Updates and questions and thoughts

Updating our home meetings ---

We have met weekly with between 3 on the low end (including my wife and me as 2!!) to 9 on the high end. This past weekend was particularly encouraging as a couple for whom I've been praying attended. She professes Christ but is raw and unshepherded; he has mental illness and substance abuse issues but is a gentle fellow with whom I've prayed on the phone.

As I've shared here before on this topic, we stepped into this effort with a heart for the lost and particularly the rural, poor lost in our community and who are overlooked by all the churches where we live. In my own thoughts and prayers, I've asked the Lord for just one or two to start a beachhead of discipleship with. We have NOT sought people from our local church: for one, our heart is aimed toward the folks in our little town and county and we belong to a church in a nearby larger town in a different county, and two, we do not want to be thought of as competing with or drawing people from our local church into something that honestly comes from a heart and vision that has some disagreement with our own local church. We want to be loyal but unconstrained, unconstrained but loyal.

I say that to say this -- this week, a small flood of people from our local church walked up to us, unsolicited, and said, "I hear you're having a Bible study at your house. We want to come." Now, y'all, I don't really know what to do with that except say in a subdued manner, "Please do as you wish, we welcome you." While that is exciting from an activity standpoint, I also realize that it could be a derailing distraction. So, I'm asking you to pray for us about that. We're not building a church and it has never been our intention. We belong to a church. But, no one is reaching the people who we're moved to reach, and our local-but-in-a-different-town church is not going to do it because, at least in part, our pastor is not going to "compete" with his buddy pastor of the denomination's church in our town by doing something in "his backyard" --- even if his buddy is not doing anything. But, we are not bound by that. We are doing what we have been called and led to do. Hopefully, you can see that this is a bit of a dilemma at least in terms of us knowing what to do about it. What we've decided to do is say, "Whosoever will, let him come, and we'll love and share and walk in the Way together" and leave it at that.

Then, yesterday, a lady who I know (and who works in the kitchen at the convenience store where the wife of the couple who came last week) approached me yesterday and said, "I heard about your bible study. I think I might come." I invited her enthusiastically. If this woman would come to Jesus -- just, wow! She's a hoot to know, very coarse but also loveable. It'd be a real praise party in my soul if she comes to Christ.

So, if everyone who committed to be there this week or who mentioned it actually shows up, we could have 20 people in our garage this week.

In the hubbub of all that possibility, though, I came to a realization about something and I ask for your advice and prayer.

The husband in the couple I mentioned --- he's not a good reader. And, as he and I talked privately on a couple of occasions, I decided to put some resources into his hands but it involves reading. Now, the guy is disabled and has lots of free time. It isn't that he physically could not commit to some things that I've talked about with him. But, I'm not going to pretend that he's going to become Mr. Literate either. Not now. Not ever. And, it dawned on me -- following some demographic research I had done a few weeks ago about our county and poverty and education and church attendance -- that if our hearts are really being moved by God to reach to rural poor folks in our neck of the woods, fact is that a large chunk of them are not going to be active readers. A substantial portion may be functionally illiterate.

How do you reach and disciple people who won't read the Bible? How do you overcome illiteracy or "less literacy" or whatever and bridge people from life outside Christ to life in Christ and in growth in Christ?

Because, I'll be frank -- my guy is not going to pick up a bible and start reading. If he did, he wouldn't grasp it. And, when you're already in your 40s or 50s, it is a bit insulting to have some white-collar guy who acts all nice but maybe thinks he's better than you are to say, in effect, "Jesus loves you, now learn to read you reprobate illiterate." I mean, that's what it must come across to him as being and nothing could be further from true. And, it would be really easy for him to just check out.

Thinking through all that, and having an undergraduate degree in communications that I don't use, a light came on in me. We are biased in sharing the faith toward literacy and "literateness". And, it is a good bias --- God preserved His Word for us in writing, after all. But, in moving the gospel to the lost, literate people are not the bulk of the people we are burdened to reach. It has to be that missionaries abroad with foreign unreached people groups (and, I've shared here before that I consider the rural poor in the Southern US to be an unreached people group) encounter this. Tribal people are not always literate and their "literature" is spoken. What do you do?

Well, it turns out that I'm not the first one to ask this. Others have asked it specifically about -- get this -- rural, small town people. I discovered a group called Rural Small Town Advocates, and I think they are mainly Lutheran, but from the folks in it I've viewed online this group is at least serious about evangelism and being born again, etc. But, there are other mission groups with a variety of names that have for several years now pursued an interest in what they call "storying the bible" or orally transmitting the bible through spoken word stories of biblical accounts. Now, that is fraught with risk -- let's admit that up front and deal with it -- of error and manipulation and worse. But, their historical rationale makes sense -- Jesus spoke to people who had no bibles of their own (indeed, it would've been odd for many of the folks Jesus reached to have owned a scroll, for example, of Psalms). They were largely a mix of literate and illiterate. And, we don't see Jesus' method of teaching being so much exposition of written words as oral teaching through stories.

