Today I awoke to find, for the first time in three weeks since the kids have been on school holidays, an opportunity. An opportunity for what you may ask? Well, to do something new, something I had never done before. And what was this new thing that I did you are wondering? It was to write this blog about a new Day.
As I have never had a blog before, I thought that it was worth trying and to see what comes of it. I was recently inspired of writing a blog by reading a blog of a wonderful man I know in Sweden. I know lots of wonderful people in Sweden but this man is a little more special to me for his incredible courage and faith he has shown in Jesus his saviour. His name is Hakan Sunnliden and you can see the link to his blog in the side column. Unfortunately it is in Swedish and a little difficult to read for most non Swedes but I encourage you to have a go.
Let me tell you the story of Hakan. Earlier this year I was invited to attend a prayer meeting which I had been told was made up of pastors and priests. Growing up in the Pentecostal Church I didn't have great expectations for this gathering as I expected it to be subdued. How wrong I was and indeed shocked to meet Hakan and some of his colleagues from the Lutheran Church from a small town called Värnamo in the south of Sweden. As we began to pray together and indeed sing in the Spirit I started to see and sense how the Holy Spirit moved in their lives. If anything from that first encounter with Hakan and his friends, I learnt just how wrong we can be about people. I believe from this first encounter the Holy Spirit was saying to me to "expect the unexpected" and from that day, this is exactly what I have been trying to do, to see How God might move by His Spirit in the most unexpected ways.
As said, I met Hakan earlier in the year and in April I returned to Australia, only a few weeks after arriving I received some terrible news. Hakan had been badly hurt in a car accident whilst preaching in Nepal. His vehicle had gone over a 1000m cliff edge and the only thing that saved Hakan from certain death was that he was thrown from the vehicle after about 400m. Tragically a pastor who was travelling with him lost his life, leaving behind his wife and their one year old daughter.
When hearing of Hakan's accident, I immediately felt Hakan's pain, not his physical but his emotional anguish for the pastor who had died and family he left behind. This enabled me to begin intercessory prayer for this young pastor's wife and child. Whilst I can't imagine how terrible they must feel over losing him, I know the Lord is thinking of them and used people like myself and others to pray for them and indeed many more around them to encourage them.
Back to Hakan, whilst Hakan's accident made an impact upon my heart, it wasn't his accident that caused the incredible connection I felt with this brother in Christ. After meeting Hakan, he asked me to read a Thesis he had written earlier based on Ralf Neighbour's Book "Where do we go from here", a book which I had not read but was aware of through previous dealing with Ralf Neighbour. The book itself deals with small group meetings and in particular house church structure. Whilst I personally have not opposition to house churches, I had never seen any reason to advocate or for that reason not advocate them, in my view they were simply another way of doing things. A viewpoint which I still have today and yet can see the great benefits from small group meetings.
In his Thesis, Hakan wanted to highlight the need for relationship based churches (RBC) over program based churches (PBC). A concept which many today believe is the make or break of the formal church in today's society. In a relationship based church, the needs and aspirations of the body or congregation take precedence over the program. In other words the meeting is steered not by a schedule or program that must be met but by the needs which are identified within the make up of the congregation and it's participants. Hakan writes, without quotes, if someone within the group is hurting then it must be felt by the other members within that group they have relationship. Relationship is at the core of the group, to grow, to believe, to love, to worship in God together is what brings the spiritual and ultimately the physical growth of the group.
When Hakan was injured and felt this emotional anguish for his fellow man, I felt this same anguish, showing to me in a very vivid way what Hakan was trying to say in his Thesis. I felt his pain as I had in some way in those few weeks had become connected with him and others in this group. I am now convinced that the way ahead is through relationship based churches or even better congregations. Whilst I have not quoted any scripture relating to this concept, we all know that Christ himself had just twelve disciples and ultimately it was his relationship with this twelve that later saw the increase of the Church to what it is today.
Is this the only way in which we can do church? Obviously not, otherwise we would not see so many different groups around the world today. However, I do believe it is through these small group connections that we see not just "bums on seats" but true disciples of Jesus being made.
