15 people giving $50 p/w = $750 p/w. 15 people giving $100 p/w = $1500 p/w. Find a group of people across the socioeconomic spectrum who would give, at a minimum, $50 each week, every week, would be pretty rare, imo.

Jeremy Halcrow - 21 February 2008 12:46 PM

.. is this like a network of house churches… where the ‘pastors’ are laity not in the formal Anglican stipend system but have an ordained ‘overseer’?

The Crowded House is essentially a network of house churches

What does a ‘house church’ actually consist of? What do they do? Glorified bible study? Something else?

$50 each week, every week, would be pretty rare, imo.

were almost averaging that I think - prevously at a church one bible study group of middle income people covered 80% of a stipend.

Luke Stevens - 21 February 2008 02:21 PM

What does a ‘house church’ actually consist of? What do they do? Glorified bible study? Something else?

Glorified - God-willing, yes!

Haha :P

What’s the TCH model here? Given that there should be members that are genuinely financially struggling if you are reaching a cross-section of people, are they reliant on a core of reasonably well off and generous lay members? Or are they genuinely ‘communitarian’?

Di in answer to your question - yes it is the bible fellowship idea-in part - that is - the bible fellowships were a break up of the much large matthias congregations I believe, yet the bible fellwoships were still seen in some sense less than the main sunday meeting (like larger bible studies wiht a stonger pastoral care and community element)

Jeremy
I think their model is trying to emphasise practically that everyone is exerxing gospel ministry. In one sense they seem to be reacting against what might be seen as a new preisthood- the priesthood of all bible teachers and professional pastors.

That said they seem committed to everyone seeing themselves as ministers or servants of the gospel. The very language of our ordinaces and common church culture doesn’t reflect this at all. In fact it seems to militate against it.

sure - for some this will be expressed in their employment - like Steve Timmis-who functions as an overseers/elder/pastor but not all their elders are paid staffers or full time paid staffers.
they don’t deny that leadership is important - in fact that want to see a plurality of leaders facilitating ministry.

they seem serious about abolishing the laity in this sense !

in answer to your question, it seems to be a genuinely comunitarian approach where the church and its members organise the whole of their life, including jobs houses, etc to faciltiate effective ministry by all.

it is classic that we immediately jump to how do we pay for it by the way.
is this an indication that we are stuck in a 50 people $70k paradigm. This has massive ramifications for starting new churches if we do - our paradigm and structures will strangulate gospel growth and planting.

another one of the things I appreciate about this book (though I have my own set of questions) is that -despite its at times reactionary flavour - it is keen to work from 1st principles - something that our more market driven pragmatists find peculiar.

What are “1st principles” in this context? And what/who are “market driven pragmatists”? Goodness, are we talking about church or public policy?

with respect , try answering your own question - what do you thnk it might be?

Sorry Shane, I honestly have no idea, hence the question/s.

Goodness, are we talking about church or public policy?

Hi again Luke
I would say church without trying to be facetious.

by 1st principles I mean a willingness to think outside the present paradigm and ask questions of our ecclesiology and missiology and challenge them from the scriptures and the models we can discern from early Christianity (if they are discernable!)

what I was insinuating from “market driven pragmatism” is those who are less willing to question the present paradigm of attractional principles that emanate from the seeker sensitive megachurch movement and tend to dominate the scene. It seeks to increase its share of the church market by relentless pursuing of what works - and what gets more bums on seats.  It is not all unprinciples beer and strippers kinda stuff - but you will will need to read back in connect wiht Community blog (where this started) for more on that.

my point

unless we are prepared to radically question our present paradigms of how we do church, how we structure for growth and what it means to connect with community we may strangulate gospel growth and church planting.
one of the refreshing things about Total Church - which I encourage you to read and come to the conference on April 8 - is that it helps us to think afresh about our mode of mission.

Even if we test the model and then adopt another, I posit we will probably be missionally, ecclesiolgicailly and pragmatically better for it.

I trust his makes sense..

Shane, can you give us some more details on this Total Church conference? I’m interested in coming, yet can’t seem to get any info at all!

Thanks Tom

Steve Timmis will be speaking at a day confernece on April 8 here in Sydney and then spending 2 days with practiioners April 9-10.

Well worth a day to be challenge to think creatively about church and mission in our context.

We are addressing the question:
Can we have a distinctively gospel spirituality with radical ecclesiology?

Talks will focus on:
Gospel Spirituality: The Imperative of the Gospel
Radical Ecclesiology: The Priority of Mission
Radical Ecclesiology: The Priority of People
Radical Ecclesiology: The Priority of Community
Questions and Answers

Moore College 1 King St Newtown

Cost: $40 to be paid on the day

Date: April 8th 2008

Registration: To register please email me at shanerogerson@optusnet.com.au with names and numbers of attendees

all welcome

Personally I am a bit nervous about commune models because of some of the big cult disasters that came out of the 60s. This model can be a bit naive about human nature. I can think of more than one notorious example of one-time orthodox churches that went seriously off the rails with charismatic leaders (not in the theological sense) who got too full of themselves.. one factor was that the ‘pooling’ of members property/income ended up being abused by the leadership. There are major issues of accountability and transparency around this issue.

How do TCH navigate such issues?

I have been thinking a lot about this about this aspect of expressing genuine one anotherness in community.

first, i dont think commune is the right word. if church reflects the nature of who God is it would be fair to say Trinitarian or persons in community - but not commune in the socialist sense. People have thier own lives and stuff but they give themsleves to sa deeper sense of connection or ownership in community. Church is more a family dentity than an organisation centred on a sunday event. church in that sense does what families do (or should do).

second , we need to remember that individualism has a massive sway in the way we think about spirituality. And this is often evident in our churches. TCH model is in part addressing this by enmphasiing the very biblical apsect mutual discipleship - and in doing so it rubs up against our indiviualism, not biblical ideals.

third it not about common ownership of goods at all. Individual members are free to use their stuff how they see fit, but part of letting the gospel centre our lives is using our stuff in service of others, including our homes,cars, money etc. Its is an attempt to tangibly express the different parts of the body looking after each other.

fourth, becasue of a geuninely plural leadership structure and a high emphasis on mutial encouragement and exhortation, it makes it harder for an abusive power relationship to occur. The usual Anglican rector power relationships are potentially far more abusive becasue he exercises leadership in a hierarchial structure as opposed to a plural elder structure.

finally
there is a sharp emphasis on the gospel word ruling and controlling life together. again the sense of mutual discipleship , encouragement, exhortation and discipline means that everyone is encouraged to be leading in some sense through service of the other. Whilst there is still a place for eldership, I reckon the high level of owning ministry guards against the kind of potential abuses you are imagining