The Time Has Come to Restart the Church - Without Her Accumulated Problems!

Meet the New Christianity,

A high-powered blend of the best from many traditions

minus the less Biblical and divisive customs of our medieval past.

Piggybacking on the exploding social networks of the Internet,

it will strive to bring together a billion ordinary believers

plus a billion of their friends into a highly upgraded style

of relational, high-commitment, fellowship life . . . all within two years.

You could call this, Facebook meets the house church.

Riding on the power of Skype and other visual, face-to-face tools, the New Christianity will aim to do the formerly impossible: Draw in and disciple the whole world via Internet friendships . . . even at a distance of 12,000 miles.

Indeed, its greatest challenge Internet anonymity may turn out to be its greatest strength. Its leaderless structure is modeled after such decentralized, egalitarian networks as Wikipedia, Craigslist, Amazon, e-Bay, YouTube, and Alcoholics Anonymous. So it lets people be who they are and everything they can be. They'll be unimpeded by hierarchies and institutional speed bumps like programs, staff, buildings, mortgages, and official pastors. (In point of fact, pastors will be very welcome and respected but never as pastors!)

Obedience Trumps Knowledge

The hallmark of the Western church is its intellectual capital, not its humble obedience and self-sacrificial love.

The New Christianity will try to change this. One of its main concepts is, Jesus didn't say, Teach them what I taught you, but Teach them to obey what I commanded you.

So yes, we are focused on drawing two billion people to Christianity, but a whole different kind of Christianity: one that has love and teeth!

Reboot, Defrag, Set Free

Typical pew-bound believers can accomplish a hundred times more for Christ and the Kingdom when they are set free from being supervised to death. That is key.

This principle springs from one of the central verses of the Bible, where God, in a moment of joy and excitement in 1447 b.c., just two days before giving the Ten Commandments, says to Israel AYou shall be my prized possession, dearer to me than all other peoples! For all the earth is mine, and you shall be for me a kingdom of priests! (Exodus 19:6)

But alas, He never got that great host of priests . . . and the rest of the Bible is a saga of the Lonely Creator trying to develop that army of people who would be His intimate friends.

Whatever hope God had for that got put on ice 407 years later when Israel told Samuel flat out: No! We want a king over us, that we may be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and march in front of us and fight our battles. (I Samuel 8:19-20)

Then much later, before the ink was dry on the New Testament, a similar mega-problem popped up (which Jesus said He hated), a practice called Nicolaitanism. The word comes from the Greek nikos (to conquer or control) and laos (people). In brief, it meant Give us a priest.

In the New Christianity we bear in mind the torn veil in the temple, and everyone is a priest, living as close to the fiery presence of the Lord as he can stand!

Be a hub, too!

As if being a priest and friend of God were not enough, members of the New Christianity are also qualified to invite their Internet friends to join. Thus they become Ahubs which you can think of as rookie-level apostles.

But this is not the old-fashioned, come-to-meetin' kind of invitation like: Come to our church, hear our pastor, raise your hand, go forward, get baptized, take our new members' class . . . and then you can be our friend. (This totally turns off the postmoderns, who want the friendship part first and working out the details later.)

Instead, the invitation may sound like this:

How would you like to have a team of fifteen sharp people who are committed to helping you in every way possible, a team that would stand by you, no matter what, in any kind of trouble? They would all pledge to be there for you at the big turning points of life and help you to reach your highest possible levels of success, solve your toughest personal problems, and become the kind of person everyone admires. If you were in trouble, you could call on them day or night, and they wouldn't rest until you were OK. In return, all they would expect is the same sort of loyalty from you. Would you like to have that kind of group around you?

The offer is so irresistible, many people will laugh and say, Well, who wouldn't?

Over time, we shall develop several other such invitations.

How will this type of invitation play out on Facebook?

The average member of Facebook has a roster of friends that grows almost automatically. The average number, we hear, is about 33 friends.

They can forward our messages to each of them with the click of a computer or cell phone.

We will supply New Christianity members with a variety of sample invitations and follow-up explanations as desired free of charge, mostly via an autoresponder computer.

All a member will need to do is forward them to their e-friends, which can be done with little more than a single click.

