Merry Men surround the true king in a simple but joyful celebration.

Ye olde English ballads of Sir Robin of Loxley depict the plight of Jesus People living under the tyranny of The System, whether by design or accident.  In Robin Hood:

1. The true King is surreptitiously deposed by the evil Sherriff of Nottingham.
2. The usurper oppresses the peasants with unbearable taxes and tyrannical rule.
3. Robin of Loxley, a noble yeoman, refuses to be victimized and He gathers “The Merry Men,” a band of outlaws.
4. They “steal from the rich and give to the poor.”
5. They become folk heroes by harassing corrupt church officials and scoffing at the Sherriff’s threats.
6. The Merry Men are difficult to snare because they care little for the material comforts of the Sherriff’s realm.
7. They build a community of Outlaw Love that is a festive and philanthropic life in Sherwood forest.

Jesus People should be Outlaws, as the summer edition of the Zine points out, but this got all confused because somewhere, somehow, Jesus People lost their Outlaw Love.

The Lost Outlaws

Too many Jesus People are afraid of living in the Outlaw World, even though it’s a big blast of freedom, as the Merry Men would testify. Jesus People are living like the poor, ignorant peasants, their souls crushed by the oppressive, daily grind of The System. Jesus People who forget the hostility in the spiritual realm imagine their suffocated spiritual lives are the fate of ignorant and helpless peasants.  Defeated peasants endure by a weekly ration of rather trite, spiritual bliss still allowed once-weekly, but what a poor substitute it is for the continuous joy and freedom of a Jesus Outlaw!

Such hapless victims can be (and should be) helped. Sometimes these poor peasants are simply young and ignorant believers who know little about their standing before the throne of the King of Kings. But even older Outlaws might submit to those superstitious, peasant-fears of lesser, dark powers scuttling around this realm:

Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself…And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. Romans 8:33,38 (NLT)

Some Jesus People who should be Outlaws get super-confused and join law enforcement instead! Their blunder is not vocational (an Outlaw can even be a policeman—and what good fortune  it is to have an infiltrator!), but an Outlaw who forgets the real identity can get pierced in the heart:

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2:15 (NASB)

This is not a warning against distraction, nor punishment from an angry Father.  It means the conflict between God and “the world” (literally,”Kosmos”, or “The System”) is so pronounced, any divided affections become spiritual poison. It is a practical issue, not God’s revenge. Our tender hearts hold a finite emotional capacity, so every ounce that “loves the things of the world” subtracts from “the love of the Father,” by necessity.

Outlaw Love

The greatest confusion lies in two versions of “love” from two different worlds. Both versions of love produce love feelings, but in vastly-different ways, and their effects are polar opposites. One is a noble love, highly significant to others touched by it, and it builds substance–power may be a better word, but it’s too polluted with power-abuse. This substance is given by others to the one who loves. This is the response God’s love elicits, because lives touched and healed by God’s love respond with gratitude . It yields an ocean of love feelings besides gratitude, like loyalty, security and well-being, warmth and safety, deep intimacy, and all these are amplified by the significance people place on someone who authentically loves. In a cold and oppressive kingdom ruled by tyrants, what a treasure it is to meet someone with infectious love!

God’s definition of love results in authentic significance and all the emotions associated with the concept of glory:

They sang in a mighty chorus: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered— to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” Revelation 5:12 (NLT)

To “love the things in the world” also generates love feelings (and powerful!), but useless feelings for “things” and institutions “of this world.” The big jolt from Kosmos-love is a thrill, but actually deceptive, because it actually degrades and diminishes whatever substance (or power) we carry. God calls it lust, even if the whole world calls it love, as the passage goes on to say:

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 1 John 2:16 (NASB)

These jolts of feelings leave the heart empty and lonely because they come and go so quickly, as it explains:

The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2:17 (NASB)

Kosmos-love poisons the joy of freedom by reducing humans to slaves, always starved for jolts of love-feelings. Crack cocaine is insanely-addictive because it delivers strong feelings of love, addicts claim, but when the jolt disappears, the heart is an empty tomb. The obsession with video games or Web-surfing are not caused by evil technologies, but rather the investment of our finite affections spent on short bursts of emotions. A day of video gaming ends in feelings of how useless and draining it was…and no emotions remain for real relationships, beginning with God, where all love begins.

Emotional wars rage in the heart that “loves the world” when vocation consumes “the love of the Father.” When a job becomes a lover, it poisons the heart. Slowly, gradually, worn-out Jesus Outlaws are melded into henchmen for The System. It is an anti-love world system that reduces humans to machines, slaves passing time, producing slaves, and resigned to sub-human life.

Jesus Outlaws and the Outlaw World they build is defined by Outlaw Love, which is so strange, foreign, and nonsensical, it must be opposed by the spiritual powers and principles of this present darkness.

Outlaw Betrayal

But the greatest tragedy of all occurs when Jesus Outlaws are taken hostage by The System through their heart affections. The hostage actually becomes a traitor, and threatens their own kind! They call it the Stockholm syndrome:

The captive sees the perpetrator as showing some degree of kindness. Kindness serves as the cornerstone of Stockholm syndrome; the condition will not develop unless the captor exhibits it in some form toward the hostage. However, captives often misinterpret a lack of abuse as kindness and may develop feelings of appreciation for this perceived benevolence.

Too often Jesus Outlaws held hostage in their hearts become allies and advocates of the Kosmos, their own oppressors! To become a zealot or an architects for The System is a truly a hideous turn for a Jesus Outlaw:

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  James 4:4 (NASB)

Such hostile words! “Adulteresses! Hostility toward God!” They seem over-reactionary today only because Christianity in the Free World no longer breeds Jesus Outlaws.

