A Kingdom

A Kingdom, A People & A River

An Appeal For House Church Planters

Upcoming National House Church Conferences

Dear Friends,

Take special note of the information on the upcoming National House Church Conferences! Also, as a matter of house keeping, we have added two audio files to the website under House Church Resources. One is a short message by John Wimber on what it means to be a supernatural church. Great stuff, even if it is 25 years old - Wimber at his best! The second is an addtion to our School of 5-Fold Ministry material. It's a message by Graham Cooke on how the Prophetic relates to and interacts with the other 5-fold gifts. It complements the other material we've already included in the School of 5-Fold Ministry.

Blessings,

Maurice

An Appeal For House Church Planters

For the past couple of weeks I have shared about an upcoming neighborhood outreach that we are planning for the end of this month. You can view the event as our planning comes together by going to: www.spokaneblessingnetwork.org/West_Central_Coalition.htm. I have also shared what I see as the "harsh reality," namely, that all the latest books on house church (or simple church, or organic church, or campus church, etc.) have been read & digested, and all the latest house church conferences have been attended, at the end of it all there remains one brutal truth. If the house church movement does not become an outreach-oriented movement that actively, prayerfully and creatively seeks the transformation of neighborhoods, then we will perish as a movement . . . and rightfully so. We cannot and will not survive as a "Honey, I shrunk the Church" movement (I stole that from John White in Denver!) that simply reproduces what we have traditionally known as "church" on a smaller scale behind the four walls of a house. There is much talk today about 24/7 houses of prayer and how they compare to the early Moravians. There is a lesson here for the house church movement. Like the rearly Moravians our house churches need to become centers of prayer and fasting where we spend time praying, fasting, seeking and listening to God. But the Moravians then sent out an impressive number of missionaries/evangelists, people like Peter Bohler who befriended John Wesley and became instrumental in his eventual conversion. To me this speaks of concerted prayer COMBINED with intentional outreach. If we as a house church movement do not become outreach oriented we will die. Simple as that.

Now it's time to put "shoe leather" to these statements. One of my goals through this summer neighborhood outreach is to see the planting of several house churches in the West Central neighborhood of Spokane. One of our next steps is to begin meetng in the neighborhood, praying and asking God to begin raising up "households of peace" which will become what we are calling "Safe Houses of Hope & Prayer" (see Module 4 of the equipping workbook). I have arranged with the pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church (located on Boone in West Central) for us to use a room in the church every Thursday evening at 6:00 PM as a "staging area" for outreach. Our plan is to meet, spend time praying and discussing together, and then to go door-to-door prayer-walking, handing out flyers for the Block Party and talking with people about "Safe Houses of Hope & Prayer" (we have flyers for this too).

This is your invitation to join us

If you have a desire to plant house churches and reach neighborhoods, then this meeting is for you.

We need people who are serious about prayer walking, being Luke 10:2 Christians, connecting with people and planting Safe Houses of Hope & Prayer (Yep, Module 5 of our Equipping Workbook)
We need house church intercessors to join us in prayer-walking the neighborhood.
We need house church believers who are willing to set aside one day each week between now and the end of July to fast and pray for the event

Are you ready to begin taking the Kingdom of God into the neighborhood? Are you and your house church ready to go net-fishing with Jesus? You can let me know via REPLY, call me at 509-475-8797, or simply show up at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2705 West Boone in Spokane at 6:00 PM this Thursday. Hope to see you then.

Upcoming National House Church Conference(s)

If you haven't yet made plans to attend one of the two upcoming National House Church Conferences, well, what are you waiting for! Our friends at House2House are sponsoring two National House Church Conferences this year, one in St. Louis (August 25-27) and the other in Denver (September 1-4). My wife & I are planning for both St. Louis & Denver - as God provides. I have been invited to do breakout workshops at both. Here are my workshop descriptions as I sent them to House2House:

Workshop# 1: "You Wanna Do What?!: House Church Outreach That Touches Your Neighborhood and Reaches Your City" - This workshop presents actual house church outreaches which have been conducted in Spokane, Washington (see Module 5 of our new equipping workbook) by people no more "gifted" at outreach than you and the people in your house church. No "box thinking" here. Only a burning desire to see God move powerfully by using an "army of ordinary people" like you and me.

Workshop # 2: "Of Hobbits, Heroes & Spiritual Leadership: 5-Fold House Church Leadership Lessons That Frodo Taught Me" - Forget whatever you thought you knew about 5-fold ministry, and come join Frodo, Sam, Aragorn and the gang from Middle Earth on an exploration of 5-fold leadership lessons from 1 Corinthians Chapter 4 (and o' yes, Henry the Vth makes a brief but inspiring appearance too) and how they apply to your house church leadership experience.

You can get all of the conference details on the House2House website at www.house2house.com. Register Now & I hope to see you there!

A friend on our e-mail list recently asked me what Gale & I need in order to go to these conferences. Answer: a miracle! But on the practical level our needs look soemthing like this:

$500 - Gas (we're planning to drive - cheaper than 2 air-fares)

$1000 - food and lodging (less if we are able to line up people to stay with enroute, etc)

$500 - conference registration fees for both conferences

$500 - a lap top computer to be able to work on the road and run my powerpoint & video presentation.

If you would like to help out, use your REPLY key & send me a note. Like I said, what we need is a "small miracle." But our great God is certainly able!

Order Our House Church Equipping Workbook On-Line

O.K., it took us long enough but we now have a link & order form for our house church equipping workbook posted on our website home page (http://www.parousianetwork.org/Revised_materials_order_form.htm). Needless to say we, our banana boat captain and his small-third-world-country-sized-family would greatly appreciate your ordering a copy (NOW - get a move on!). You can also order it now on the House2House website (www.house2house.com).

A Gathering Of Angels . . . And A Time To Dance (this Friday evening, July 14)

You are cordially invited to come and join us as we seek God together. Our goal is to worship, pray and press in to God’s Presence. Whether or not angels attend our next meeting is beyond our control. This is the pursuit of God in the company of friends who are learning to dance with God and with each other . . . and occasionally with angels. Please consider this your invitation to join us this Friday evening, July 14, 7:00PM at the home of the Shipley’s (Call if you need directions – 926-7743).