As more friends join, excitement will build, and there will be many phone calls and e-mails taking place. In fact, if it weren't for the individual contact and chat, the network could multiply about six times every two days!

So more realistically, our average member will likely pull in: two friends in the first week, then one more friend in each of the next three weeks. That means a growth rate of six times in each month.

But after that initial rush of activity, I am not counting on anything further. Obviously, the more excited members may continue to bring in a lot more, both online and offline, but if so, it will become daunting to calculate. The theoretical rate would continue at six times a month.

For those of us who are the pioneer, first-level hubs, it could be especially daunting to keep track of the growth because I expect to launch this, in God's timing, with about 300 lists. Each one will probably contain an average of 500 people. (Most lists will have only 50 to 100 names, but a few organizational lists will have 5,000 to 10,000.)

Riding the Whirlwind

If these numbers seem unlikely, let's put them into perspective.

The horse we're riding is Facebook along with a few others to be explored. (If you have any specific suggestions, please let us know.)

As of July, 2009, Facebook had 250 million members. Just 75 days later, it had 300 million.

That's a monthly growth rate of 7.5%. Pretty fast, but not the 600% I'm estimating.

Why the difference?

Because we have the most exciting content (message) in the world! The good news of a fresh, cleaned up gospel loaded with life-changing benefits compares starkly with the typical Facebook/MySpace/Twitter post: Ahi, i'm going down to the corner for a beer. Or, AHey, wassup?

That is so banal it's repulsive! In complete contrast, we have the heart-warming appeal you just saw, offering 15 loyal friends. Or a New Christianity hub might put out a simpler but intriguing message: AYo, Larry. We've fixed the church! It's the New Christianity, and it has all the things you've always loved about the church . . . and none of the things you hated! We'll be holding membership open for another week. If you're interested, bounce back with YES, tell me more!

The Quid Pro Quo

1. Free books. To ensure that our one-to-one e-mails stay at the highest possible level, we will offer members a maximum of two free e-books or articles per calendar month.

We will search for the absolute best in spiritual growth and discipleship works every month and other topics if the Lord so leads, such as house-church-planting helps. The emphasis in our meetings and constant global conversations (e-mail and Skype) will thus be on the positive and cutting-edge events in our lives.

The most common cause of failure of house churches is failing to bring something to feed the flock. Our ideal here is to have so much exciting content that it'll be hard to get a word in edgewise in our meetings.

2. Guidance without governance. As with Wikipedia and e-Bay, accountability and leadership will normally emerge and evolve on their own. Self-policing will develop as people learn to be aware of limits and the need for everyone to act and grow. Leadership is vital, but top-down hierarchy is deadly. What we need is a well-developed lowerarchy consisting of servant leaders.

Consider how different things would have been in Ezekiel's day if God could have found even one man to stand in the gap and prevent the captivity by saying, No, Lord! Don't let this happen to your people!

Iron will sharpen iron both online and offline. This is no longer a curiosity; today, it's the most common evidence of any healthy, leaderless network.

Hiding your faults will come to be seen as very poor form. In fact, that will soon be recognized as cheating yourself of the main benefit of community life supportive, caring correction! Why turn your back on dozens of friends who can make you stronger and wiser than any seminary?

So the quid pro quo is, you give loyalty, you get support.

3. Make disciples or else! It's fun to watch Victor making a big group of church planters memorize the Great Commission. The hard part is figuring out what it is. The other hard part is getting it into their heads! But it's worth the effort because they eventually see that it's all about letting the Lord Jesus build the church while we make the disciples!

So in our New Christianity network, we will probably settle upon some sort of computer program that will quietly drop you if you don't bring in one new member a month. (You could get back in later, of course!)

I'm sure that will take some adjustment in practice. The members may decide that this requirement may be met by having a new member join anywhere in your entire downline group.

But please notice that this is not the usual project that tolerates lukewarmness and dead wood and a slow death.

4. Stewardship may be part of the package of benefits.

The Western church is in danger of raising a whole generation of stingy disciples, people who seldom give much to any Kingdom enterprise. That's just not the spirit of Christ, who gave everything he had.

I'm not sure how this will play out in reality, but we'll be toying with the idea of an honor system where members will affirm each month that they've given something to some cause that is not themselves.