Everything changes if you were a kid and your parents were suddenly dragged off to the arena and you were sold into slavery. Such a kid would become a devoted Jesus Outlaw. “You adulteresses!”  he would rightfully say to those who betrayed other Outlaws. It is not the cry of bitterness, but utter disbelief that any Jesus Outlaw could drink the venom of The System. Such is the grizzly picture given in Revelation of drinking this venom:

I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that had seven heads and ten horns, and [hateful words] against God were written all over it. The woman wore purple and scarlet clothing and beautiful jewelry made of gold and precious gems and pearls. In her hand she held a gold goblet full of foul sexual abuse and the stench of her own sexual filth.  A mysterious name was written on her forehead: “Babylon the Great, Mother of All Prostitutes and Gross Injustice in the World.” I could see that she was drunk—drunk with the blood of God’s holy people who were witnesses for Jesus. I stared at her in complete amazement. Revelation 17:5-6

When Jesus Outlaws drink out of that “gold goblet” they drink blood and the foul stuff that fuels of The System!

Outlaw Education

In one brief moment, director Ridley Scott unveiled the hostility The System unleashes against Jesus Outlaws. We see a child peering over his mother’s shoulder at Russell Crowe in the movie Gladiator. Moments later, a lion casually begins feasting on the mother and child. It was an historical depiction of the Roman arena when Jesus People were savagely persecuted, and the crowd roared mindlessly. Crowe was a seasoned killer, a veteran warrior, but even he could not bear watching this savagery. Yet somehow these Jesus Outlaws faced death courageously, and no panicked shrieks were heard.

They died with astonishing nobility.

Is it possible that American Christians are growing so naive, they forget the savage hostility swirling around their families? If they could, the spiritual overlords of The System would feed women and children to wild beasts, still today.

Without question Jesus and his followers were serious Outlaws, hounded and persecuted by the police following orders from The Establishment. The historical facts are simply too well-known to ignore any more. Despite 2000 years of censorship and distortions portraying Jesus as a pillar of The System, most people today can see the crude Jesus puppets created by petty monarchs and emperors. (Remarkably, the claimants were often enemy-combatants, and everyone knew at least one side must be lying, but few ever thought perhaps both sides were lying—so Jesus was pro-Roman empire, a Nazi, an imperialist, pro-Britannia, pro-France, and now pro-America, according to the shifting rhetoric of the day!)

Click here to view the embedded video.

We don’t need the historical record to prove Jesus was an Outlaw (although it is a glaring record–and, incredibly, still suppressed and ignored in The System).  The evidence from the Bible alone is so overwhelming, it is astonishing that so many people still can be told it’s a tool of warfare and oppression! Everywhere we read Jesus pronouncing an Outlaw message echoed in the recent Robin Hood movie:

“The laws of this land enslave people to the king, and the king offers nothing in return!” Russell Crowe in Robin Hood

To believe Jesus laid out a blueprint for oppression or persecution is to pitch the historical record of Jesus in the trash. Of course, oppressive regimes did precisely that in order to hijack the “Christianity” name and use it to kill Jesus People who knew better. One famous example should demonstrate the incompatibility between Jesus and oppressive regimes. Consider how he undermines the economic power required by all regimes:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21 (NASB)

What banker in The System would give such advice–unless the banker was actually an outlaw-in-disguise? More common in Institutionalized Christianity are bankers disguised as Jesus Outlaws!

The Disinformation Campaign

Jesus Freaks actually once believed, “do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth!” Old photos with long hair and bell-bottoms are embarrassing when the kids find them, especially if when explaining the old disillusionment with “treasure on earth.” Freaks-and-Harries packed their kids off to Yale and Harvard and preened them for life-in-a-cubical. When the old Outlaws get angry at their kids for apathetic career development, when they stick “treasures in heaven” in a dreamworld, is it difficult to suppress the rising sense of hypocrisy?

Some old Jesus Freaks are long-past suppressing their hypocrisy, and actively engaged in a disinformation campaign against younger generations of Christians. “Disinformation” described how the KGB in the Soviet Union lied about current events in the state-run press. Some old Jesus Freaks are now earning piles of money selling their hypocrisy, like Pop-writer Brian McLaren. He tells Christian kids to dig for “treasures on earth,” and he sneers at the folly of “treasures in heaven.”

When McLaren betrayed the Jesus Freaks because he enjoys much better pay turning Outlaw kids over to the Sheriff of Nottingham. He teaches The System is actually the friend of Jesus Outlaws, where they can make real changes, and where Jesus People belong:

Very often you end up with an anti-institutional bias among people involved in social movements. But then you look at, “What is an institution?” I would like to suggest that an institution is an organization that conserves the gains made by previous social movements…If the social movement succeeds, its gains are carried on by the institutions that currently oppose it. So Dr. King succeeded because President Johnson got some laws passed. Ghandi succeeded when systems and institutions were changed. McLaren, Berkley

Even a Junior or Senior High student knows the teachings of Jesus were not conserved by the Roman Empire, European monarchs, or Institutionalized Christianity. Far from being a force that “conserves the gains,” the historical message of Jesus was pitched by institutions hijacking the name “Christianity”.  Astonishingly, he credits President Johnson for M.L. King’s work, when King actually credited Jesus Christ and had tremendous struggles with Washington!

Dangerous

Their cause was so welcome, their love was so significant, and the oppressed population was so numerous, Roman Emperors were forced to outlaw Jesus People. God’s love is inherently seditious in regimes driven by fear.

To the present day, the most oppressive regimes on earth persecute, torture and kill Jesus Outlaws for no justifiable reason. The System cannot tolerate them! Outlaw Love undermines the dark fears that fuel all regimes, but tyrants dare not reveal their real irritation, so quiet, unreasoning violence elevated Jesus Outlaws to folk-hero status. It is baffling to understand how the Outlaws thrived under persecution—unless one considers the Robin Hood ballads, which evolved in-parallel with the real folk heroes who spread Outlaw Love repeatedly across England. As with Rome, the overlords of Britannia tried and failed to suppress them.

