One of the major disadvantages to simple/organic church meetings that meet in homes or other 'secular' places is that they are hard to find. They do not meet on a special day or place, and sometimes they even change locations with every meeting, so they are often impossible to find. If you visit a new city and plan on being there for a while, it is very difficult to find an organic body with whom to worship. They don't exactly advertise. So, I was wondering if there was some way we can stay connected and open up some possibilities for new relationships and networking without compromising our relationship focused approach.
I know of times where Apostolic workers (missionaries) have passed through a city and needed assistance (food, shelter, fellowship) and they have had doors slammed in their faces. What a welcome site it would be to run into other like minded believers who would be willing to help a church planter type as he is traveling.
One idea I had actually came from the early church (imagine that!). Because of persecution, many of these early groups of believers did not want to advertise to the whole world where they were meeting. So they used simple designs that often disguised a cross, fish or other christian symbol to identify themselves to other believers. Chi-Ro, the first 2 letters of the word Christ, Ichthus or fish symbol and even an anchor are well known as an early christian symbols.
So, here is an idea. What do you guys think? Maybe if we started putting a symbol on our doors or mailboxes or somewhere visible that could help us to find each other and locate a place to worship with the brothers. Let me know what you think of this idea and if you like it, what would be a good symbol to use. my vote goes for Chi-ro.
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Hmmm? I think very soon (less than 15 years) here in America we may have to begin to use such tactics but for now let us continue to us our freedoms: speech, assembly to shine until this time comes. I hope folks know when bopping thru Memphis, TN there is an open door.
I am talking about doing something like this for practical reasons, not necessarily persecution. I think it is so hard to find a simple church that we could do something to help people find out where we are meeting as well as utilize our freedoms and bringing people into the kingdom. but i know as someone who travels a lot. i would love to stumble upon some people meeting in an organic/simple way in random cities where i stop.
You could put a symbol on your door. I would go further and try to develop a database of organic churches that are willing to pray for one another and willing to receive the brothers as they travel through. Share this around. It will expand. I personally would like to get connected with these churches in the US.
@steve, there is a database through the h2h church network and there are a couple others available. but i have had some friends who have used these databases and said they found cults and other weirdos parading the flag of simple church, so you have to be careful. here are a couple of places you can look if interested:
http://www.site.house2house.com/get-connected/directory
http://housechurchresource.org/findorganicchurch.html
I think the idea of using symbols is anchored deep in the human psyche. A symbol can sum up what a paragraph would be necessary to say. It is an unspoken declaration in may ways that tells others what you believe and asks for them to hold you accountable. The problem would come in once groups of people started uniting behind a certain symbol. What would develop would be a new form of denominational separation. So instead of having an organic church open to all believers you now have (insert symbol) that believes ________.
In saying that I still like the idea because I agree with you on how difficult it is to find an organic fellowship on the road. The bottom line is there is no perfect system because we, sinners saved by grace, will somehow find a way to taint it if we don't have a constant renewing of our minds and submit to our King.
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