5. The virtual will become the real.

Online groups will be faster to launch than face-to-face house churches, but house churches allow for much closer ties and friendships. Experience and time will tell us how fast the Spirit wants us to transpose from virtual contacts and start building real home groups.

White Unto Harvest

A survey of 10,000 Brits found that they have an average of 33 friends on the Internet, but only a fifth of them are close friends.

But ironically, they spend more time with their social friends than their close friends. In fact, women tend to see their social friends every three or four days, but see their close friends only six times a year!

Two-thirds of these Brits call this attrition of friends one of their biggest regrets in life.

Did you hear that? Most folks are majorly sad because life doesn't give them any solid ways and common ground to maintain their ties with their most precious friends. So they just drift away into a morass of convenient contacts that they bump into all the time.

Those friends are just sitting there, white unto harvest, all neatly arranged in strings on computers or cell phones, ready to hear anything that can liven up their meaningless conversations and bring life into their dying friendships.

Missions will never be the same. No passports, no visas, no shots, no language training school. If you know even one bilingual online guy in the bush or in the mountains, you can invite him into your circle, and he can take the easy-to-spread message in his native language. And bingo, the Kingdom has broken into another people group!

None of our forefathers ever had a tool like this.

Luther Never Had It So Good

Is this cheating? Is it short-circuiting a long, painful process that God wants to be slow and difficult so our apostles can have many years of experience before we toss them out into the world?

Granted, there's a lot to be said for years of hands-on experience.

But there's also something to be said for the 13-year-old Indian girl who attended one of Victor's seminars for five days . . . and went home and led 56 people to the Lord and baptized them all in one month! Would you have stopped her for the sake of doing all things decently and in order?

Yes, it would be nice to have the names and addresses of all 300,000 of those that took a ritual bath on Pentecost Day, but I'll take all of those new brothers and sisters I can get!

Likewise, let us not be rigid or proud of our standard ways as we consider the four or five billion people who have Internet access. Martin Luther himself had only a hammer and a big sheet of paper. But Caxton and Gutenberg had preceded him, and enterprising printers took his brave message everywhere without paying him a cent in royalties!

By grabbing the ready-made mantle of the Internet, we can perhaps follow in Luther's footsteps.

It's a Fresh Start

We've walked away from the basic malpractice or Aheresy that Jesus said he hated, the problem that had crippled Israel and the church for 3,120 years. Freed from this burden, we are able to enjoy the presence of Christ in our gatherings as a band of priests.

By supplanting the clergy, we are blowing the trumpet like Nehemiah and calling the entire church to build the Kingdom borders together.

The burden is shifting from the 1% to the 99%. The mantle is shifting from overworked, burned-out professional church pastors to Kingdom apostles, prophets, church planters, elders, and serious intercessors. And this has been confirmed in visitations by angels and by the Lord Jesus himself.

God has certainly not abandoned the institutional phase of his ekklesia, but the Spirit's focus is now on the house churches and similar groups. The angels are waiting on us.

Christ himself will do this new but old work. His Kingdom is the rock that was cut out of the mountain, but not by human hands. His is the altar that was not to be touched by human tools. And he will build his church . . . if we just bring him the building blocks, the billions of would-be disciples whose hearts are crying out for the presence of Him for whom they were made.

As two poets recently said,

So if this is not a place where my questions can be asked,

then where shall I go to seek?

And if this is not a place where my heart cry can be heard,

then where shall I go to speak?...

And if this is not a place where tears are understood,

then where shall I go to cry?

And if this is not a place where my spirit can take wing,

tell me, where shall I go to fly?

14:45

Fifty Days of Harvest 2010 by Victor Choudrie

Fifty Days of Harvest 2010

From the Passover 30th March to 19th May Pentecost

Pray for a million souls

Sequential Steps for Precipitating a Mass Movement:

1. Repent for the remission of sins. Acts 2:38,39; 17:30; Luke 24:47

2. Be baptized and become a baptizer. Matthew 28:19

3. Receive the empowerment of the Holy Spirit for you and your household. Acts 2:39; 1:8

4. Remember in the New Testament, repentance, baptism and empowerment happened simultaneously without delay. Baptism in not earned, it is a free gift of God.