Clint Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in a surprisingly-accurate movie about a Jesus Outlaw who brought courage into a helpless community of peasants. In Pale Rider he played a mysterious “Preacher Man” who arrives at a town oppressed by a powerful landowner. The tyrant immediately recognized the danger of allowing a Jesus Outlaw to infect his realm:

“The Preacher Man is the most dangerous enemy. He brings them faith, and when people get an ounce of this faith, our efforts [to oppress the poor]  won’t be worth a Moose-tit!” Oppressive landowner in Pale Rider (loosely quoted).

Pale Rider is probably the only Hollywood movie where Jesus People are allowed to break the Hollywood mold of useless, crazy Christians.

Where Outlaws Thrive

People who read the Bible and see how Jesus brought freedom to spiritually-oppressed people are drawn into his Outlaw world. For centuries it was clear to Jesus People they were Outlaws. They still work in nooks and crannies, like Outlaws. The beliefs they spread, the communities they build, and the places where they gather are the hallmarks of Jesus Outlaws:

• Their savior was an executed outlaw, who told them to “pick up a cross and follow me…”
• They gathered in catacombs and shabby facilities, caring little for the massive, expensive temples that dominated pagan religions.
• They used secret symbols to identify each other.
• They settled legal matters internally, rather than relying on the courts: “It is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?” 1 Corinthians 6:7 (NASB)
• They historically thrived as an Outlaw movement, but faded away when they joined the lawmakers.

Jesus Outlaws don’t make sense to average citizens, yet they hold an attraction. This is what Paul experienced:

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;
to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?
2 Corinthians 2:15-16 (NASB)

People may not understand why Jesus People are such outlaws, but they detect noble intentions, like “an aroma from life to life”. But oppressors immediately fear Jesus Outlaws, like “an aroma from death to death” (and they know why).

Crackpots who form militia groups and claim to be Jesus Outlaws are fakes, easy to spot: they build cowardly, fear-driven communities resembling terrorist camps. They claim to fight tyranny, but do nothing to help the oppressed. They perpetrate fear like other regimes, not the compassion of Jesus Outlaws. Their leaders are oppressive authoritarians like all the other tyrants embedded in The System. They end up as weak counterfeits because they use unbiblical and defective models.

Jesus Outlaws are successful when they look to the New Testament and follow Jesus, the original Outlaw. The Bible gives detailed blueprints for building a positive, redemptive mission led by courageous and cool folk-heroes:

• 2 Cor. 6:1-10
• 2 Cor. 4:7-12
• Rom. 8:36-37
• Heb. 13:12-14 à 15!!!
• Heb. 12:26-29
• Heb. 11:13-16
• Heb. 10:34-39

Implications

There are two solid questions arising from this introduction and primer into the Outlaw World:

1. Jesus People must decide if it is worthwhile to become Jesus Outlaws.
2. Jesus Outlaws must understand their strategy as outlaws.

These are the questions to be addressed next time.

by Joel Hughes

Yet another report, this one from from the front page of USA today, confirms it:

“Most young adults (18-29) today don’t pray, don’t worship, and don’t read the bible.”

Thom Rainer, who wrote Breakout Churches and is a pollster with LifeWay Christian Resources, says it well:

“the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships.”

These findings are similar to many other reports on the “Youth Exodus Problem,” as described by Christian apologist Frank Turek on his website.

• About three quarters of Christian youth leave the church after high school.
• It means this is a profoundly non-Christian generation, when the loss is added to the never-churched Millenials.

This is old news, but the big question for today is: what is anyone doing about it?

Does the Church Care?

Apparently the church is mostly unconcerned. Go get the (free) e-book Reaching the Campus Tribes, which says the major attempt to reach the 18-22 college-age is spearheaded by parachurch organizations, not churches. College students leave for school and they don’t give money, so churches don’t invest in that age group. Churches typically invest in young families.

But the major parachurch organizations are not going to succeed, for several good reasons:

1. Campus Crusade and Intervarsity are hamstrung by their business model where every worker raises support. To be crass, churches are closing “as quickly as GM dealerships,” as Rainer says, so these college ministries are raising less money.
2. These student ministries are more likely to gather and protect Christian kids than win the lost under such a ministry model. At Kent the parachurch groups have no solid numbers on conversion growth, only vague ideas.
3. Sometimes these college ministries act as an extension of high school youth group, which becomes irrelevant in college.
4. Finally, Christian faculty are non-existent or preoccupied.

That faculty issue is important. The least-Christian group in America today is university professors. A majority have a negative view of evangelical Christianity (53%). In fact, a majority prefer Mormonism and Islam!  If Mormonism is a cult, and if the founder of Islam led his followers in conquest-by-warfare, how is it possible the Christian faith is more disagreeable?  The center of gravity for this group is overtly hostile to Christianity.

What about Christian faculty?

Given the guidance from Campus Crusade and Intervarsity, Christian professors are busy with spiritual disciplines, integrating scholarship with their faith, and more navel-gazing activities unrelated to the real work of evangelism, discipleship, and equipping. The pursuits of personal sanctification and professional enrichment sounds like fiddling while Rome burns.

Christian faculty have no role in campus ministries except as faculty advisers and guest speakers. A wiser strategy would commission members with academic jobs for tent-making missionary vocations! But instead, Christian faculty are left to alternate between self-indulgent and enslaving pursuits, so most are feathering their own nest or workin’ that treadmill like a rat trying to survive an experiment (a common phenomena in my field).

What is left?

Maybe all we have left are the students to rescue university ministries. Improbable as that may sound, it makes a great deal of sense. Without allies and largely abandoned, a people-group must take matters into their own hands.

