ColoradoHouseChurch.com

Missions Result From Listening to Jesus

artman81 — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:17:30 +0000

A group of guys from among the many in the relational Colorado House Church Network discussing the idea that mission is a byproduct of listening. The discussion focused in on the idea that everyone has a mission or calling, but that it must be discovered by listening to God and then acting on what He says. Additionally, the myth that foreign missions are superior to those callings lived out on home soil is discussed and the idea that all mission that flows from listening is equal and powerful.

12 Days of Christmas & 1 House Church

artman81 — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:41:13 +0000

A GREAT story/testimony of mission (evangelism) flowing out of daily listening together to God among the members of a house church family. This church family in the Littleton, CO area of Denver explain how they heard the Lord speaking to them to bless a family most of them had never met during Christmastime last month, and the wonderful result! Keep your volume high – parts get a bit quiet.

As Featured 1/16/10 on the Colorado-based Stories From the Revolution blog on Daily Churches of Two (CO2’s).

School On The Way’s Journey Through Genesis

Nick Moseley — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:00:46 +0000

Creation of Adam, Courtesy of Breezy421

Imagine going back in time to when Genesis is written, to a culture and world view that is vastly different from ours. People relating to each other and the world in ways we can barely comprehend. Creation stories about, not so much how it all begins as why it begins, including gods and monsters battling each other. A world of people being so very in tune with what we call nature that they had virtually no sense of our cause/effect mind set. Every thing that is happening relates to God or gods. A world full of mythical beliefs that ancient people held to as firmly as our faith in science is today. Imagine, even for a day, experiencing being part of a world where people value/seek integration and community as fiercely as we fight for autonomy and independence.A world of people being so very in tune with what we call nature that they had virtually no sense of our cause/effect mind set. Every thing that is happening relates to God or gods. A world full of mythical beliefs that ancient people held to as firmly as our faith in science is today. Imagine, even for a day, experiencing being part of a world where people value/seek integration and community as fiercely as we fight for autonomy and independence. As I am getting requests about doing another Genesis journey (third in less than a year), I am in the process of adding a mini exercise of experiencing life in the ancient world.

As Tina and I were fascinated and over taken in Avatar 3D last night I was being taken to another place in my mind. At 20 years of age, living among a group of Stone Age Indians, a group of us experienced a world about as foreign as possible in our times. I enjoy telling about the funny questions they came up with; related to the high flying bird in the sky (jet) that leaves a trail behind him. “Do you have a moon like ours where you live?” For all the entertainment and smiles at their naïveté – there are a lot of things I still can’t shake. Anthropology classes and discussions are never the same. In a similar way I think this extra dimension to the Genesis journey has the potential to take us from our own myopic western way of living into a wonderful mysterious world created by God. It seems to me to be no coincidence that the Celtic way of Christianity – so in tune with creation – saw the amazing fruit that we are seeing in the organic movement of church life that is spreading around the world. This Genesis Trek is more than fun, more than fascinating, it is the root of who we are. For more details on the Genesis Journey (and our newest class “Engaging Beauty”) check out our blog at http://newwinecommunity.blogspot.com/2009/02/back-to-origins-genesis-1-11.html

As of this writting one class is filled. We are open to do another class on either Monday and/or Thursday (or possible a weekend time). Any feedback on a day or time preference will be taken into consideration. In preparation for the trip we are recommending everyone to check out the practice of CO2. This is a practice which everyone on the Genesis course will delve into as we journey together. For more information on CO2’s see http://www.lk10resources.com/practice-2.html once there, check out Read the brochure and for more watch the video.

Thanks for reading,
Jan Cowles
jancowles [at] comcast [dot] net

School on the Way’s Newest Class: Engaging Beauty

desistarr — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:15:21 +0000

Here’s the info on School on the Way’s newest class taught by our own Alex Malaska who is involved in a couple of the Ancient Paths urban house churches where he helps lead a house church in the Globeville neighborhood of Denver’s inner city.

