Simple Church

Question: What is meant by “Simple Church”, and how does it fit into your understanding of how we “do” church?

Response: “Simple Church” is the title of a book by Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger that I recently read and found helpful. However, the concepts found in that book were in my heart long before a friend introduced me to it. Before having ever heard of the book, God had led me to “get back to basics” so to speak. I’ll get back to what I mean by that in a second, but it will be helpful to give you a little background first.

A couple of years ago, I found myself struggling on where to focus my energy. That struggle was in regard to both where to focus on ministry within the church and what ministries to connect to outside of the church. Few people realize how much it takes to support to just one ministry within the church. The ministry objective has to be defined. The leadership structure has to be determined. Leaders have to be recruited and trained. Funding, both in terms of how much and who controls it has to be clarified. How do we publicize it? Who is our target audience? What are the reporting structures? This is to say nothing of leadership’s involvement when some sort of conflict or misunderstanding arises.

Multiply all those aspects I mentioned above, plus the aspects I might have left out, by each ministry in the church. Now add to that all the worthwhile, well-intentioned ministries and organizations that focus on people outside of the local congregation and you can easily see every pastor’s and every church’s dilemma. There is no way to do everything that will bless the heart of God and be a blessing to others, so how do we make those choices?

There is an old quote attributed to Oswald Chambers who supposedly said. “Good and better are enemies of the best.” My personal belief is many of our churches, including churches for which I have been responsible, have neglected the best in favor of the good and better. The primary purpose of the church is to win people to a life saving relationship with God that is made possible through Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit. That is the best, and we have neglected making that happen by focusing on the good and better.

Now this is where God’s leading me “back to the basics” comes into play. God drew my attention to Acts 2:42 in a new way.

Acts 2:42 (NIV) ⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

I began to realize that these four processes (becoming biblically literate, developing committed relationships with other believers, worshipping God, praying) were the core processes or activities of the church. As I read past verse 42 I saw acts of God’s power and love, including evangelism, manifesting in that first gathering of the church. My conclusion was that their relationship with God was nurtured in such powerful ways that their lives overflowed with his love and power. Another way of understanding this is to see it as God replacing our hearts with his heart, and then nurturing his heart within us so that our lives overflow with expressions of his love and power. (Ezekiel 36:25-27) That is true ministry.

So long before I ever heard of, let alone read, “Simple Church,” God had put it in my heart to streamline the ministry of the church to impact people from the inside out. I was already trying to articulate how these things fit together. So when I finally came in contact with the book, “Simple Church,” it only confirmed for me what God had already put in my heart.

The order that happened in is important. It means that as I pursue the establishment of a process-based ministry, I am not trying to implement a good idea I read about somewhere and thought I would try. I’ve been there and done that. It never works. Rather I am being true to what God is leading me to do. I am pursuing a ministry model God has first put within my heart.

I am grateful to the authors for their research and clear articulation about how God is moving in other churches. Their book has helped me understand and articulate some things about what God was already putting in my heart. However, I am not committed to a Simple Church model. I am committed to a process-based model. The best writing I have found to date on that is found in “Simple Church.”

That may seem like an insignificant distinction to some, but I don’t think so. What it means for me is that my conviction for how we do ministry is based on the revelation of God and not the research of a couple of authors. Now I ask you, which is the more sure foundation, what God is doing in other places, or the personal revelation of God for your ministry. When it is the research of others, your foundation and approach to ministry only lasts until it does not seem to work or the next good book. When it is the revelation of God, you can go forward with a much greater conviction and confidence in ministry.