Students may be the best ones to take control of this situation anyway. When foreign missionaries were forced to leave China, the Chinese Christians were forced underground, and the outlook was bleak. But now there’s 100 million Christians in China. Maybe this is exactly what the doctor ordered for the American campus.

Nobody else is going to do it.

Additional Information

Sourced from: FEBA Forever!

Some pop writers are targeting Millennial-generation Christians with such a harmless concept of “revolution”, it is a wonder anyone is interested.

Watch the video below on “Everything Must Change!” for a classic case of false advertising.  It should be titled, “Nothing Changed” because this popular author imagines “Christian revolution” without the crucifixion or resurrection (primitive stories, he says). The Christianity that remains a Jesus-fool who yaps too much and got himself executed. What drivel.

Students across the country are restless for a revolution with substance, something that matters, but they get slick products like “Everything Must Change” from Emergent Village, Inc. What a rip-off. These guys are slick wordsmiths with timid ideas that change nothing.

Jesus, on the other hand, launched a credible Revolution. He says, “Burn it down!” It looks like this:

…in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. (2 Pet. 3:10)

That’s the Jesus Revolution we all know and love — disestablishment on a universal scale!

He isn’t crazy, because He’s God and He doesn’t destroy anything except to build something so beautiful and breathtaking, he calls it His Kingdom!

Take a moment to study the Jesus Revolution–this is real change, not hot air. It’s brilliant, it topples regimes and despots without armies or big budgets. To study this Revolution means freedom and transformation of the landscape. It delivers, it’s real, and it’s contagious!

The Essential Struggle

Listen to this teaching on-line:

The following scripture reads like a Handbook of Revolution, a road-map for radical Christians:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor . He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives , and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him.. Luke 4:18-19 (NASB)

What Jesus read is called ministry in the Bible, but ministry is so institutionalized today, its biblical definition barely remains. Ministry to the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed sounds like social concern on the surface, like Do-Good Christianity. Most people think ministry means wearing a backward collar and talking in genteel tones. Ministry seems impotent and highly irrelevant in the face of real-world evil, much like using band-aids to patch the rip in the Titanic.

Do-Good Christianity versus the Jesus Revolution: a video about “Peace”
[flashvideo file="http://repo.neoxenos.org/videos/ThePeace_conv.flv" /]

What’s the point of Do-Good Christianity? To be helpful? Consider its weakness:

• Pagan charities do this: they care and they try to help. What is the difference?
• Hospital Churches arise from this definition of ministry. Hospital Churches cannot grow. Today the great cathedrals of Europe designed to hold thousands are now Hospital Churches filled with a few dozen old and dying Christians. (It is better than nothing, but what an impotent model!)
• Christ’s ministry was much broader than a Hospital Ministry. He helped the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed; but he did much, much more!

No, the Jesus Revolution is not so lame, but it is mysterious, and Jesus emphasizes this mystery:

And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him.. Luke 4:20

What is Jesus doing? Quite simply, He is preparing them for a bombshell:

And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  Luke 4:21

Jesus proclaims the advent of the Kingdom of God! What joy this would bring! What promise, what hope, what relief!

But he gets the most amazing reaction:

And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. Luke 4:28-29

Why such a violent reaction? What a strange scenario unfolds in Luke 4:

1. God’s Kingdom comes, empowered by love, to end human suffering.
2. People are enraged by it and reject it violently!

How does #1 cause #2? What an unlikely cause and effect! The verses we skipped make the connection for us:

And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”
And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’ ” And He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown. But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” Luke 4:22-27

Notice they were not upset by his declaration that he was their Messianic hope. This is a terrible misinterpretation of the passage. They were encouraged by such a prospect: “What a good ol’ home-town boy that Jesus is!”

But Jesus said, “No, I’m not your hometown boy at all! I’m more like an Old Testament prophet, never welcomed in his home town!”

He cites Elijah, the most famous Old Testament prophet, who only healed in foreign lands among the despised Gentiles. But at home, in Israel, Elijah struck them with draught! Such renegades are unwelcome in their hometown, and so every time Elijah came back into Israel, the King and Queen groaned.

Here is the full scenario:

1. God’s Kingdom comes, empowered by love, to end human suffering.
2. But first, he expects people to sever their attachment with Home Sweet Home—or no help!
3. It is the heart of Fallen Man to resist the coming of God’s Kingdom, and to embrace their manmade kingdoms, even with violence.

God places only one condition on those who would enter the joy of His Great Work: leave your kingdom!

This passage depicts the struggle between the heart of God and the heart of fallen mankind. It’s not about helping people who need help, per se, but a much broader picture which goes beyond “Do-Good Christianity”:

1. It is the heart of God: He loves His creation, and moves into it, no matter how broken it is. This is foundational for understanding God’s Kingdom, God, His work, and His motivations. It describes what God is doing in this Present Age, and it must be very, very important.
2. It is the heart of Fallen Man to resist God’s Kingdom, even with violence.

To receive God’s healing means to come out and leave Home Sweet Home. It isn’t a cruel demand. It is a necessary precondition, because God’s Kingdom is utterly at odds with human kingdoms.

Here is the essential struggle: God moves, but Fallen Man squats! God’s presence is expressed in great, phenomenal movement, in a great struggle with Counterfeit Kingdoms.

The Necessary Disestablishment

This is why “The New and Living Way” (Hebrews 10:19) stirs so much controversy wherever it goes. God’s Kingdom brings healing, but it necessitates great upheaval.  The promises of God’s Kingdom is accompanied by Disestablishment.

Observe how God manifests Himself: by kindness and severity, by comfort and upheaval.