Photo by John-Morgan

To learn more about School on the Way you can click on the link above to go to their blog or check out this video interview we did with Jan Cowles about School on the Way here.

ENGAGING BEAUTY

In today’s world, the average person (including the average American Christian) can easily slip through their life without ever opening their heart to Beauty–and to the life, joy, transcendence, sorrow, intimacy, romance, and pain that Beauty brings. All of us hunger for Beauty, yet few will answer its haunting call. The purpose of this class is to learn to hear that call, to recognize it–wherever it is to be found–and then learn to open vulnerably to that which we desire and fear more than anything, to allow it to transform us forever.

TIME AND PLACE
We will meet for two hours once per week for twelve weeks at Desi and Rose Starr’s house on the northeastern edge of downtown Denver. If you are interested in taking Engaging Beauty, please email me a list of all the times during the week that you would be available to meet (my contact information is below). I will try to find a time that can accommodate everyone’s schedules, if possible. My earnest hope is to begin this class the last week of January or the first week of February.

COST
The cost will be $25 per class (which is $300 for twelve classes). If you are interested in taking this class but would not be able to because of financial reasons, or if you are someone who would like to help subsidize this class for a needy brother or sister, please let me know.

REQUIREMENTS
You will only be required to buy one book for this class, The Healing Path by Dan Allender. It costs about ten dollars plus shipping on Amazon.com. I’ll copy the rest of the readings and place them on Google Documents as PDF files, and you will be able to read them for free or print them off if you want to. The reading for this course should be manageable and engaging, and I will do my best to require only what is necessary, while making additional resources available to those who would find them life giving. Along with the readings, you will be asked to commit to spending at least one hour a week alone with the Romancer, that is, in solitude and contemplative prayer. If this is intimidating to you, don’t worry, we will discuss it in depth during our first class and grow in our understanding of it throughout the course. I promise that by the end of the course you will look forward to spending your hour in silence!

MY END OF THE DEAL
In my adult life, I have probably thought about Beauty and intimacy with God more than I have consciously thought about anything else, and I have suffered much in pursuing Romance and the Romancer. I promise to bring all of my passion and desire to teaching this class on the subject I love most. If you are interested in taking this journey with me, please contact me (Alex Malaska) by phone at 330.402.2216 (yeah that’s 330 not 303) or by email at alexmalaska@gmail.com. And I look forward to seeing God transform our hearts as we engage Beauty together!

Blast 2 the Past-TIME article on Simple Church

artman81 — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:55:10 +0000

“Why Home Churches Are Filling Up” – On a Sunday at their modest, gray ranch house in the Denver suburb of Englewood, Tim and Jeanine Pynes gather with four other Christians for an evening of fellowship, food and faith. Jeanine’s spicy rigatoni precedes a yogurt-and-wafer confection by Ann Moore, none of the food violating the group’s solemn commitment to Weight Watchers.

The participants, who have pooled resources for baby sitting, discuss a planned missionary trip and sing along with a CD by the Christian crossover group Sixpence None the Richer. One of the lyrics, presumably written in Jesus’ voice, runs, “I’m here, I’m closer than your breath/ I’ve conquered even death.” That leads to earnest discussion of a friend’s suicide, which flows into an exercise in which each participant brings something to the table — a personal issue, a faith question — and the group offers talk and prayer. Its members read from the New Testament’s Epistle to the Hebrews, observe a mindful silence and share a hymn.The meeting could be a sidebar gathering of almost any church in the country but for a ceramic vessel of red wine on the dinner table — offered in communion. Because the dinner, it turns out, is no mere Bible study, 12-step meeting or other pendant to Sunday service at a Denver megachurch. It is the service. There is no pastor, choir or sermon — just six believers and Jesus among them, closer than their breath. Or so thinks Jeanine, who two years ago abandoned a large congregation for the burgeoning movement known in evangelical circles as “house churching,” “home churching” or “simple church.” The week she left, she says, “I cried every day.” But the home service flourished, grew to 40 people and then divided into five smaller groups. One participant at the Pyneses’ house, a retired pastor named John White, also attends a conventional church, where he gives classes on how to found, or plant, the house variety. “Church,” he says, “is not just about a meeting.” Jeanine is a passionate convert: “I’d never go back to a traditional church. I love what we’re doing.”

