Much of Frank Viola’s book is concerned with taking particular teachings related to the question ‘Who is your covering?’ and presenting an argument against those teachings. In his section on denominational covering, he makes the point that “When a denominational headquarters is infected by false teaching, every church connected with it falls into that same falsehood and the heresy becomes widespread”, contrasting this with what he claims is the intended “autonomous nature of every church“. I’m not convinced that his argument is entirely correct; individual pastors do not automatically accept new teaching or policies from the denominational headquarters, and supposedly autonomous house churches are linked by relationship, which is also a potential method for heresy to spread. However, I do believe that a looser relational link is more likely to resist heresy than a hierarchical structure.
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Month: September 2005
Much to read
I’ve got a lot to read! I’m still working on ‘Who is your covering?’, haven’t touched ‘Getting things done’ since the second week here – that’s a book I need to work through at home – and picked up three hot books at the conference:
- George Barna’s ‘Revolution‘
- Felicity Dale’s ‘An army of ordinary people‘ and
- Michael Frost’s and Alan Hirsch’s ‘The shaping of things to come‘.
It looks like I have my work cut out for the next few weeks!
A surprise visit
Back in Peyton, I woke up to a rather grey-looking day. Mike, Chris and I had a great conversation about some of the issues which came up at the conference, and what touched us. While we were speaking, Reinhold called unexpectedly. We met him for lunch, together with a friend of his living in Colorado Springs who is interested in simple church.
Afterwards, Reinhold crashed on Mike’s sofa, because he’s still suffering from jetlag.
Celebrate liberty, not independence
I’m now back in Peyton after the house2house conference. It was a good time, connecting with friends from last year and meeting new people, including Mark, Jan, Tony, and Johnathan Campbell. Perhaps the most significant part of the conference was the fact that none of the main sessions were concerned with house church! The message was very much that it’s not about the house; it’s all about God, and what he wants to do in and through us. We need to pay attention to our character, and listen to the Holy Spirit and how he is guiding us.
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Strong impressions
A day of strong impressions, hearing about the Holy Spirit moving, and experiencing it myself.
Today was a day of strong impressions. Even at breakfast this morning, God was at work in people. In the morning session, Thom Black, who worked with George Barna on “Revolution”, told about some significant events in his life, which were originally negative but which God turned to the positive. That was followed by workshops; I chose ‘Intimacy with the Father’, because it is a topic which I’ve been dealing with in the past weeks. I didn’t hear anything new, but it was a good refresher.
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Getting reconnected
I met up with Larry, Bruce, Christiane & Pete and even Reinhold, who surprised me this morning – I had no idea he would be here. I had dinner last night with Christiane & Pete, catching up with their situation in Connecticut, which is not easy. Priska wanted to swing on my arm as we walked to the restaurant. That was hard work; she’s getting a bit big for that now. I can remember liking that sort of thing as a kid, though, so I held out as long as I could 🙂
Arrived at the conference
So, we’ve arrived in Denver. I was wrong about the view; it’s better this year:
We’ve had the first network leaders’ meeting; I have met up with Wolfgang, John White, and a number of other interesting guys, including Eddie, who works for Novartis and is regularly in Basel, and an English/German couple who live in Bedford and know my home town well! There’s still no sign of the Burkhards or any of the other people I hoped to meet again.
We’re off to see the wiz…
Er, wrong film. We’re off to Denver today, for the national house church conference. For the next few days, my morning photo may look more like this
than this
.I know which one I prefer 🙂 , but I’m looking forward to the conference. I hope to connect with people I know, including the Burkhards, friends of ours who emigrated to the US last year, as well as Dan, Larry, Bruce, and perhaps even Tony, who surprised us last year.
Der Herr, euer Gott, schafft euch Ruhe und gibt euch dieses Land Josua 1.3
Welch eine Verheissung: Wohlstand und Frieden. Das ist doch genau was wir wollen. Gott gibt dieses Versprechen seinem Bundesvolk durch Josua. Nach 40 Jahren Wüstenwanderung. Nachdem die Vorväter begraben worden sind, welche nicht geglaubt hatten, löst Gott sein Versprechen ein. Auch im Hebräerbrief wird von einer Ruhe gesprochen, in die wir eingehen sollen. Und es wird davor gewarnt, diese Ruhe durch Unglaube, der sich in Ungehorsam ausdrückt, nicht zu verlieren. Unglaube und Unghorsam kann man hier als Synonyme verwenden. Jemand der nicht glaubt, gehorcht auch nicht der göttlichen Eingebung. Gott verheisst seinem Bundesvolk Ruhe und Land. Aber die kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen, die nach der Landeinahme Israels erfolgten, sind ein Indiz dafür, dass Israel nie in diese Ruhe gekommen ist. Auch hat Israel nie das Land vollständig in Besitz genommen. Immer wieder wurden sie von anderen Völkern besetzt . Welche Ruhe und welches Land sollen wir denn im Neuen Bund einnehmen?
Continue reading “Der Herr, euer Gott, schafft euch Ruhe und gibt euch dieses Land Josua 1.3”