New Book: Finding Organic Church

So tonight I started a new book, a book that inspires me down to the core bone of my being. These kinds of books I crave, and I don’t know how. The kind that inspires you and encourages you to be the person God has called you to be. I love to read books with a lot of controversy, especially books controversial within the Christian Community… I don’t believe this one will be, it is just a book full of truths about what the Church should look like, a Church that is from the New Testament, but “organic”, raw, back to the original.

Here is what Frank Viola means by “Organic Church” as it is explained in the book: 

By organic church, I mean a church that is born out of spiritual life instead of being constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grassroots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meetings (as opposed to pastor-to-pew services), nonhierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functioning Leader and Head of the gathering.

As he continues, he states: 

By contrast, whenever we sin-scarred mortals try to create a church the same way we would start a business, we are defying the organic nature of church life. An organic church is one that is naturally produced when a group of people has encountered Jesus Christ in reality (external ecclesiastical props being unnecessary) and the DNA of the church is free to work without hindrance. It’s the difference between standing in front of a fan and standing outdoors on a windy day.

To summarize, an organic church is not a theater with a script. It’s a lifestyle – an authentic journey with the Lord Jesus and His disciples.

The different between organic churches and nonorganic churches is the difference between General Motors and a vegetable garden. One is founded by humans, the other is birthed by God. One is artificial, the other is living.

For this reason, church planters are like farmers and midwives. 

I am so exited to read the rest of the book. By what I have already read, I recommend highly to read this book, contemplate the words written, and ask God to enlighten you further. I will discuss my thoughts more on this later, when I read more. I’ll let you know what I agree with and what I don’t, and I hope you will respond and let me know what you think.

Peace.

The Insignificant in West Virginia

Recently, I have had no time to blog, from work at Chick-fila (40 hours a week), to editing videos and creating blogs for missionaries (which has taken me a total of 40 or more hours to finish — more to come…), to SO MUCH going on with the family and my sister, Lauren, moving to Cleveland, OH… It has been an overload, and I haven’t been able to share it with you lovely people as much as I have wished. So this post is not about all of that, but rather about some really cool things that will be happening in the next few months and a guy I talked to today that is going to be taking me around the rough parts of town here in Charleston. 

His name is Shawn McMullen, and he has been practically everywhere. From living house to house with foster parents, to living on the streets of New York City to Charleston and Huntington, WV since the age of 16, to being in and out of Juvi he has seen a lot. He has an amazing story to tell, and today he asked if I would document it. Not only that, but he is going to show me all throughout Charleston and Huntington, where he lived on the streets, slept, ate, did drugs, and where the homeless children sleep at night. Yes, there are homeless children in WV, right in our backyard my friends who live here. We just haven’t seen them because they have been hidden from society; truly the insignificant ones of this world. I will be documenting it all and telling these peoples story. 

What am I going to do with it? Well, what do you do with all kinds of footage of people in need right in your backyard? You spread it around anywhere you can and where people will listen. 

My plan is to take it into as many churches, community centers, and homes as possible. Let them see the need first hand that they can take that hand and reach out the door of the Four Walls to touch it in the face. People have no idea what is going on, even right here in Charleston, WV. There is a lot of need, and because of growing up here and knowing so many people, and having no idea myself this was going on, I have to do something about it. I feel an obligation. 

 

It might be a small city, an insignificant city, but it is a needy city.

Come and join me on this journey.

Stephen

God’s will, God’s desire, for the Church and me.

Through all my time of blogging, I still don’t know how to start off a blog post. I sit here for I don’t know how long, trying to figure out a way to start it, but I never seem to start it out the way I envision it, how I dream for it to come out. Language is such a hard thing to grasp. 

But that is not what I intended to talk about at this point. This is…

I wish that I could grasp a picture of me falling off the side of a cliff, just suddenly falling, with all the peace a man can have, and just disappear off the cliff. Because that is what I am feel happening. I am falling off a cliff in my heart. 

My brother and I were talking a few moments ago, sitting outside smoking a cigarette [some of the best conversations come from times outside smoking...], and he just poured himself out to me, speaking my mind in every way. 

In life, me and my brother, and the people around me, even the Church, has made idols in life. Whether it be music, missions, religion, smoking, etc… And I’ve come to the realization that God is looking for someone, for the Church, to not love anything else more than we love Him. Not our family, not our closest friends, not an child in Colombia, or any other person or thing in the world. He desires for us to love Him above all. 

And lately, I have found myself loving other things more than Him. And I am broken. 

I know His desires for me, His love for me, His complete and perfect will for me, but things and people keep me from loving Him and His will more.

My desires are different than His, and that should never be. I should love Him above them all. 

But at the same time, I feel I am being double minded, knowing that I love His desires so much more, but the difference is I have kept doing things that are not His desires or His wills, such as addictions to this or that. That is not His desire, it is not His will. 

 

For so long, I have bashed the “church”, and some of it I believe to be right criticism. But in reality, I have abandoned the established church, the place where so many people can and have found the Lord and are still more dedicated to Christ than ever. 

I have this desire, and it goes against my mind, it seems, my logic. But it is not against God’s will. 

God desires for the Church to be a place where people can have community and find love and find God in a new way. And why have I for so long abandoned this reality? 

I desire so much to be apart of the Church [the people], and they are right in front of me; they are right before my eyes, yet I have not seen them. 

Yes, there are things I don’t agree with, things I am critical towards, that I wish were not there, but why abandon it and not try to fix it through God’s strength. 

There are broken people everywhere, and God desires to save them. And why not build up the Church in order to release them to bring those people to Christ. I don’t have a reason why not, and I feel I should, but maybe I shouln’t…

And that is where I have come. If there was a reason, I would know it. Maybe?

But there isn’t at this time, and so why not join back, establish myself and have a commitment to a Church body within the whole Body. 

There are so many things that are possible, and we don’t have to get rid of a building or an establishment in order to bring change. Change is right before our eyes, we just have to grasp it, put color into the shades of black and white, and bring it back to life. 

That is my desire, God’s desire. 

And so, I have come to this place where I know I am supposed to get involved with God in the Body of Christ, in order to bring others to the realization of Jesus, and encourage change within the Body.

So I am going to work out some things… Keep me in your prayers, friends :)

thank you,

Stephen