GOING FULL CIRCLE

It seems to me that the church is going full circle. You remember in the New Testament Church they met daily in the temple and from house to house for food, fellowship, prayer and teaching. It seems to me as I study church history, when the church stops listening out comes a new wave of the Holy Spirit and a new expression of the church.

After the New Testament Church was hijacked by the Roman Catholic Church and went into utter darkness and at times was worse than the world, God in his grace gave us the reformation which began the break from the RCC. This was followed by a few mores breaks that brought about the evangelical church.

When they stopped listening to God, he showered us with the Pentecostal reformation at the turn of the 20th century. Instead of letting this movement become fossilised, God introduced the “charismatic to the mainline churches in the 60s. What was known as the third wave followed this with a new emphasis on the supernatural.

Now it seems as though the church has stopped listening again, as it would rather repeat what it knows as opposed to reaching out in faith to what it doesn’t know and becoming dependant on God for everything.

The majority of the churches in the western world have become a monument to the past and refuses to address the present and the future. There seems to be a mentality of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

The problem is, the modern day church is well and truly broke. It has become irrelevant to most people. It attracts about 10% of the population in any one town at the most. Even serious and mature believers have ditched it as irrelevant. In most churches Sunday morning has become a spectator sport with a few professionals performing for the rest of the spectators.

Despite all this, we are seeing churches ignore the facts and insisting on their fantasies that we are doing all right. Is God pleased? I doubt it as has started a new wave which is generally bypassing the man made church (happens every time).

I went to a conference recently and found out that all over the world “church in the home” is growing at a rate of knots. With what has happened and is happening we are talking about a million of them operating. More are being added daily.

From where I am standing, the most successful church of all time was the New Testament Church. They started with over 3,000 new converts on day one and in approximately 25 years, has evangelised the known world with the good news of the gospel. You can’t get much better than that.

I would hazard at a guess that as Jesus said he would build his church (he did not ask us to do it) he is going to do it as he has done it…in the New Testament and that means from house to house, not cathedral to cathedral.

There is no doubt that Satan has a stranglehold on society. The church has allowed him free reign, if for no other reason we have abandoned society and retreated into our spiritual caves with the main purpose of keeping everyone happy. Meeting in homes is the most logical thing to do as it means we are moving out into satan’s territory. With prayer and commitment we can and we will take back the streets for God. But only if that is where we do our spiritual warfare against principalities and powers.

This new move of God back into the homes may be the last if it reflects his church of the New Testament, his teaching from the New Testament and his way of life shown in the New Testament. If that is the case I say “bring it on.” Who wants second best when God can and will give us the best, as long as we do things his way, not our way.