Since the 1990s, the ascendant mode of conservative American faith has been the megachurch. It gathers thousands, or even tens of thousands, for entertaining if sometimes undemanding services amid family-friendly amenities. It is made possible by hundreds of smaller “cell groups” that meet off-nights and provide a humanly scaled framework for scriptural exploration, spiritual mentoring and emotional support. Now, however, some experts look at groups like Jeanine Pynes’ — spreading in parts of Colorado, Southern California, Texas and probably elsewhere — and muse, What if the cell groups decided to lose the mother church?

In the 2005 book Revolution, George Barna, Evangelicalism’s best-known and perhaps most enthusiastic pollster, named simple church as one of several “mini-movements” vacuuming up “millions of believers [who] have stopped going to [standard] church.” In two decades, he wrote, “only about one-third of the population” will rely on conventional congregations. Not everyone buys Barna’s numbers — previous estimates set house churchers at a minuscule 50,000 — but some serious players are intrigued.

The Maclellan Foundation, a major Christian funder based in Chattanooga, Tenn., is backing a three-year project to track Colorado house churching. The Southern Baptist Convention, with more standard-church pew sitters than any other Protestant group, has commissioned its own poll and experimented in planting hundreds of its own house churches. Allan Karr, a professor at the Rocky Mountain campus of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary who is involved in the poll, guesses that three out of 10 churches founded today are simple and that their individual odds for survival are better than those of the other seven. House churches are not known for denominational loyalty. That doesn’t bother Karr, however. “I want the denomination to prevail,” he says, “but I have an agenda that supersedes that: the Kingdom of God at large.”

House churches claim the oldest organizational pedigree in Christianity: the book of Acts records that after Jesus’ death, his Apostles gathered not at the temple but in an “upper room.” House churching has always prospered where resources were scarce or Christianity officially discouraged. In the U.S. its last previous bloom was rooted in the bohemian ethos of the California-bred Jesus People movement of the 1970s. Many of those groups were eventually reabsorbed by larger congregations, and the remnants tend to take a hard line. Frank Viola, a 20-year veteran Florida house churcher and author of Rethinking the Wineskin and other manuals, talks fondly of pilgrims who doctrinairely abjure pastors, sermons or a physical plant; feel that the “modern institutional church does not reflect the early church”; and “don’t believe you are going to see the fullness of Jesus Christ expressed just sitting in a pew listening to one other member of the body of Christ talking for 45 minutes while everyone else is passive.”

More recent arrangements can seem more ad hoc. Tim and Susie Grade moved to Denver a year ago. They had attended cell groups subsidiary to Sunday services but were delighted to learn that their new neighbors Tim and Michelle Fox longed for a house church like the ones they had seen overseas. Now they and seven other twenty- and thirtysomethings mix a fairly formal weekly communion with a laid-back laying on of hands, semiconfessional “sharing” and a guitar sing-along. Says Tim: “We have some people who come from regular churches, and were a little disenfranchised. And people who joined because of friendships, and people who are kind of hurting, kind of searching. My age group and younger are seeking spiritual things that they have not found elsewhere.”

Critics fret that small, pastorless groups can become doctrinally or even socially unmoored. Thom Rainer, a Southern Baptist who has written extensively on church growth, says, “I have no problem with where a church meets, [but] I do think that there are some house churches that, in their desire to move in different directions, have perhaps moved from biblical accountability.” In extreme circumstances home churches dominated by magnetic but unorthodox leaders can shade over the line into cults.