I'm not wholly comfortable with the idea, and I've seen very little online to convince me yet that this is an up and coming thing to do. So, the "dangers" of it, real as they are, may be easy to overstate since this is not a wholesale movement at the time. But, we cannot run away from basic historical truth about HOW Jesus taught, and that was spoken teaching; the disciples followed suit, a la Peter, Paul, Apollos.

If anyone else cares to follow behind me and do your own investigation into this oral storytelling of the Bible as a means of transmitting the gospel and discipling new believers, I invite you and urge you to do it.

Seriously seeking prayers on all this. Thanks.

I think of the awesome scene from the movie Amistad when the slaves on the ship came to an understanding of the gospel by looking at the pictures in a Bible.

Will the man you are talking about listen to the Bible on CD or some other format?

He might, TMK. I haven't tried yet with him on that, although I did do that with another fellow once who truly could not read. I may give that another whirl here.

yea dolfan ,pray to god for passion and clear speech and start to voice record you reading the bible ,and give out particular recorded verse as the spirit leads ,this is also good for any babes in Christ ,literate or not

Hello bro Dolfan,
I just wanted to check in and ask about your house fellowship.
How is it with you all and the Lord?
Peace to you and yours...

You asked, and thanks.

The meetings are steady. You know, my wife and I are in our mid and late 40s. We really never thought we'd be the second youngest people involved, but we are. One couple is in their late 30s/early 40s, and then we jump over my wife and me to the 60s and 70s. An energetic 60s and 70s, I will add. Wise and sharp, too.

We have some growing pains of a sort. We are working through some issues that I never wanted us to work through, but they pertain to our local church fellowship. More than half of the folks in the meeting are part of that church, one couple is not but was until last year and still has deep relational roots there, and the youngest couple has no links at all but that they attended for a short while and were our personal friends way beforehand.

So, we need prayer about our local church too.

Peace? Not so much. Been in a real spiritual battle for 3 weeks now. Maybe 4. Feels like the toughest one ever. I'm a little wearied, a lot frustrated, and even more bewildered. Prayer-wise, I have hit what seems to be a wall. I feel alone in my spirit, but know I'm not so I don't yield a lot of emotion to that feeling. I'm confessing all I know to confess, and turning from it as I encounter it. I'm somewhat mad about things in our local church and in a wonder as to how people do not see what we see.

As I've been vocal with some in our church about the need for seriousness in personal life about the things of God, we've also been pushed away. For example, in February, my pastor emailed me and gave this glowing language about how my wife and I were unlike anyone he'd ever pastored, how we "get it" more than anyone he ever knew. He invited me to lunch, told me that anything I wanted to do in the church was wide open to me if I wanted it, and he asked me what I thought was the spiritual problem in church and when I told him the truth about it (prayerfully and very politely and with good humor) -- and cited the Hebrides revival as an example of the kind of prayerfulness we need to do and be -- he smirked, wiped his mouth, called for the check and we left. I didn't, wasn't going to, and won't ask for "anything I want" (what he was alluding to was me seeking licensure in the denomination OR any leadership role I wanted within the church). What I want is Jesus. What I want for our church is revival. Since that lunch, half of my SS class have bailed (his "good buddies" in the church).

I am probably going to resign as part of the "deacon board" (so called by the pastor) this week. I shared with another of our board, and who is my close brother and who comes to our Sat night meetings, that (due to a laundry list of things that even he agreed with me on) I could not say that I support the pastor any longer and because of that, I would probably resign. Pastor may be a lot of things, but what he isn't is a glutton for punishment -- and I'm going to be trouble if I stay on. That's just where it is, and it wouldn't be right for me to be trouble.

With that, I figure -- common sense -- that us just withdrawing membership is not far behind, although it hurts my heart to say so. The church is spiritually and biblically a mess but financially doing quite well thanks to good tithers/givers who also live like the world and have the pastor's prosperity in their own pockets. I look around at all the various churches closer to home, and they are just as bad off, and I don't know what to do, honestly.