Behold then the kindness and severity of God! Romans 11:22

Isaiah 40 is a study in this duality. First, He proclaims the kindness of His Kingdom:

“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God. “Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended… Isaiah 40:1-2 (NASB)

God loves His creation, and moves toward it:

A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.  Isaiah 40:3 (NASB)

But now, look! As God’s Kingdom comes, what upheaval comes with it:

“Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley;
Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Isaiah 40:4-5 (NASB)

All the great and powerful kingdoms of man are so very frail and easily-crushed by the eternal rock of God’s Word, he says:

The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:7-8 (NASB)

Our kingdoms are pretty, but so flimsy and trite:

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; Behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust…All the nations are as nothing before Him, They are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless…As for the idol, a craftsman casts it, A goldsmith plates it with gold, And a silversmith fashions chains of silver. He who is too impoverished for such an offering Selects a tree that does not rot; He seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman To prepare an idol that will not totter.
Isaiah 40:19-20

Yet God’s Kingdom is so vast and beyond containment or challenge:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Isaiah 40:21-23

God’s Kingdom is outside of all human kingdoms. These two kingdoms cannot co-exist. They are fundamentally incompatible:

• God’s Kingdom is full of momentum: always forward, towards creation and creating life.
• Human Kingdoms stagnate, by necessity: they are established within clear boundaries that shut out uncertainty. Although some kingdoms may expand their boundaries, they still must erect boundaries around themselves. Kingdom boundaries can only expand until its boundaries collide with another kingdom’s boundaries.
• God’s Kingdom is life: He creates and grows life everywhere He goes.
• Human Kingdoms are systems: organizations, bureaucracies, rules and machines. These are the things we make naturally. All day long we work to make things in exchange for things.
• God’s Kingdom grows by love: a widening network of inter-dependant relationships between loving human beings.
• Human Kingdoms are governed by rules and all our glorious red tape. God calls it “works”, or “the Law”, and it’s a different governing principle.
• God’s Kingdom is built with small seeds stuck deep in the heart (see the sower in Matthew 13).
• Human Kingdoms are built with massive organizations, budgets, plans, and resources (see the parable of the mustard seed in Matthew 13).

Thus, the coming of God’s Kingdom necessitates the uprooting of human kingdoms.  This is the summation of Isaiah 40:

Lift up your eyes on high… Isaiah 40:26 (NASB)

The Living, Growing, Moving Kingdom of God

No matter what condition creation falls into, and no matter how creation moves away from God, He still moves toward it.

Gen. 1 – “In the beginning, the Spirit moves across the face of the deep, filled with the chaos of rebellion…”

• He moves to recreate from the ashes of death and rebellion a world teeming with new life.
• He creates moving things of all sorts…
• He gave humans the authority to create and move (Gen. 1:26f).

The Pentateuch: His throne, the tabernacle, is always moving.

The Prophets: Men “moved by the Holy Spirit” (1 Pet. 2) were brought into the secrets of God and saw the future coming of Jesus Christ.

He stretched out the form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God… Ezekiel 8:3 (NASB)

Re-Creation in the New Testament: it is The Spirit which moves across the surface of the earth.

“The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going;” John 3:8a

He is busy creating a “new humanity.” You can see the Holy Spirit’s presence when you see “the wind blowing,” Jesus says, in the lives of people:

“…So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8b

The Prophets of the New Testament: God pushes and pulls and directs (Acts 13, 15, Macedonian vision).

• He commands movement from His people: “Go! Make disciples…” (Matthew 28:18)
• He spreads fires of freedom and breaks down restrictions: “for where the Spirit is, there is liberty…” (2 Corinthians 3:17)
• He moves into people’s lives (Rev. 3:20).
• The walk of faith is a commitment to move forward, out and beyond the familiar: “we are not of those who shrink back to destruction…” (Heb. 10:1)
• Body Life is a movement of people in and out of your house (Acts 2:42ff).

In Discipleship and Love

Discipleship means growing beyond the current Cell Group and small group of friends.

• Jesus was always moving, and “foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” Was he complaining? Not at all! He was inviting: “Are you ready for this? It’s crazy-fun, the ultimate Rave, all over the place!”
• The first lesson in ministry for his disciples: “Take nothing with you…” (Matthew 10) And how excited they were when they returned!
• Love means moving beyond our tribal barriers: “Love…does not seek its own” 1 Corinthians 13:5.
• It is “the way of Life” (Jeremiah 21:8) and “The New and living way” (Hebrews 10:15).

The History of Immobility

Contrast God’s Kingdom with human kingdoms. Our desire is to stay and die.

• The Tower of Babel: the first example of rebellion against God’s injunction to move out. They clumped instead.
• The Jerusalem Church: they huddled around their home, resisting God’s efforts to reach the Gentiles. When Titus leveled Jerusalem in 70 ad, no doubt they wished they were elsewhere!

Human-controlled kingdoms are defined by clumping:

• Nations (and companies!) are either great or insignificant, and how is this measured? Square mileage, population, wealth, and conquest.
• Church history: the “one, True Church” controlled by Roman Emperors.
• Success lies in claiming land, buildings, members, wealth, resources…

“You say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” Jesus Christ, in Rev. 3:17

Kosmos-values adopted by the church: the Jerusalem church was influenced by its culture, and could not reach beyond their “dividing walls”.

• The first one to realize this was Stephen, whose background as a Hellenistic Jew undoubtedly made it easier for him to see. But Acts 7 is, from beginning to end, a diatribe against the many dividing walls the Jews created: their temple, their land, their people.
• Ironically, the man who killed him was drafted to take his place, and Paul became a great spokesperson for Stephen’s cause: breaking out of the Jewish culture & geography defined Paul’s ministry.
• Peter moved out (finally!) after much prodding, pushing and pulling…

Tear It Down!

This is Revolution, pure and simple: stampeding across the empire, it stirred confusion, it incited a backlash of persecutions and filled the Coliseum with martyrs.

The Revolution tore down the Dividing Walls of human kingdoms and brought freedom to helpless people trapped in the prisons of the Roman Empire.