Yet the flexibility of simple churches is a huge plus. They can accommodate the demands of a multi-job worker, convene around the bedside of an ailing member and undertake big initiatives with dispatch, as in the case of a group in the Northwest that reportedly yearned to do social outreach but found that every member had heavy credit-card debt. An austerity campaign yielded a balance with which to help the true poor.

Indeed, house churching in itself can be an economically beneficial proposition. Golden Gate Seminary’s Karr reckons that building and staff consume 75% of a standard church’s budget, with little left for good works. House churches can often dedicate up to 90% of their offerings. Karr notes that traditional church is fine “if you like buildings. But I think the reason house churches are becoming more popular is that their resources are going into something more meaningful.”

Evangelical boosters find revival everywhere. Barna says he sees house churching and practices like home schooling and workplace ministries as part of a “seminal transition that may be akin to a third spiritual awakening in the U.S.” Jeffrey Mahan, academic vice president of Denver’s liberal and institutionally oriented Iliff School of Theology, doesn’t go that far, but he does think the trend is significant. American participation in formal church has risen and fallen throughout history, he notes, and after a prolonged post — World War II upswell, big-building Christianity may be exhaling again in favor of informal arrangements.

If so, he suggests, “I don’t think the denominations need be anxious. They don’t have a franchise on religion. The challenge is for people to talk about what constitutes a full and adequate religious life, to be the church together, not in a denominational sense, but in the broadest sense.” Or as Jesus put it, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I.”

By Rita Healy & David Van Biema – Feb 27, 2006

Poignant Words About the Difficult Journey

artman81 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:00:57 +0000

Hey all, Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!
Below is an excerpt from a letter answering why we we are doing what we do here locally, and this portion talks mostly about where we came from and some of the challenges (the “…” as where things are left out). Hopefully it is encouraging to you to know that many of us share a common experience as we’ve made the transition from Traditional Church to Simple Church. Happy Holidays!!!!
Scott LinklaterLas Vegas, NV

….Simply put: it is what God is
doing and we are participating in it. The
shift towards this type of ministry lifestyle is undeniably happening globally,
as evident by research and testimony. ……

The negative implications of
living out this life have been many, ranging from financial loss to relational
destruction to professional embarrassment to spiritual desert lands, and on. A person who shifts from a traditional
life to a life should expect that same difficulties and trials to varying
degrees. The positive
implications are many as well, ranging from a release from religiosity to
authentic faith to more time with family to significant more time and resource
for outreach, etc…

A major difficulty of this new
lifestyle is that there are very few quantifiable milestones of success. In our former traditional church
lifestyles, there were many regular measuring sticks for whether we were
achieving our goals and we were able to “define a victory” so to speak (i.e.
weekly attendance, financial stability, raised hands, etc…). There is much security in these
measuring sticks, but to a degree they became our “decision stones” and we
would consult these measuring sticks as to what we should and should not do. The local pastor, after consulting
these “decision stones”, would then pass on the decision to the congregates who
would then fall into line with the corporate vision. The fruit from this process is
undeniable and to discount the positive outcomes of this is ignorant. But, God very rarely leaves
well-enough alone, especially when we begin misusing and misinterpreting those
structures (remember, He is not afraid of destroying even that which He
created).

To the pastor that goes through
this shift, it ranges from very difficult to impossible to function normally
and/or make sense of what is happening. In
fact, because of the removal of these constant measuring sticks and personal
praise, the most insecure of us will go down rabbit trails, start businesses,
write books, and seriously question their faith and calling altogether, all in
attempt to regain a sense of purpose. But,
this time in the desert is necessary and God-designed to break the prior
paradigms and destroy thought patterns, so that new things may grow up in their
places.