5. Apostolic teaching (Global Mission: Go and make disciples of all nations). Acts 2:42

6. Fellowship. Church is a fellowship of Royal priests. Hebrew 10:25;
7. Breaking bread (Love feast). Luke 10:5-8; Acts 20:7; Revelation 3:20

8. Demolish strongholds through spiritual warfare, prayer walking and intercessory prayers for the nations. 1John 3:8; Matthew 12:29; 16:19; 2Timothy 2:8; 1 Timothy 2:1-4

9. Unity “of one accord” will bring fear of the Lord on the people Acts 2:43

10. Preach through signs, wonders and miracles. Luke 10:9; Acts 2:22; Romans 15:19

11. Sharing of material blessing with the needy. Acts 2:44,45; 4:34-37; John 13:34,35

12. Going out two by two to look for the lost sheep. Acts 2:46; Luke 10:1,2

13. Finding “persons of peace”; breaking bread and sharing the whole counsel of God from house to house. Luke 10:5-9; Acts 2:46; 20:27

14. And the Lord adding new believers to the church daily. Acts 2:47; Hebrew 3:13

15. Multiply disciples who make fruitful disciples by teaching foundational teachings. Acts 6:1; John15:8,16; Hebrew 6:1-3,7

16. Entry of priests (big fish) will make the growth exponential. Acts 6:7; John 21:11

17. Cultural contextualization will result in qualitative and quantitative growth and rapid multiplication. Acts 16:1-5; 17:23,28; 18:18

18. Appoint elders with integrity, good managers of households, given to hospitality and can teach doctrine with competency to refute those of other faiths who contradict. Titus 1:5-9; Acts 14:23

19. Teach them proper use of instruments of dynamic worship (Genesis 22:5-7): A. Scripture, the double edged sword including their scriptures as God has not left Himself without evidence among them (Acts 14:16,17; 15:14); B. The Fire which is the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11) and C. The Lost sheep as a living sacrifice (John 10:16; Romans 15:16; 2Peter 2:5,6).

20. Mentor, mobilize and monitor multiple generations of disciples for a mass movement.
2Timothy 2:2; Acts 14:26,27

Apostolic Gardens Declaring 2010-2020 The Decade of Abundant Harvest by Victor Choudhrie

Phase 1. Consisted of world evangelization: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world…” Matthew 24:14

Phase 2. Consists of discipling the nations and Saturation Church Planting i.e. fulfilling the Great Commission.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,) teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Matthew 28:19,20

So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

Acts 16:5

Phase 3. The next phase will consist of healing/greening of the earth.

” If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2Chronicles 7:14)

Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things. Joel 2:21-26

1. The history of the earth begins in a garden and ends in a garden with a river flowing from the Throne with fruit bearing trees. Revelation 22:1-3

2. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it and have dominion over it, is not just a biological command but to transform the wilderness into Garden of Eden.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Gen 1:28

The instruction He gave to achieve this was, “If my people humble themselves, pray, seek my face, repent, then I will heal (restore) this land.” 2 Chron. 7:14; Isaiah 32:9-15

3. The indicators of the kingdom through the pouring out of the Spirit are ; (Isaiah 32:9-18):

a. Wilderness will become fruitful (Abundance)

b. Justice will be available to all

a. Righteousness (right relationships 1. Vertically with God the Father, 2. Horizontally with the neighbors and 3. Downward with the creation, as it was in the Garden)

And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." Luke `10:27

For the whole creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Romans 8:19

C. Peace and security Isaiah 32:15-18

When the Spirit is poured out on us:

The wilderness will become fertile, and fields will produce rich crops.

Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field.

And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.

My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

4. Millions of people entering the kingdom are mired in poverty, hunger, lack of justice, bad relationships, with no peace and security. They are looking to God’s people who will wipe their tears.

5. The business of the church is to glorify God by bearing much fruit and providing abundant life, justice, peace and security and restore relationships.

Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so shall you be my disciples. John 15:8

I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly... John 10:10

For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make your officers peace, and your taskmasters righteousness.

