Coffee Community

Source: Frank Viola on Present Testimony Ministry

Running the Cart Over the Horse

So is God going to restore “the five-fold ministry”? To my mind, that’s the wrong question. It’s pushing the cart before the horse. The ascension gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4 are gifted people that God gives to the body of Christ as gifts.They are the natural outgrowth and by-product of organic church life.

All in all, there are twenty gifts mentioned in the New Testament.  If a group of believers gathers around Jesus Christ alone (rather than a doctrine, a theological system, or a ritual) —and they are void of a clergy system— —then that group will eventually produce all the gifts and gifted ones that exist within the body of Christ.

It’s no mistake that Paul uses the human physical body as an apt metaphor to describe the way the body of Christ functions. When a baby girl is born, most of her physical capabilities are not present. She can’t ride a bicycle, add and subtract numbers, or eat with a fork and knife.

I am a trained Strengths Based Life Coach, if you want more information about Strengths see Strengths Finder in the Main Menu

If you want me to help you as a Life Coach (in Pretoria South Africa) please feel free to contact me my e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Peace

Charl 

Source: Frank Viola on Present Testimony Ministry

Undoubtedly, some who have read this book are wondering: “Frank, do you believe in ‘the five-fold ministry’? And do you believe God is restoring ‘the five-fold ministry’ mentioned in Ephesians Chapter 4?” In this appendix, I would like to answer that question.

First off, my answer is largely hinged on what one means by “the five-fold ministry.” In other words, what “five-fold ministry” are we talking about? Are we talking about the two-hundred-year old doctrine of the restoration of “the five-fold ministry?” Or are we talking about the ascension gifts that Paul had in mind when he penned Ephesians 4:9–16?

The Making of a Doctrine

In nineteenth-century England, Christians were ripe to embrace apocalyptic prophecies about the coming Millennial Age. The upheaval that the French Revolution produced left God’s people wishing for a reign of peace that would set all things right.

In the year 1824, Edward Irving, a Presbyterian pastor in Scotland, began teaching that “the five-fold ministry” of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers had disappeared from the church and were in need of restoration. According to Irving, the restoration of these ministries would usher in the Millennial Kingdom of Christ on the earth.

This was first posted by Jason Duncan I love it and wanted to share with you.

Peace

charl

Let's Clarify Some Terms

I just got back from a conference put on by CMA Resources (Church Multiplication Associates). It was hosted by a church in Southaven, MS called CrossLife. It was a good conference and a lot of good information was presented. The biggest "applicable" concept I took away from the whole weekend was a simple phrase spoken by one of the presenters during the first session:

"Bad terminology leads to bad theology."

This is so very true. For years many in the church have used terms incorrectly. These misnomers have led us to hold to unbiblical beliefs about major concepts. When we are corrected in our misuse of these terms we may say that its no big deal, but it is! What we believe about these terms will ultimately lead us to actions that line up with our beliefs. If our beliefs about these terms are wrong, guess what our actions will be?

Let's look at a few terms and decide to use them correctly from now on:

HOLY FRUSTRATION - by Floyd McClung

After several years of deepening frustration with how I was doing church, I went to a spiritual father to ask for some counsel. I told him I wanted to do church differently, maybe even to plant a church, but the organization I worked with would not allow me to. He laughed and told me God had given me a “holy frustration” to get me ready for change.

I was ready for change. It was 1980, and I was leading a street ministry reaching dropouts and runaways in Amsterdam. That “holy frustration” with the way we were doing church caused me to question everything that was branded church.

I was taught we should not start new churches, and so we sent our converts to local churches. We were putting our spiritual sons and daughters up for adoption without their consent. The institutional churches didn’t know what to do with them, and the kids didn’t want to join the institutional churches anyway. We lost many of them.

Through my experience of “holy frustration” with the church, I was led to ask two simple questions, perhaps the most important questions I have ever asked God: “What is church?” and “What is Your purpose for the church?”

 May be this one is not so easy?  Read it.  Think about it?  Look at the link.  Read again.  Pray about it.  Start to give. "For me, it brought about freedom from lifeless obligation and catapulted me into a joyful lifestyle of extravagant giving." Matthew

Peace,

Charl 

The Tithe is Illegal 

by Gary Amirault 

When I say “illegal,” I certainly do not mean from the government’s point of view. The American federal government has been extremely generous in allowing religious organizations almost free hands in their money raising endeavors, even to the point of giving them many kinds of tax advantages. By illegal, I mean that God never authorized Christian leaders to take a tithe from God’s people. 

The Networking of Groups by Neil Cole

 This was first posted on April 11th, 2008 on www.cmaresources.org 

The Networking of Groups by Neil Cole

The created world has natural boundaries held in place by gravity. The oceans are held in place by the shores. The atmosphere is contained by the weight of earth’s gravity. Gravity keeps the solar system contained in orbit around the sun. In a similar way people have natural boundaries in the way that we function best. We are pulled into social groupings of certain sizes by a spiritual gravity inherent with the function of the group.

Jesus, too, consciously stayed in the boundaries of social gravity. Jesus invested most in an inner circle made up of Peter, James, and John, while he lived with a spiritual family of the 12 disciples. He personally trained and deployed the 70. When he ascended into heaven, he left behind 120 disciples. While these groupings were the main focus of his life and ministry in order of priority, he also healed, taught, and fed the multitudes, while appearing to more than 500 followers at the same time after his resurrection.

My “church-family” from the past

The last week or so I had the time to rethink my old “church-family” from Jeffreys Bay.  I was on holiday with my family in J-bay.  We stayed with my parents.  It was wonderful to visit them after 3 years.

