to say ‘Lord, have Your way;’ That old man sticks around and says he’s gonna stay. He moans and groans in agony, till I just can’t bear to see. Then he grabs me by the hand and says, ‘Save me, boy, I’m your old man!'”
–Once I taught for three months in a Bible college in India. The entire time my stomach was extremely messed up. Although I continually fought them, I was tormented with thoughts that I was going to die there. Finally I boldly preached to the students (and a local church) that the enemy cannot kill a believer before his time. That moment the tormenting stopped. (And I did make it home.)
–Today is Good Friday 2014. And this morning I’m going to the funeral of the son of a friend. Later today, I’m planning on seeing the new movie: “Heaven Is For Real.”
–I am so thankful for Jesus who laid His life down for us all. In fear and torment, frustration and pain, brokenheartedness and despair; He is able to comfort us, to carry us, to strengthen us, to revive us, to sustain us, and even to release His peace in the midst of all life’s desperation.
—Cling to Jesus. He’s for real. He’s alive. And I couldn’t make it without Him!

Posted in death of Christ, deny yourself, dreams, dying to self, Easter, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus is alive, Jesus rose, religion, resurrection, resurrection of Jesus, self, self-denial, spirituality, the old man | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Experince An Online Participatory Church Meeting

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Steve Simms

You can experience organic church online at our Organic Church Video Group every Sunday night at 9:00 Central. Just click on the link http://savn.tv/stream/view/211 and follow instructions.

Also, you can experience organic church right here in Nashville on Sundays at 10:45 am. and/or Tuesdays at 6:00 pm. at The Salvation Army Berry Street, 225 Berry St., 37207. Here’s a link to our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/NashvilleBerryStreet

The Salvation Army Berry Street, 225 Berry St., Nashville 37207.

The Salvation Army Berry Street, 225 Berry St., Nashville 37207.

Posted in body life, body of Christ, house church, multi-voiced church, Nashville charity, Nashville church, open church, open forum, open mic, open mike, open sharing, participation in church, participatory church, participatory culture, simple church | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Who’s Smarter Than A Preacher?

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Steve Simms

Who’s smarter than a 5th grader?  Oops, I mean than a preacher?  Everybody together being led one by one, by the Holy Spirit, to share their wisdom with each other.

Traditionally only one person is allowed to do all the teaching/preaching in a church meeting . . . However, it has always seemed to me that a group of people taking turns sharing insight with one another would collectively have much more spiritual wisdom, than even the world’s smartest/wisest solitary individual.

In the Protestant Reformation God took control of the Bible away from religious professionals and gave it to ordinary people.  Perhaps in the next reformation God will take control of church meetings away from professionals and let ordinary people show and tell what He has done.

Come hear the inspired, collective wisdom of ordinary people at The Salvation Army Berry Street, 225 Berry St., Nashville, 37207 on Sundays at 10:45 am  —  where everyday people show and tell what God has done.

Posted in multi-voiced church, Nashville charity, Nashville church, open church, open forum, open mic, open mike, open sharing, order of worship, participation in church, participatory church, participatory culture, simple church, spiritual adventure, support group, wisdom, worship gathering, worship service | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Anybody can do “his own thang,” but, my gosh, it takes great guts to do God’s thing! (Give us guts, God!)

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Steve Simms
Posted in religion, spiritual life, spirituality | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Self-focus blurs your perspective and leaves you living in a lonely haze. God-focus gives clear insight and brings joy and delight into view.

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Steve Simms
Posted in God, self-denial | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Why do people in America frequently kill groups of strangers?

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Steve Simms
Why do people in America frequently kill groups of strangers? President Obama said: “We’ve become numb to this.” Perhaps it is time that we wake ourselves up to some of the possible reasons for such home grown terrorism:

1) Calling a random mass murder “a tragedy” rather than “the evil actions of a wicked person.”
2) Devaluing human life in the womb. (If human life is worthless in the womb, why should it have value anywhere else?)
3) Over tolerance. (History demonstrates that when there is no social judgment and/or moral taboo, people will do anything.)
4) Embracing and teaching the idea that human life is nothing but the meaningless and accidental result of time, chance, and an evolutionary process.
5) Proclaiming the concept that cravings and desires are uncontrollable and should not be resisted.
6) Continually presenting people as mere objects to be used for your sexual pleasure rather than as deserving your honor, respect, and restraint.
7) Teaching that people are not responsible for their actions, but that their actions are caused by their upbringing, circumstances, culture, and/or heredity.
8) Modern media brainwashing that is continually flooding us with and engaging us with images of violence, disrespect, meanness, and other forms of evil behavior and attitudes.
9) Gutting our society of its foundational Judeo-Christian ethics and treating those ethics (and the people who still hold them) with open disdain and disrespect.
10) Removing the non-religious words “Thou shall not kill,” (and the rest of the Ten Commandments) from our schools, courthouses, city halls, and other public places.
11) Proclaiming the myth that human nature is basically good and will avoid self-destruction without the continual need for rigid self-discipline, self-improvement, and moral limits and boundaries set by society (and/or our conscience).
12) Embracing the idea of personal entitlement because of our race, nationality, rights, or family; and embracing the concept that we have the right to be angry, combative, and even violent if our perception of entitlement is frustrated or blocked.
13) Our society’s lack of support-group-style community where people feel genuinely loved enough to open up their heart to others and to share their hurts, needs, concerns, love, and insights with one another.
–Do you have any other ideas of what may be contributing to such wickedness?
Posted in abortion, causes of violence, ethics, Franklin regional High School, High school stabbing, Judeo-Christian, killing, mass shootings, meaninglessness, media, media circus, moral foundations, moral laws, moral principles, moral restraints, morality, sex, sex objects, sexually confused, television, Ten Commandments, terrorism, Thou shall not, tolerance, TV | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Making Sense of Noah & The Flood

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Steve Simms
To understand Noah (the man, not the movie) we need to Noah (know a) few things about humanity’s rebellion:
1) The earliest humans (and all the rest of us) decided that we know what is best for us and that we don’t need God to make all our decisions, so to some degree we have all pushed God aside and done our own thing.
2) Our self-imposed alienation from God has released evil into the physical world and into our own hearts, resulting in a continual epidemic of death, decay, destruction, and self-inflicted misery.
3) Like a loving father with a rebellious child, God longs to restore His relationship with us, but we ignore Him, causing our rebellion and unhappiness to grow stronger.
4) We have set ourselves up for ultimate destruction, because without God, there is no continual quality of life.
5) In the midst of the rebellion against Him, God found a man who outwardly did the right things. So God decided to start over with Noah and his family.
6) The story of Noah and the flood shows that even though Noah did the right things, evil was still in his heart. The Noah movie has Noah say something like: “It’s in us The wickedness in them is also in us.”
7) Putting people in a fresh new environment will not save them from their self-inflicted destruction and misery. They need a new heart — an inward transformation.
8) God’s loving, final answer to man’s rebellion was to take the world-wide, all-time consequences of man’s rebellion on Himself through the voluntary and sacrificial death of Emmanuel–God with us.
9) Today, the living, resurrected Jesus Christ, continues to heal people’s rebellion by transforming their hearts and restoring them to an intimate, ongoing relationship to Him. Yet, Christ’s offer is often ignored or trifled with. Have you received a transformed heart from Jesus to the point that you find even the thought of doing wrong to be painful? His freedom from self-destruction is available to you. (Contact us and we’ll be happy to help you connect with Him.)

 

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St. Francis Practiced Participatory Church

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Steve Simms
A 14th Century book about St. Francis of Assisi describes participatory church.  According to the book The Little Flowers of St. Francis, Francis was meeting with a group of his followers and told one of them “to open his mouth and say about God whatever the Holy Spirit suggested to him.” The man “uttered marvelous words under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
Then Francis told “another to speak similarly about God according to the grace which the Holy Spirit gave him. And he obeyed and was speaking very profoundly about the Lord by the grace of God.”
Francis told “a third to say something without preparation in praise of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this third one, following the example of the others and humbly obeying, likewise began to speak so profoundly about the hidden mysteries of the Divinity that there was no doubt the Holy Spirit was speaking through him and the others.

The book goes on and says that the men were  “one after another speaking sweetly about God and spreading the perfume of divine grace.”  And participatory church is still powerful in the 21st Century.  Experience it for yourself at The Salvation Army Berry Street in Nashville, TN, where regular people “say something without preparation in praise of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Check it out on Sunday mornings at 10:45, 225 Berry St., 37207.
Read more about participatory church in my book Beyond Church: An Invitation To Experience The Lost Word Of The Bible–Ekklesia.

 

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