Violence shall no more be heard in your land, desolation nor destruction within your borders; but you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. Isaiah 60:17,18

6. God is not looking forward to the earth getting filled with brick and mortar church buildings but “with the knowledge of His glory as the waters cover the sea” and the earth restored as the Garden of Eden. Habakkuk 2:14

For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. Isaiah 51:3

Everyone will talk about how this land, which was once a wilderness, has become like the Garden of Eden, and how the cities which were torn down, desolate and left in ruins, are now inhabited and fortified. Ezekiel 36:35

7. Biblical “Restoration” is more than return to the original condition. Just like Job was restored double of what he had. Job 42:10-12

Yeshua has promised hundredfold restoration on our investment. Mark 10:29,30

We need to convert our colorless faith into Green faith.

The simplest way to do is to convert all your house churches into multiplying organic churches with organic kitchen gardens and restore relationship with our difficult neighbors by sending fresh fruits and vegetables wrapped up in the gospel.

Shalom,

vchoudhrie@gmail.com

Britain/Ministry Report by Peter J. Farmer

1. Our Current Vision

‘Mission Britain’- (www.missionbritain.wordpress.com) Our Vision is to see Church Planting Movements in each of the 12 EU Regions of Britain.

2. Our Major Success

‘Intermission’: Starting in 2009, I (Peter Farmer) have been travelling to 1 region per month for a period of between 7-12 days. This has involved prayer walking, strategic research and meeting and staying with those who have started a simple church in their home, work or leisure.

I have managed to visit around 3-4 churches in each region. Most simple churches I have visited are about 1-2 years old.

The Simple Church UK site’s directory lists names of 70 people involved in simple/house church (although the data needs updating)

Some of these names represent individual simple churches whilst others are small networks. There are many more unregistered simple churches (estimates are approx 40,000 people involved in house/simple churches in the UK)

Our major success this year has been in helping to facilitate networking between otherwise isolated simple churches.

Our City Mission Team has also seen success this year in finding people of peace in our home city of Nottingham and are in the process of coaching and forming evangelistic bible studies/outreach groups in the 9 wards of the city with the hope if these becoming simple churches

3. Our Greatest Challenge

Britain’s Challenge (the stats below are from ‘Religious Trends’ a statistical analysis of religious practice in Britain):

· 10% of the UK adult population go to church at least weekly.

· 15% attend church at least monthly.

· 26% attend church at least yearly.

· 59% never or practically never go to church (Tearfund 07)

• Between 1998 and 2005, half a million people stopped going to church on Sunday
• Daily Telegraph's religious affairs correspondent, Jonathan Petre, says "While 1,000 new people are joining a church each week, 2,500 are leaving"
• 6.3% of the population go to church on an average Sunday, compared to 7.5% in 1998
• 29% of churchgoers are 65 or over, compared with 16% of the population
• Sunday churchgoing is declining at 2.3% per year, slightly slower than the 1990s rate of 2.7% per year
• Nearly all Church 'growth' is due to immigrants. A massive influx of Polish workers have filled some churches
• "The Roman Catholics have recorded the largest drop [...], it has halved over the past sixteen years"
• The drop in the 20-29 age group was 29% (English Church Census 2004)
• ‘Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests.
• The fall - from the four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. A lack of funds from the collection plate to support the Christian infrastructure, including church upkeep and ministers’ pay and pensions, will force church closures as ageing congregations die.
• In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims will have increased from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035.
• According to Religious Trends, a comprehensive statistical analysis of religious practice in Britain, published by Christian Research, even Hindus will come close to outnumbering churchgoers within a generation. The forecast to 2050 shows churchgoing in Britain declining to 899,000 while the active Hindu population, now at nearly 400,000, will have more than doubled to 855,000. By 2050 there will be 2,660,000 active Muslims in Britain - nearly three times the number of Sunday churchgoers.
• The crisis is particularly acute for Methodists and Presbyterians, as many worshippers are aged over 65. The report predicts that these churches might well have merged with others by 2030. “The primary cause of the decrease in attendance is that people are simply dying off,” the report says.
• By 2050 there will be just 3,600 churchgoing Methodists left in Britain, Christian Research predicts. Anglicans will be down to 87,800, Catholics to 101,700, Presbyterians to 4,400, Baptists to 123,000 and independents to 168,000.