For the “attendees” that goes
through this shift, it is very confusing at best, and offensive at worst. Formally, the pastor was the figure
head of their faith and gave direction as to vision and helped them relate to
God, both personally and by creating a weekly meeting in which the attendee
engaged and encountered God. In
this new shift, the pastor appears to shirk his former responsibility and
appears to give little to no direction or leadership, and does not provide the
Pope-like example to follow. This
is difficult to process for the attendee because their paradigm of faith and
church was centralized on this meeting and this definition of a pastor – with
out the meeting or this Pastor as they know it, where does that leave their
faith?

This presents a quandary. Does the attendee go back to their
former traditional church life? But,
whenever that person re-engages a traditional church, it just doesn’t seem
right or authentic. There remains
a gap in how this new lifestyle could actually be church, leaving them
wondering if they are disobeying God or even if they are Christians anymore. In fact, they wonder if they are
failing God and the people around them. The
irony is that at this point of humility and doubt they are probably as close to
God as they have ever been, seeking God from a humble place, without the pride
and hindrance of knowing all the answers.

The other major hurdle is the
shift of responsibility for a one’s own faith. The responsibility for a persons faith
shifts to them and them alone – not the former pastor, not the church, not the
dynamic worship. They are
responsible for reading their Bible, and worship, and outreach, and church
multiplication – if they don’t take responsibility for it then it won’t happen. Ironically, for a person who did not
grow up in church, this seems completely natural, and the thought of some
outside person telling what to think, what to do, and how to do it seems very
odd and controlling. To those coming from inside the established church, this control is exactly what we want and what we are used to…in fact, it is what we paid for…because lets face
it: it is easier to pay someone else to be Jesus than to
actually live out the tenants of our faith with passion, purpose, and
responsibility.

After a time of shifting, we
are left feeling like we are in a desert place and very little makes sense –
it’s all very confusing. “Great,
now what do we do? You brought us out here to die.” Read the account of Moses and the
Israelites at the Red Sea and I think you’ll see similar feelings.

Your dreams are either gone, or
very, very difficult to define, sort of like looking through a fog. In fact, because we’ve been so
accustomed to explaining our vision and life to others with an underlying
pride, its frustrating and embarrassing because now it’s vague at best and
really doesn’t make sense (and peoples eyes glaze over because they don’t understand). Quiet persecution and critical
whispers from outside don’t make this transition any easier. You could see “clearly” in your old
life, but now what do we tell other people? How do you answer there criticisms?
What do we tell ourselves about our own lives? What is my life about?

In our prior lives, we had
vision, direction, and we could measure our success. In this new lifestyle, the only
measuring stick of success comes in the quiet times with God. This quiet time was previously created
by someone else, through worship experiences and devotional plans. We no longer have the luxury of these
walls and direction,… we must hear God for ourselves and then follow through on
what we hear.

So, now we’re left looking at a
giant blank canvas, one that previously had a beautiful picture of what we were
to do, what to say, how to act, what success looked like (and we’d ask God to
bless our picture)….and now the picture is now gone, it’s been erased. We’re left with a Bible and no vision
– and that’s it. This is where God would want to lead
us – back to the beginning, stripping away all our pre-conceived ideas of what
God wants, and leaving us with no vision, no direction, nothing really, except
quietly waiting for God – it’s our only option, we have no where else to go.

Now, it is up to us to sit
quietly enough to hear Him speak, and let God be the initiator of any vision
and let Him paint the new picture. It’s
not the responsibility of anybody, including yourself, to build a vision for
your life – it is up to God to build that vision. This may be the single most difficult
thing that we who are shifting from the traditional church could ever endeavor
to do because we no longer have safety nets, no one to blame, no one to claim
as our king other than Jesus. There is nothing between our ears and the voice of the Holy Spirit and no one to dictate our response.

