House Church Teaching Day

Having returned from a day in Epping to attend the House Church Teaching Day I’m once again inspired and confident that for me, a return to the New Testament Practice of gathering saints is the only way forward. Any other way would be either a walk backwards or a sitting down and just giving up. Beresford Job from the Chigwell fellowship made a comment that confirmed this…”can you go on in the institutional church after understanding and agreeing to New Testament practice and sleep at night, I know I couldn’t” although not an exact quote this is near enough what he said and I for one, have to agree. I can’t go back and I’m not going to sit down, so the only way is forward, into the practice of the New Testament.

The day began with an introduction by Steve Atkerson of NTRF (www.ntrf.org) which included an empty bottle of wine and a full bottle too. At first a bit strange but soon a realisation that we were going to be looking at the “wineskin” rather than the wine. This picture lesson made it very clear that the wine needs the right wineskin and this was our launch into the wineskin of biblical church practice.

Beresford Job then introduced us to “an irreducible minimum” for biblical church practice. Elders/leaders raised from within with decision making by consensus, meeting in homes with gatherings that are numerically small that multiply, Participatory and spontaneous gatherings, the love feast as a full meal.

This was then followed by “The Lord’s Supper – Feast or Famine” – Steve Atkerson gave a very clear and scriptural teaching on the Lord’s Supper. Although I’d heard this before on the audio teachings at NTRF I was still amazed that this wonderful celebration of the promised return of my Lord and Master had been missing from my church life for the past 21 years. I’ve always done the looking back and never looking forward. I’d always done the famine version with a thimble of juice and a scrap of bread. Amazing – I’ve missed so much!

After a lunch and great fellowship with many other brothers and sisters we listened to Beresford Job presenting “Church Governement & Leadership” – This is the real place of challenge. Once you’ve managed to grasp that we’ve being “doing it like the gentiles” with men lording it over us and not as Jesus trained, taught and established. You realise that to take hold of this, takes you not only outside of the institutional church, but places you in opposition to the system. Without a doubt your not going to be appreciated by leaders if you share this amongst your brothers and sisters. It’s nearly as bad as saying “Tithing isn’t biblical”. Both threaten the salary and position of the Company Director.

The final session covered “Open and Participatory Gatherings” – Steve Atkerson discussed the manner in which we gather and its purpose and practice.

Throughout the day time was given for questions and very often these were challenging with people having real concerns about “how its done”. One of the most interesting questions was “what your asking is very difficult, in fact really hard, your asking us to turn our existing church practices upside down” ……. I loved the truthful and simple answer, it could have been a lengthy response designed to “cushion the blow” ….. Beresford’s response was simple “yes we’re asking you to turn it on its head”.

Over the last few months I’ve been teaching on a weekly basis at a church in West Bromwich and everything has always come back to “the body of Christ”. I’ve realised that the church, the bride of Christ is to manifest Christ to the world. She is to do this by “loving one another” and then the world will know that we are His disciples. If the wineskin is not “the biblical wineskin” then this manifestation of love amongst us is hindered and at worst removed altogether. How can we love each other in word and deed in gatherings that number a hundred or more! I understand John’s statement in 1 John 2:7-8

Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

Yes this “new command” is actually an “old command” – it’s new in the sense that despite being there from the beginning the present system has hidden it or masked its appearance. How wonderful that this journey into Biblical church practice has brought that “old command” to love my brother back as a wonderful “new command” that I’m equipped and able to obey. Wonderful!