The more I talked to people about the church as an institution versus the church as organic the more I came to the conclusion that there is only two options.  One is institution and the other is organic.  I a person loves the church as institution it is difficult for them to change.   Is it wrong to love the organic way of church?  I need to say once again that I need four things in my life to help me to grow.

 I must be able to say: “I don’t know”

 I must be able to say: “I have learned the following”

 I must be able to say: “I have made a mistake”

 I must be able to say: “I have changed my opinion”

I loved the church as institution, and that is way I start working in the institution.  I lived in J-bay for a year and was in a wonderful institutional church, I loved the church family the people in the church was good to me, they cared for me.  I had good friends in the church and in the small group.  That was one of the believes of the church that you must belong to a small group, because it is in the small group that real church is happening.  This was back in 1997/1998 that I lived in J-bay.  Not having a income I started to think back to the time that I first committed my life to Jesus.  It was in 1978 in a town call Messina in the old Northern Transvaal, now the town is called Musina and it is in the Limpopo Province.  As a young Christian I wanted to work full-time for God and the only way to do it was to go full-time into ministry.  Well after school on 1987 I didn’t go full-time.  Now back in 1998; I wanted to fulfill this dream.  So I went and talk to my church, my “family”.  I must say some of them was family, there was uncle Org and tannie Betty those two people was my family, they were my “parents” in J-bay.  I talked to them, they blessed me to go, we cried together, that is what family do when some-one is moving.  But my church-leadership didn’t?

I was to in love with the institution to think that it was wrong.  I move on, I will find a new family, a new church.   But I have changed my opinion, I have made a mistake, because of what I have learned, I haven’t got all the answers yet, but one thing that I do know is that this type of family does not work.

Since I moved back to Pretoria after my year in Jeffreys I have tried to keep contact with my “church-family” in J-bay, I have phoned them, I have e-mailed them, but they do not respond to my mail or phone call’s.  My question is, “Is this family?”  In my holiday time in December 2008 I phoned 3 of my old “churched family friends” it was a good and bad experience for me.  I want to share my experience without sounding critical or as someone with hurt.

We love to compare the church with family.  That is fine with me and I love it that way.  I also want to compare it with family.  In my family I am the oldest of three children, two younger sisters (2 and 6 years younger).  We as a household family and bigger family to my mother side are close.  We phone one another on birthdays and other special days.  This is family.  If one suffers all of us suffers, if one family member moves to a differed town we all suffers, if one member is going through a difficult time we all feel it, we pray for one another.  We as a house-hold family does not all life in one town.  But we still stay family.  When we received news about 6-7 years a go that my mother has cancer we as a family felt the pain together.  The same now in November 2008 with my younger sister.  I want to get back to my old former church family in J-bay and my visit.  This church as I said was family  to me.  But things have changed, see I am not part of the family, because the church as institution is locality bounded.  As long as that you are part of the town and the church then you are family.  Not true they say, then the give the example of what Pete said last Sunday.  What did Pete say?  Well he said that the church in Jeffreys will always be his home, his family.  Well I must say it is true to Pete because is planted as daughter church.  See it is still part of the system, still part of the institution.

I wasn’t part of the clergy I was laity, see Pete was clergy.  I am trying to stay to what I want to say, about my visit but so many things keep jumping up will trying to tell a story.  Back to my visit to my one friend, now working “full-time” in the ministry.  He is now one of the pastors of the church.  I start by telling him about my journey, and the move that I want to make from institutional to organic.  This friend of mine still loves the institutional church, he is not ready for organic.  On my example of family, that is must be as in the natural,  my friend didn’t agree 100%.  He said that if the son is leaving the house he must keep contact with the family.  I agree, but the farther must also.  Well my dad is still calling me, and I him.  What I have seen and felt on my on body just shows me that the institutional church will never and can never work as a family in the true meaning of family.  The institution is just to big for it.  Everyone in the institutional church will disagree with me, they will and they have told me that I must find my family where a live.

That is the problem, in the days that we are living, the institutional church want us to belong to them, but we can only belong to them if we believe in there believes.  I think most people want to belong before they belief.

With my visit to my friend he asked me about, my covering, about submission, that is institutional, but is it New Testament?  I think a lot of the things in the church today is not New Testament, but clergy maid.  The church as institution must protect it self, the clergy must do it.  A very good book to get and read is Reimagining Church by Frank Viola.  This book is on my top 10.

I can and want to say a lot more but I don’t always know how to express myself, if you haven’t journey this one, and you love the church as institution, stay there it is much easier than to journey the organic way.

I will keep you posted, one date to keep is October 2009, Frank Viola will visit South Africa, you can e-mail or phone me for more information.

Peace

Charl 

I love the site of Matthew at http://rawreligion.com this is one of his posts and now I am using it.  Thank you Matthew.

This year started with a flash.  May 2009 be a Big year for you full of God’s peace, His love  and joy.

Peace

Charl

Source: Lover or Prostitute? The Question that Changed My Life by David Ryser

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of teaching at a school of ministry. My students were hungry for God, and I was constantly searching for ways to challenge them to fall more in love with Jesus and to become voices for revival in the Church. I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this: Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.

Why I Left The Institutional Church

By Charl de Beer

Why do I feel like leaving the institutional church? But maybe I need to start at the beginning. I think that there are thousands of people that are leaving the institutional church today and they are leaving it for two reasons. They are leaving it because they don’t find what they are looking for, but the other side is that as soon as they left they find Jesus. They are finding Jesus outside of the institutional church. The other group has to leave the institutional church to keep their faith in Christ.

In the words of Reggie McNeal. “A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving the church because they have lost their faith. They are leaving to preserve their faith.”