For us to be able to hear, our
lives have been deconstructed. I can attest that once there is an acceptance of
the “stripping away” by God that there is a tremendous freedom and weight
lifted. Embrace the white space –
embrace the lack of vision and allow it to be an opportunity that is divinely
created. As for outside criticisms, …. I encourage you to be secure enough to
answer those questions with a humble “I don’t know the answer to that
question,” and deny the internal pressure to say anything more. Sometimes knowing all the answers doesn’t allow God any space to move and create in our lives…..and sometimes not
knowing opens up the door for God to bring the answer.
(…the letter then continues on talking about some specifics of Las Vegas, hearing God, and then acting on what we here locally…the whole thing is posted at: http://cells-twelves.blogspot.com/)

This article is used with permission from Scott and was originally posted at the link above.

Report from the Denver Network All-City Meeting

artman81 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:56:15 +0000

Denver Network Meeting 11/13/09

Meeting took place at Denver Seminary with about 25 people. After pizza (thanks, Susan!) we broke up into three regional groups – west, north and east. We checked in with each other (SASHET) in our groups and then spent time listening to the Lord. “What do You want to say to us about Denver?” After the listening time, each person shared what they had heard. As they shared, a picture began to emerge like the pieces of a puzzle coming together. The following is a compilation of what we heard. Perhaps this is a sort of prophetic message about Denver. Please weigh this (question, add to, change, etc.).

Comment: No one came to the Meeting with an agenda for Denver. The agenda (or picture) emerged out of a group of people connecting with each other on the heart level and out of listening to the Lord together.

The unifying picture was of the city of Denver covered with beautiful flowers. The picture and the flowers were marked by being very fresh, crisp and clear.

Currently the seeds for those flowers are under the ground but they are beginning to pop up. A few at first but then more with increasing regularity. Like popcorn beginning to pop. The seeds will multiply 30, 60 and 100 fold. Small and simple but result in viral multiplication.

The sense was that the flowers were not just house churches but regional networks of house churches. That tonight as we break into three groups for the first time is just the beginning of the multiplication of these groups. The day will come when there will be groups like this all over the city.

Some of the regional networks (flowers): Golden, Thornton, Commerce City, Aurora, Parker, Centennial, Arvada, Wheatfield, Highlands Ranch, Five Points, University Park, Littleton, Englewood, Glendale, etc.

Next step.

The day will also come when this room (at the Seminary) will be filled at the quarterly meeting of the entire Denver Network. Remember this night when there are only a few of us.

Pay close attention to your DNA. What you are now will be multiplied 30, 60 and 100 fold. Two primary aspects of the DNA…

1. Transparency.

2. Listen and obey.

　

Other things that were shared…

1. CO2s are proving to be a foundational form of church. Transformation is occurring through them. They form the basis for house church. They are multiplying (Noah – 10 pairs, Russ – 5-6 pairs). The Denver CO2 “virus” has spread to India (Hugh).

2. Several people led to begin prayer walking their neighborhood.

3. Regional networks can bring unity to Denver. Don’t be afraid to partner with traditional churches.

4. We are seeing the multiplication of starfish-like groups (Book: The Starfish and the Spider)

5. God is excited to be with us. (If He used SASHET with us, what would He say?)

6. God wants to start a church in the DTC (Sean). Prayed for a person of peace.

7. What else?

Sean had a strong exhortation to us about this. See his notes. Genuine honest heart level sharing. SASHET as a spiritual discipline to help with this. Each regional group (North – Hobby, East – Sean, West – Nick) will plan to meet monthly for the next two months (Dec and Jan). Quarterly meeting in Feb (Susan).

Our Own Desi Starr in Relevant Magazine

artman81 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:09:41 +0000

Mile-high Denver, Colorado, is home to the Broncos, the Nuggets, and a stunning Rocky Mountain view. But there’s another part of Denver. The one colored by the 20% poverty rate. Just north of downtown Denver, sits a pocket of poor, urban neighborhoods outfitted with some homes barely suitable for habitation. This is where Desi Starr, a native Californian, lives, plays and works.

