Posted on December 26, 2008 - by Stephen Murray
Where Simple Church can Lead?
I think Michael Foster has some important thoughts to share about the potential dangers inherent in the simple church movement. In our quest for authentic Christian community let’s make sure that we don’t end up with a church that is in fact no church at all.
This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 10:11 pm and is filed under House Church, Household Church, Missional, Simple Church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Stephen Murray
Christian, husband to my beautiful Robin, missional dreamer, pastor, church planter, Arsenal, Sharks and Springbok supporter, surfer (in the real sea), patriotic South African, Capetonian. 
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December 30, 2008
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Thomas said:
Interesting that Foster ends on a note of “Church discipline”. Presumably this is part of the “quest for authentic Christian community”. Mostly, this would seem to be excluded from any notion of such community. I graduated with one of your colleagues. He takes legal action if there’s subversion of his ministry. Any comments?
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January 1, 2009
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Steve said:
Simple church?
Is that the latest theological bandwagon?
Or is it three bandwagons ago and I haven’t caught up yet?
I’m coming to the conclusion that most theological bandwagons are scams to sell books that no one would buy otherwise. But if you create a theological bandwagon with a somewhat mystifying catch phrase, like “simple church” or “emerging church” then people will buy your book just to find out what it’s all about.
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January 1, 2009
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Stephen said:
Steve I don’t think anyone denies that forms of ’simple church’ or house/hold church have existed throughout church history – often because of dictating circumstances such as persecution. But what I think we’re currently seeing in evangelicalism is a deliberate turn towards ’simple church’ models by a number of people disenchanted with the evangelical church models of christendom. In that sense I’m not so sure it’s a theological fad but rather a movement. Most of the people involved in this movement don’t publish and probably never will so I’m not sure that’s really a motive (maybe for a few – there are always one or two in every movement).
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January 4, 2009
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Steve said:
OK, but your post was the first I had ever heard of this movement. I have no idea what it stands for, what it advocates, and why. OK, I can guess that it advocates something simple as opposed to something that it regards as too complex. Is it a reaction against complex church, and if so are there any particular complexities that it is reacting against?
And I’m sometimes not sure where a “movement” ends and a theological fad begins. And often there is quite a lot of overlap.
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January 13, 2009
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Al Theron said:
HOME WORSHIP
C.H. Spurgeon
These first believers were in such a condition
that their homes were holy places. I beg you
to notice this, that they were breaking bread
from house to house, and did eat their food
with gladness and singleness of heart.
They did not think that religion was meant
only for Sundays, and for what men now-a-days
call the ‘House of God’.
Their own houses were houses of God, and their
own meals were mixed and mingled with the
Lord’s Supper. They elevated their meals into diets
for worship. They so consecrated everything with
prayer and praise that all around them was holiness
unto the Lord.
I wish our houses were thus dedicated to the Lord,
so that we worshipped God all the day long, and
made our dwellings temples for the living God.
Does God need a ’special house’?
He who made the heavens and the earth,
does he dwell in temples made with hands?
What crass ignorance is this!
No house beneath the sky is more holy than the
place where a Christian lives, and eats, and drinks,
and sleeps, and praises the Lord in all that he does.
There is no worship more heavenly than that which
is presented by holy families, devoted to his fear.
To sacrifice home worship to public worship
is a most evil course of action.
Morning and evening devotion in a cottage is infinitely
more pleasing in the sight of God than all the cathedral
pomp which delights the carnal eye and ear.
Every truly Christian household is a church, and
as such it is competent for the discharge of any
function of divine worship, whatever it may be.
Are we not all priests? Why do we need to call in
others to make devotion a performance? Let every
man be a priest in his own house.
Are you not all kings if you love the Lord? Then make
your houses palaces of joy and temples of holiness.
One reason why the early church had such a blessing
was because her members had such homes. When
we are like them we shall have “added to the church
daily of the saved.”