I have an 11 year old daughter who needs a godly example at home and church, and with this current divide, that's not easy. We are doing the New City Catechism as a family, which is really helpful and good. I recommend it. Yet, I'm still in that frame of mind that she needs to connect with other Christian youth under the shepherding of a biblically faithful youth pastor; that does not exist where we currently are in church and do not know if it ever will. The children's church director (which my daughter is aging out of that in a couple of months anyway) just recently started forcing all the kids into an altar service, which when we found out about it we've said, "Nope, not doing that." The pastor is just happy to have somebody doing the job and they could probably cut the head off a chicken back there and he wouldn't intervene. (Just kidding on that. Some.)

I'm feeling really beaten up. But, I'm not believing what I feel, if that makes sense. I've known this (stuff at church) was going to happen at a point, and the timing isn't even unexpected. Things will probably circumstantially deteriorate further, to be honest.

I would go into how the "influential" women in our church have consigned my wife to ISIS status, but I won't go into all that except to say my wife doesn't suffer fools at all and she didn't kowtow to their foolishness either.

All this ties into a post I made some time ago called "What's Wrong With Pentecost". If you're interested enough, you can read it here.

https://someonehastosay.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/whats-wrong-with-pentecost/

So, yes, please keep us in prayer. Lots of decisions on the verge of being made and a real need to not make any without the Lord leading the way.

Tim:

I had never read your blog post, but there are some things in it that REALLY resonate with me. I grew up under the feet of the men and women who knew Parham, and my early days were filled with preaching on holiness and repentance. Parham saw some excess of the flesh in worship and reacted by going the other direction. I was taught that to clap your hands in church was a fleshly demonstration and was not proper. Though I know that is an error in the other ditch, I have watched as the American church has adopted a self-seeking, pragmatic approach to God and has wandered far from the course.

Like you and your wife, my wife and I wandered for some time in search of what we knew was supposed to be true. We joined a fellowship that was genuinely being used by God. We saw repentance, we saw miraculous healings, we saw the gifts of the Spirit in manifestation, and to a certain degree the things we had always heard of as we were growing up. But there was a fly in the ointment. The leadership became more and more enthralled by IHOP KC and began to turn what God was doing into a local IHOP. It was their dream. Along with this came a blindness and a false prophet. God warned us as well as many others who had hearts to truly seek His will about what was happening, and a year after we left the work finally collapsed, just as God had shown us it would.

My wife and I cried bitter tears and were used of God in a home meeting for two years in which several people who were hurt by the collapse of this work to help bring restoration to wounded saints.

In the course of time we became involved in a small work meeting in a church building that is much smaller than the average American garage. I can tell you that there is a hunger for true Pentecost. Interestingly enough, the work is only three or four generations removed from Parham's work in our area. People are truly being born again, their lives are being radically changed, and repentance, holiness, and a hunger for God are evident in great measure. I will be praying for your work. God is faithful and He will not fail to reward you as you diligently seek Him and His will. Pray for us also. We are beginning to grow and can no longer fit into the space we have. With building there is always the danger of losing focus.

Blessings brother.

My brother,
I don't know how to say this properly and trust Jesus will help me. May He grant you eyes to see and ears to hear.
I believe what you are currently experiencing is part of the tearing and rending that happens when the called out ones begin to desire to leave babylon. Its not fun and its not pretty.

Jesus knows how to connect those whom He desires to save but babylon will not willingly give up its [un]willing captives.

May the Lord strengthen you for the days ahead. May His presence become more real to you by the day. May He grant you wisdom and discernment, that you may know what to do and how to do it/then. May His will be done in and through you, amen.

Stay tuned .....

Tim wrote:
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How do you overcome illiteracy or "less literacy" or whatever and bridge people from life outside Christ to life in Christ and in growth in Christ?
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Don't know I have the answer to this question but will share a couple things I do know.

One: my SIL has told us how a man in their church was illiterate and with prayer he gained the skill to read. Not sure if he could read anything other then the WORD - has been many years since I heard this.

Two: I had in my SS class at church a boy who was severe dyslexic. He would scoot down low in his seat, hide behind his SS book. I learned he had a reading disability and felt truly sorry for him. His body language told me he was embarrassed and wished he could hide and he did the best he could in the circumstances he was in. I decided this calls for me to think outside the box and that I had to alter my teaching method so he would take an interest and not be embarrassed. I wanted his SS class experience to be a pleasant and a learning one.

What I did was whenever he was there no one read from the book, we did not do any of the exercises therein, either. I told the story and we discussed its lesson. It worked well. When he was not present we read from the book. How did he respond? When I told the story, making eye contact, using gestures, retelling it in modern day English he sat up and listened - no more slouching down in his chair.

I don't know if there is anything here that may spark an insight to your situation but did want to to share how I handled a similar situation in my Sunday School Class.

God bless.

Sandra