Starr and his wife moved to this area of Denver in 2003 to plant a large, missional church with friends. They quickly discovered God had a slightly different plan. What soon developed was a network of simple, organic house churches. They found that adapting their own model to fit the needs of their neighbors actually spread the hope of Jesus much more quickly and more effectively.

“I was pretty skeptical as I had preconceived ideas of house churches as small groups of disgruntled people who were angry at the church and were hiding away from the big, bad world,” he says. “But as I started reading some material on what house churches can be, I became intrigued about the possibilities of seeing multiplication really take place in ways that I’ve never seen in the traditional church.” In these settings, all people are active participants, bringing something to share. Starr is one of several who are leading the way for the organic movement in Colorado. He was recently featured in a short documentary, “Simple Church”, along with other organic-church planters among the southwestern states.

Last year the Starr’s, along with their community, befriended a particular family through a park outreach. This family was resistant to the gospel, but were drawn to this intentional community of people. Not long after, the father of the family faced criminal charges from his past and was jailed. While there, someone gave him a book on prayer. It encouraged him and he surrendered his life to Christ. Later, when his charges were dropped, he returned to his family and led them in a new direction—straight to God. Today they are hosting an simple church in their home with a focus on reaching others facing addictions and hopelessness. Starr sees this example paralleling the beginnings of the church in Acts. “I am anticipating God using ordinary people more and more all the time to reach their own spheres of influence,” he says. “I want to help empower people to hear the voice of God and simply obey, knowing that they have all that they need to live out the calling God has placed on them.”

Starr regularly meets with other planters in the city hoping to share ideas and collaborate, he facilitates urban outreaches for traveling mission teams, and coaches others on starting their own organic gatherings. In a time where more and more people are craving deep community, Starr believes this expression allows for that family-like authenticity and participation. And most importantly, he says, it creates more room for God to lead because everything is flexible. Nothing is fixed. “I believe that God is raising up an army of lovers to lead a revolution of love,” he says. “A revolution where ordinary people do extraordinary things through the leading of the Holy Spirit as we recognize that no man is the head of the Church only Christ.”

~by our own Kate Cremisino~

(this article which was featured in the latest issue of RELEVANT magazine was written by Kate Cremisino, who helps lead a house church network in the Cheeseman park neighborhood of Denver, and was about Desi who helps lead the Ancient Paths network of house churches in the five points area near downtown Denver also. Desi can be reached at desistarr@gmail.com)

Cremisinos Moving to New Zealand-Need Your Help…

artman81 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:57:53 +0000

Noah + Kate Cremisino, who are part of a metro-denver house church, are moving to New Zealand in January. This Saturday they are hosting an open-house sale + furniture auction from 2pm-5pm. Come on out November 28 to support their move overseas. They will be engaging in house church planting in Christchurch + working with YWAM Oxford. See noahandkate.com/auction09 for details + pass this information along if you know someone interested!

A word of exhortation to my brothers and sisters

artman81 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:58:55 +0000

A word of encouragement and exhortation to my brothers and sisters in the Lord – - delivered at our Denver network monthly gathering - 11/2009

I would like to encourage and exhort my wonderful brothers and sisters in the Lord to continue to listen and obey our Lord Jesus. Listen and obey and make listening and obeying our primary calling, primary purpose, and primary activity in our spiritual walks and in our ministerial efforts in Him.

I would like to remind us that this Denver Network Group is here today because a handful of brothers were sensitive to the drawing of the Holy Spirit. Since the beginning we have made “only doing what we hear the Father telling us to do” the underlying priority and way of operating in this group. Our monthly meetings, our larger gatherings, and our interactions with one another throughout the month, especially in the last year, have been outgrowths of simply staying in tune with Him and obeying. Our website, our prayers for 100 new house churches, and our most recent discussions around multiplying into more intimate Denver network meetings, have all been because we’re working at allowing Him to guide us, step by step.