But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. (Eph. 2:13-14)

By the thousands, they emerged: dazed but elated from dark, social prisons erected by the elite dynasties of the Kosmos. They entered God’s Kingdom where God denounced the sacred rules of the culture. Slave or master, male or female, Greek or Jew, these distinctions were despised by God.

The Movement of Defiance

The Great Mystery of Christ means social defiance: we are the recipients of God’s radical blueprint for Revolution, and it begins in the Heart. God’s Kingdom, the Ekklesia, spread through Revolution prophesied long ago:

“And those who are far off will come and build the temple of the LORD.” – Zech. 6:11

Paul brings these words into the New Testament, talking about the Ekklesia:

“But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” – Eph. 2:11

How does God gather far-flung, divided people? In Zechariah’s prophecy the person is Jesus Christ:

AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR…So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household…” – Eph.2:17-19

Such is the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy – “Those who are far off will come and build the temple of the LORD!”

What a glorious movement it is, and you and I are part of it:

…you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. – Ephesians 2:22

It means God is moving in a direction that Disestablishes our comfortable kingdoms. We get uprooted.

It means movement outside our manmade “Dividing Walls” which are nothing but prison walls. Older Christians who develop the maturity to love and sacrifice will crash through geographical, racial, socio-economic, and political dividing walls.

Observe how rebellious churches grow self-enclosed, complacent, and finally spiritually dense! These are Christians at odds with the leadership of Jesus Christ, living in a crisis of Laodicean proportions:

“You say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” – Jesus Christ, in Rev. 3:17

The Laodiceans were trapped inside their little Dividing Walls of personal peace and affluence, blind to the real world, spiritually impoverished by their materialism. The American Way is built upon the formidable Dividing Walls of social status and material gain, so that far too many Christians identify themselves as Americans and Republicans or Democrats, but not as Christians.

There is no such thing as a Christian Democrat or a Christian Republican. We are all members of a new race of humanity. To die to the old identity rooted in old-world geopolitics was the scandalous outcome of the Jesus Revolution for Gentiles and Jews (far more sharply-divided  in the 1st Century than Republicans and Democrats are today).  So Paul says:

in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace. Ephesians 2:15

This is why God says, “Come out from among them!” He wants us to escape the prisons we know as “my comfort zone.” Until this happens, spiritual growth is lethargic and incomplete.

Disestablishment

Returning now to the original discussion about ministry: the biblical definition of ministry does not resemble the lame vocation called “ministry” in today’s world. Biblical ministry means Revolution, to use a modern term.

With the benefit of hindsight we know the scope of Jesus’ ministry and his later descriptions of it. From Luke 4 he read a list of the victims of the World System who were to be liberated by his Ministry of Revolution:

• The poor are those who “are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) The World System is flooded with spiritual poverty, and Jesus came “to preach the good news” to those “poor in spirit”. For those who know their poverty, “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” So ministry disestablishes the economics of poverty by raising poverty-consciousness and bringing poverty-relief.
• The captives are those “who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2:15; see also 1 John 2:17). The Kosmos runs on the Economy of Death, fueled by the fear of death! Desperate consumers try to purchase their way out of the depressing onset of death! But Jesus brings “good news” and “release to the captives”. Revolution disestablishes the economy of death-fear because Revolution is anti-fear. The fears of legalism are counter-Revolutionary, so legalists either find ministry distasteful or become terribly ineffective at it.
• The blind are those “in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds” of everyone (2 Corinthians 4:4). Revolution is so difficult because the World System steals “that which is known about God,” and that which “is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” (Romans 1:19). But Revolution disestablishes the Economy of Deceit which drives Madison Avenue advertising, and so ministry brings “recovery of sight” for the blind.
• The oppressed are the countless victims of the Economy of Oppression which benefits the rich in the World System. The Jesus Revolution waged war against the powerful and greedy: “I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles” (Matthew 12:18). “The Gentiles” were outsiders to the religious institutions of Israel, “without God and without hope.” (Ephesians 2:12) His Revolution was popular among the oppressed, so the oppressors conspired to kill him.

The Ministry of Revolution is a spiritual war against the Kosmos-Economy with its components of poverty, death, fear, deceit and oppression. The Jesus Revolution brought a whole new economic reality, as Paul says:

He made known to us the mystery of His will…with a view to an economy suitable to the fullness of the times…  Ephesians 1:9-10

Without the component of Disestablishment it is difficult to understand the Ministry of Revolution.

Through Disestablishment we can actually live what Martin Luther King only dreamed about. His famous speech actually came straight out of God’s Word. It was a prophecy given about Jesus, announcing the upcoming Revolution that would bring great Disestablishment:

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
- Martin Luther King, quoting Isaiah 40

The Meeting House in Canada gets it–Jesus Christ came to disestablish religion, not establish it. And even more, he blazed the trails to revolution, as their handout says:

I’ve always considered Christ to be one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of humanity.~ Fidel Castro

Bruxy Cavey

Castro endorsing Christianity!? Imagine visiting this place to be  handed this subversive material!

The Meeting House is a refreshing iconoclast, demonstrated in their take-no-prisoners approach to the Jesus Revolution. Canada boasts less than 5% church attendance, but this group is growing by leaps and bounds.

Listen to Bruxey’s “Jesus Revolution” and then it makes sense…

Listen to the podcast:

Or watch the video:

Dr. Hughes explains what he thinks underlies the “revolution of the heart” that makes the Christian walk — and fellowship — so unique. This is one family’s experience with the rather unique character of Xenos fellowship.

