More notes from Dangerous Story - Wolfgang Simson

I’m an ex-communist and an ex-christian. Today I just follow Jesus.

When I was asked to speak - I thought I was being asked to provide some entertainment for spiritual voyeurs of what God is doing elsewhere and not in your own country. So the format will be:
Some stories
What that means; and
What you should do.

I’ve given up asking god to bless what I do, as it limits God to what I think he can do or wants me to do.

So for a German theologian, I’ve committed theological suicide: I give up my right to understand everything in my brain before I act. I give permission for God to do things through me that I don’t understand or approve of.

Three things we know about Jesus:
He hid the truth. He told stories, parables and mysteries that people didn’t understand.
He was a world champion eater - eating with people was very important to him.
He showed supernatural signs of the kingdom.

1Sam. 1:1-2
There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.
He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.

1Sam. 1:6-7
And because the LORD had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat.

I see a lot of people in the west excited about themselves. They are very happy about their work. Our worst enemy is our own creativity, it makes us unwilling to obey. These people can’t relate to Hannah. We should have a Hannah response. But instead we can look at Peninnah and be envious.

People in the west like the numbers of churches growing in the 2/3 world but question the quality.

In Switzland, last year 60 new churches have been planted, while 40 churches has closed. An overall 2% growth in Christian numbers. It’s 2-1.9% in Germany. 0.3% France. People are saying to God, yes. But to Church, definitely no. US in 10-15 years will face this same thing.

In a Lutheran church - if you sit in the front pew - you can almost believe that there are people sitting behind you. When the pastor says ‘dear church’, a voice replies “you can call me Emma.”

In Europe, if I say I’m not a Christian, I get invited to talk about spiritual growth. When they ask, are you sure? I reply “do I look like one of those christians that turn up to church buildings…”
Instead I say that I follow Jesus. I’m not about bringing people into church, but helping people find out more about Jesus. To bring Jesus to them.

How do you personally operate with your finances? I think it is a spiritual thermometer. Where is your trust? Where is your security? When earlier you took up an offering for the missionary couple to the new agers, I heard a lot of coins being dropped in the bowls. Not being familiar with your currency, I asked what is the largest value of Australian coin? I almost cried when I found out that it was only $2. Of all people, the new agers are spending the most amount on their spiritual growth at the moment.

I had a visiting pastor from Africa, so we organised an African Power night. He began by speaking about African power stories. Then he said “I will prophesise and the first 10 people will get it for free.” He got a word from the Lord for each of those 10, but didn’t tell them that it was from God. Then he said “Now I will reveal the secret of African power - it is Jesus. Not church.”
He then asked who wants to start a relationship with Jesus right not. 300 out of 300 put their hands.
He then explained that church is about having an extended family and supporting each other and can happen in your living room, in your house. He asked who wants to start a house church right now. 35 hands up. Doing ‘church’ is supposed to be simple.

I was in India with my family. And although I drank lots of water, I experienced dehydration. No matter how much I drank, I couldn’t keep it in and drinking more water didn’t seem to work. I ended up in hospital. In there I found out that what I needed was salt not water. I needed salt to assimilate the water.

Everyone wants more water - power, grace, joy - but these things will not change us, unless we have salt, that is the truth.

How do we recover truth?
In the 1700s, a slave owner had 2000-3000 slaves on an island in the Atlantic. The slave owner swore that none of the slaves would ever hear the word of God, and prevented any preachers or missionaries to come onto his island. Two young Arabians who were living in Hamburg, head about this, and sold themselves into a lifetime of slavery and used the proceeds to pay the passage to the island.

I remember sitting in an Egyptian 3P church (that is a church with a pastor, pews and promise). In the 70s, a couple of guys said they wanted to go back to Israel to start a house church and it started to grow. The local rabbi hired some thugs to smash up the church house. God yes, church no. I got to talk to one of those guys later, and found out how it grew so well. Any time he made a muslim convert, he will set up that new muslim convert as a pastor. And he asked those pastors, what would it look like to win people like you? They replied that you need to evangelise to the whole family, not individuals, and to do it in their homes. It is now the fastest growing movement in Israel.

Dangerous stories upset our paradigms and our financial priorities.

In Egypt they have a vision to plant a mosque within walking distance of all. To train for the church of the future. So now in Egypt 4000 churches start each year.

I was with my family in the Philippines, and there was a youth camp on an island at Easter. I was called over at one stage and saw kids catching fish with buckets. There was so much fish that they stopped using the buckets and filled up the boats to the brim. Lots of buckets with overflowing fish. It started because some of the kids got a feeling to use mosquito nets to catch fish, at a time when the fish weren’t supposed to be out, with something that doesn’t really catch fish and with people that weren’t trained to catch fish. If we dare to do the ridiculous, God will do the impossible.

The Church of God explodes, they don’t just grow. It is not through your efforts. Jesus was a spiritual burglar, not a slow friendship evangelist, he broke into their lives.

15 people in a house church is the limit, if it grows beyond that, split the church into two. God is still in control even if you’re not. Can you trust God with that?

In a time where we have a lot of christian anarchy - manipulated by false rulers - there are still rules.
1. We need to rediscover Jesus as the loving emperor. You cannot call Jesus as Lord, if you can’t call ourselves his slaves.
2. We need to rediscover apostolic and prophetic ways - these terms are thrown around foolishly, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
3. After ages of institutional rebellion, we need to rediscover God’s blueprint of ecclestia. Clear laws of spiritual principles that are holy and see God’s fruitfulness and multiplication.
4. Go back to a kingdom economical system, which starts with a question of ownership.
5. The kingdom of God should demonstrates multiplication.

The new era has come. There is a reformation taking place. Are we ready to accept it? Red pill or blue pill?
You can take the red pill. You have the choice.

What should we do?
Pray. Repent.
Don’t behave as we have already modelled the kingdom and achieved our goal. That we are too happy about what we have done. Sometimes I look at the west, there’s seems nothing that can be done to change our course. We have a Christianity that is no threat to our current political, religious and social systems…

We need to go back to Jesus, his book, and obedience and being bondservants.

We should be seeing fruitfulness, multiplication and global impact.

I’m not talking about slavish obedience. Muslims currently have 4 advantages over us:
1. They actually live in extended families.
2. They have a healthy belief in the supernatural
3. They respect older brothers and respect each other. (Hannah’s prayer)
4. They display obedience - individually and corporately.

They are developing spiritual technology that will be necessary to unlock the west if we have the humility to learn from them.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 5:43 pm by phil and is filed under Forge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.