Let us never forget the picture of healthy churches and church leaders preserved for us so beautifully in the writings of the first century church. Rightly has it been said that the book of the Acts of the Apostles should have more accurately been titled, “The Acts of the Holy Spirit”, for the history of the first generation Christian body is a poignant drama of followers of Jesus listening to and obeying the Spirit of Christ. In Acts 2 and 3, Peter, freshly filled with the Holy Spirit, preached the first gospel message to those at Jerusalem and healed the lame man at the gate of the temple. In chapter 8, the Lord told Philip to travel down a certain road so that Philip would run into an Etheopian ruler on his way back to his homeland and preach Jesus to him. In chapter 9, Jesus revealed himself to Saul of Tarsus, and then spoke to Ananias elsewhere as he was praying and listening, to visit this man and lay hands on him and baptize him. In chapter 10, Peter is listening to Jesus when he heard the lord tell him to go and preach to the first gentile believers. Later in the book, when many teachers and prophets had come together to fast and pray and wait on the Lord, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Release Barnabas and Saul to me for the work I have called them to.” The Spirit was always moving, and the churches and the elders were constantly praying and waiting on the Lord. Let us not forget that Jesus said of those who would follow Him, “My sheep hear my voice and follow me, and I lead them in and out.” Time does not permit me to tell of Noah who listened to God and heard about the flood… of Abraham who listened to the Lord and was told to leave his fathers home and travel to a land the Lord would show him. Of Israel and Moses and Joshua, who all heard God’s voice and obeyed it to the letter. Of Samuel and David – of Daniel and Nehemiah. Let us not forget that the book of Revelation was written when John was in tune to the Spirit one morning, simply listening to Jesus.

Let us not forget why it is of utmost importance that we, in turn, make listening to the Lord and simply obeying, our highest priority and purpose: because Christ is the head of the church – the King, the President, the Alpha Male. He is the head, the brain – and we are simply the hands and feet. He promised that He would build His church, not us. He has so much needing doing and knows exactly where, when, and how He is going to accomplish it… but He often lacks those willing, trusting, and patient enough to listen to what the Spirit is saying to do, and then do it, without question or reserve.

Listen and obey. My sheep hear my voice. As we go, let us remember that God does not just speak when we are listening quietly with a journal in front of us (although I highly recommend learning the 4 keys to listening prayer and practicing it daily – this practice has been fundamental for me in learning how to hear God’s voice) – but let us remember that God speaks in many ways and at different times. He speaks through books, through dreams and visions, speaks to us through one another… but at least one key is consistent when it comes to God speaking: He speaks to the inner man – to the deepest part of us – to the intuition, where we’re not sure how, but we just somehow know it was Him. We understand God’s will with the mind, and execute God’s will with our effort, but we hear(discern) His will in that still, small place in our spirits. Are we listening closely enough to hear Him?

Let us listen to him daily and personally. Let us listen to Him in pairs. Let us listen to Him as church families. Let us listen to Him as fellow elders in a certain area of town. Let us listen and obey, because it is to this simple task that we are called. We can save ourselves months of heartache, years of frustration, and decades of misdirection if we will only stop and wait to discern His will and gain His marching orders before we set out on the next steps of the journey. He will make His will known if we will only seek and wait on Him. Oh, and one more thing: it is our divine duty and highest calling to not only listen, but obey – wholeheartedly, with all our might, with all our understanding, and with all our efforts and resources, being doers of the word and not hearers only. When He asks us to do a certain thing, let us not do it halfheartedly, or drag our feet on it, but let us employ every gift and resource at our disposal to get it done, and do it well, as good and trustworthy stewards.

Has God spoken to you something? Has He given you some direction, or some vision? Has he asked you to do something? If He has, then I charge you to act on it. This is not an option, for He will not speak to us something new if we have not yet acted on what He told us to do last. Not sure if it was Him who spoke? Then spend time praying about it to discern if indeed it was Him or not. Once His will is known, we must execute it with all we have.

-by Sean h