Finding Xenos

I’ll never forget finding Xenos. Kathryn and I moved from Colorado Springs to Columbus in 1996 where Kathryn worked for Focus on the Family in the marketing department. A copy of “The Death of Truth” by Dennis McCallum, senior elder with Xenos, came across her desk. She was intrigued by the book and brought it home for me to read. The book struck a chord with me because of its philosophical bent. It agreed with much I had picked up as an undergraduate student of J. P. Moreland at Biola University. Once we moved to Columbus, despite the 45 minute drive from our apartment in Delaware, OH, we decided to check out Xenos.

The first day we strolled into the warehouse there a band was playing Steely Dan music. I was able to get a donut and coffee to eat during the service. I’d never seen a church with a snack bar! In addition, everyone was dressed like they were about to wash their car! But the best part occurred when Dennis got up to speak. I looked at Kathryn and said “this is our church.”

We were passive pew-sitters for a while but everyone kept talking about “getting incorporated” by checking out a home church. We decided to check out a home church and were referred to a home church in Upper Arlington led by Eric and Vicky Schroer and Anne Blackwell.

Leaving Xenos

Four event-filled years later we had to leave Xenos for Durham, NC. A computerized process had selected North Carolina as the place where I had to serve my one year internship required for my Ph.D. in clinical psychology. It was heart-breaking. We had taken several classes at Xenos and had become increasingly involved in ministry. We were very well-equipped. This church was practicing an ecclesiology that changed our lives – body life, accountability, discipleship. It was an incredible fellowship.

One of the things I could never comprehend was why there were no other churches like Xenos. I couldn’t believe that not everyone in Columbus came to Xenos. I still can’t believe it, but eventually I realized that some people just want a meaningless, institutional church life. They didn’t want to “wallow” in grace and love.

What Happened to Columbus?

After 3 years in Durham, God brought us to Stow, OH and NeoXenos. The story of how God brought us here is amazing but has to wait for another time. Suffice it to say that for months I walked around in a fog, astonished at the feeling of God’s providence in these events. I was fond of saying “it’s like God laid down rails, and so long as I moved forward at all I would end up here…it was the only destination.”

Fast forward 5 years. In the spring of 2008 we attended the Columbus Xenos Servant Team Retreat in Covington Kentucky. Xenos Columbus was struggling with their approach to church growth, and it wasn’t clear what answers were available. But Tom Dixon’s teaching did hold promise (see Keith’s article about Calvary)

Something struck me – maybe it was Tom, or maybe it was hearing about Cavalry Chapel and its success, but it was probably when Keith reminded me of a joke from the previous Servant Team Retreat: “Zona Xenos” we called it, a reference to sending a team of people to plant a new church in Arizona. The impetus was some people’s loathing of the northeastern Ohio climate.

Then it struck me. Why not send teams of people to places that they want to live like North Carolina or Arizona? What an impact Columbus Xenos could make, with 4500 people! Or consider NeoXenos: what could we lose by sendng 10 families or so to plant a Xenos church in a new state? We would immediately have 2 home churches, a youth group, and a CT. Boom! New church plant! I’ve had so many fantasies of planting other Xenos churches.

Solutions

No one outside Ohio has this treasure! I have never found any other church ever that comes close. I’m sure there are good churches out there, but nothing like Xenos. We had really tried in North Carolina with a church that, on paper, espouses Xenos principles. However, the way it played out was just another institution that ground to a halt a year or so after we left.

We were part of that leadership failure, and I learned something – don’t spit into the wind! In other words, you cannot reform an already-existing church. You have to start from scratch with a handful of strong, like-minded people. Start in your living room if that’s what it takes.

One of the things that had struck me at the Servant Team Retreat was the success of Cavalry Chapel in Costa Mesa, CA. They were very successful at reaching the lost by planting church after church after church. But I did find this odd.

I’ve been to Cavalry Chapel, and I have heard Chuck Smith preach. And it was no big deal. It is a boring, institutional, program-driven ecclesiology that is not compelling in the least for rebellious reformed fundies like me. Frankly, I remember very little about my visit to Calvary Chapel. It made almost no impression whatsoever. I’ve also visited about 100 other Southern California churches and they all seemed the same to me. In discussing this with Keith later, he said that Dennis should have landed hard on “planting” in his analysis of Calvary Chapel. Yes! That is the key…Keith was on to something.

It is now a couple of weeks after these revelations and Keith and I have continued to talk. Read these articles for a good eye-opener: Adopting Calvary Part 1/, Adopting Calvary Part 2/, Driscoll Part 1 and Driscoll Part 2.

Some day soon Keith will write about this dream he told me about. The instant I heard it I knew it was prophetic.

A Home Church Planting Movement!

So here’s the thing – we need to “get viral”. Uber-organic. We need to become a church that refuses to grow at one location beyond a certain minimum critical mass. Once we reach enough people to host a good baptism and a class worth driving to, we’ll start sending out church planters.

What plant in nature has the goal of growing huge and fat without sowing any seeds? Every tree, bush, and flower sends thousands of seed scattered by wind, gravity, or animal to start new growth.

How selfish it is for a church to grow to a thousand! Once you have a million dollar building and great children’s programs and a rockin’ band, what’s next? A bowling alley? But this should sound very familiar. This is the mega-church model. They grow to 10,000 or more on purpose! The goal is to build a campus, not merely a building. A campus of buildings with acres of parking creates a self-contained Christian subculture much like the many new “Planned Christian Communities” under construction all over Florida.

This is not the New Testament model of church. This is a scenario which does not depend on Body Life or discipleship, and church discipline is almost impractical with such crowds. Trying to protect themselves from the poison of the Kosmos, the poison of the Kosmos has infected the church instead.

This is when The Gospel starts to become stale, old news that you can’t give away. I see Mega-churches growing into Christian ghettos which probably the influence of “the bad people out there,” so those living inside feel safe from sin. But this is also the climate that grows “pew-sitters” and the “self-feeders” described by Hybels at Willow Creek

Bold Stewardship

What a tragic waste of resources. God commands us to “GO.” You don’t lose anything by sending 100 people a year from these churches to plant new churches.

But by the time the church becomes a self-contained suburb, people won’t go. We’re too lazy and comfortable. We don’t want to go back to sitting on metal folding chairs in the junior high cafeteria, hoping that maybe 50 people might show up. Singing along with the Christian “country-pop lounge band” is very cool (and I once played in a “Gospel Band” myself), but the singing doesn’t win anyone from the world. Likewise, the modern shift to produce “the show” has produced growth from people transferring from other, less-exciting churches. I’ve been there. I call it “Fundy Hell,” and everyone thinks, “Hell no, we won’t go!” (But never out loud, of course.) Well, we simply can’t go there.

The underground house-church movement in China is a much-better model to imitate. We started as a home church planting movement, and we need to go back there—but with a new vision for how it will work. This will require a change in our methods. We’ll stop emphasizing the home church split, and start sending out teams to plant new churches.

Splitting is slow and painful and is not actually modeled or discussed in the Bible anywhere. But sending is mentioned everywhere. We might go “multi-site,” where home churches can teleconference in for CT. (See Why Multi-Site? and Dave Browning – the Road Less-Traveled.)

Indestructible!

Think about it…a church you can’t kill. There is no building. There is no budget. There is no team of paid staff. All you need are 5 like-minded people and someone’s living room (or the dorm lounge!). It would be a church that spreads like a virus – person-to-person – like the flu. The aroma of the Body of Christ would, like the flu, enter every nostril for miles around.

Deacons are appointed to lead home churches. You band together a few home churches, and then you have a CT. You build a CT, and you appoint some elders as overseers of the new local body of Christ. Then you keep moving, and you plant again before you’re comfortable. Sound like the New Testament church?

We would not necessarily raise up local leadership to the point of our current standards for home church leadership. The elders would remain at the center of the hub and ordain so we can still do wedding and baptisms. The NeoXenos senior leadership would still be overseeing the web of churches that have fanned out across the state. NeoXenos would provide needed support, infrastructure, and resources such as leadership training.

Listen to Mark Driscoll. The biblical model of extra-local leadership (e.g., Paul) is explained well. All the home churches are within driving distance, so senior leaders can be called in at any time to deal with problems.

In Xenos it means that CT’s without enough resources are the “multi-sites” for awhile and teleconference along with the main campus CT. Already, big events are staged several times per year (baptisms, summer institutes, FST retreat, DMT retreat, Servant Team Retreat) to bring all the home churches together for mutual support. The home churches close enough to one another to provide mutual support, and the “mother ship” is situated on a major thoroughfare to ease transportation times to classes or other events.

First targets for NeoXenos might be Canton, Youngstown, Wooster, Sandusky. CT at NeoXenos could be on Route 8, so it’s easy to get to from anywhere. In a strange sense, Stow or Cuyahoga Falls is the center of gravity for NE Ohio…best place to commute to for a class, retreat, or conference.

When do we start?

How big do you think NeoXenos needs to be to do this? 500? 300? Actually, no. We can start now. We can plant locally before we move to Canton, Lakewood, Medina, Youngstown, and beyond. We need to notify the home churches that splitting is off the table. Instead, they should expect to lose their leadership to a new plant.

This forces the issue of leadership development and personal sanctification. Those who have been following will now have opportunities to lead, carry on the ministry, serve each other, and reach out to the lost. Sounds like the NT, right?

Leaders can start today by handing off their cell groups to their disciples in order to plan new bush-groups that become home churches. We need to begin by building a strong consensus with smaller teams.

FEBA

The Hughes home church is beginning this right away with a FEBA Team. FEBA stands for “Forward Edge of the Battle Area.” The writers of the New Testament sometimes used such military language, and it’s a helpful way to illustrate the idea of moving forward.

In the military, it is not unusual for special reconnaissance assets to operate significantly forward of FEBA. They often operate deep behind enemy lines, but not always in uniform.

Our DMT is assembling its own FEBA Team to launch a bush group at KSU this fall. The team includes Joel, Kathryn, Dar, Kyle, Kate, and Jeff. There was a delay launching a new college group and ministry house among the incoming freshmen at KSU and UA. Apparently they’re planning to live at home, save money, get hungry, pass classes, and serve in WORD. It will probably grow very unpleasant to remain in a high school group during their first year of college, but we’re building a launchpad by sending our most available workers and leaders into the campus to reach people now.

This “Bush Group” may only be a small beginning, but reinforcements will soon arrive in 1/2009 with Keith and the others. In the meanwhile, let’s leverage our existing opportunities to begin planting yet another home church!

First, however, the leaders of “The Falls Project” (Joel, Dar, and Kat) need to pass along responsibilities to their current cell groups. Our home church plant has come to fruition, since there are plenty of young professionals, couples, and soon-to-be families to sustain home church growth for decades. People are settling down, getting houses and trying to have babies, but we can never lose focus of the need for authentic Body Life and discipleship-ministry. Outreach may become more difficult, but new leaders see new ways to overcome obstacles. Most exciting of all, nobody is consigned to sitting “on the sidelines” as spectators while others get all the exciting spiritual opportunities.Everyone can be a starter.

Foreshadowing

In 20 years, what will NeoXenos be? According to this vision, not a mega-church. The days of trying to grow big are over. Instead we will attain a minimum critical mass and then spread thin across Northeast Ohio and Eastern Pennsylvania. I hope there’ll never be a campus or any such monolithic venue capable of seating 1000s. There might not ever be a building.

But there will be home churches practicing authentic Body Life all around the state. There will be a few baptisms (i.e., new believers) from most home churches every year. There will be a high proportion of ministers in this decentralized church. Everyone gets to play in the game. No one has to ride the bench. And combined, the NeoXenos home churches will add up to thousands, with hundreds of baptisms every year.

Now that’s a home church planting movement.