Simple Church Challenges:

Many of the simple churches I have visited throughout the UK are very small (between 4-6 people), are made up of Christians who have left traditional/inherited churches (mostly new charismatic churches like Vineyard and Newfrontiers) and are very inward focused. Most groups are also amongst the white middle class.

Churches need to become outward focused, there’s need for greater networking across simple churches, the need for more regional training and home-grown resources and tools, strategic targeting of unreached people groups and greater understanding of multiplication and movement dynamics

Our greatest challenge in the UK is to see churches birthed amongst the harvest, reaching out to our surrounding communities and seeing multiplication occur at every level

4. Our Main Strategies

12 Apostles/Regional Strategy Co-ordinators

We are praying that God will network us with those who feel called to see CPM’s in their region. Through travelling this year we have possibly met about 6 people in this respect. We are currently building relationships and exploring ways of encouraging one another

72 Apostolic/Evangelists Circuiting Counties or Cities

We are also praying for those who have a call to preach and plant churches across a county or city to partner with us in the work (Mission Britain)

City Mission Pioneers

In 2010 we will be training others to go out in 2’s as pioneer prophets, preachers and planters

Newforms (www.newforms.ning.com)

We hosted Newforms UK Gathering June 09, a weekend conference with friends and co-workers involved in simple/house/missional church. We are aiming to host a UK gathering each year

We have set up a Newforms Social Networking site that facilitates communication

We have just piloted regional training- Newforms Episode 1: Planting Simple Churches that Multiply and hope to launch Newforms Episode 2: Reproducing Disciples, Leaders, Churches, Tribes and Movements in March 2010

Antioch Gathering 2009

For a week, from 10th to 17th October, 2009, 72 Christian leaders from around the world gathered in Seleucia, the

ancient sea port of the biblical Antioch (Acts 13:4) and the historic stepping stone of Paul’s apostolic missions. The

purpose was to seek fresh answers and a new awareness from God about the status and future of the remaining task Jesus has left his followers with, to disciple all the nations of the world. This summary report attempts to condense some of the themes we found ourselves facing,

either hearing from God, or as we heard from each other (or both). Rather than focussing on strategy issues (facts, numbers, methods) many of us felt God wanted to call together a token group of people in order to share what is on his heart at this decisive hour in the history of Missions. In order not to drown out God’s voice by our own strong opinions and preconceived convictions, we knew that the main speaker had to be God himself. This called for a rather unusual conference format. Instead of the classical line-up of speakers on current subjects and projects we needed to make space for God to have his voice heard, and attempt to facilitate a process of corporately seeking God’s face for whatever is on his heart right now. Rather than crying out to God: “Please do something for us!”, we needed to hear what we can do for him. This

required a new and tough discipline from all of us. It would be so easy to come to God simply presenting our ideas,

plans and agendas; we knew that we had to go beyond that and learn to do what he is blessing, not have him bless

what we are doing. The challenge was in grasping his ways, not only his works, and learn to align our hearts,

motives and ultimately our agendas with God – and with each other. The Antioch Gathering had three distinctive

parts: first, coming corporatedly before God and learn to listen where he thinks we are on his map; a trip to Tarsus,

the place of “apostolic death” in the life of Paul; and finally a prophetic outlook into the future of the remaining

apostolic task.

I. What did many of us sense God speak to us:

Urgency. Many sensed a great urgency, a “one minute to twelve” situation that defines the situation we are all in.

Celebrate and repent. Throughout Missions history, we have seen amazing advances and great breakthroughs

which need to be celebrated. However, we also saw the deterioration of much of Missions into religious or even

cultural colonialism, organized good deeds and the expansion of narrow-minded denominationalism and the

subsequent fragmentation of the Church. This has created “Missions made by man”, a form of pseudo-Christian,

religious expansionism, fragmented beyond recognition, where the proverbial left hand does not know any longer

what the right hand is doing. The result is duplication, paralleling of programmes, the wasting of scarce finances,

time and human resources. More dramatically, Missions made by man dared to take the mandate for Missions away

from the Holy Spirit and declared a new mediator of Missions: the 40.000+ church and missions headquarters that

exist globally. The world at large remains fairly unimpressed by this fractured thrust, Turkey, with almost as many

missionaries as Turkish believers, being a prime example of this sad fact. For this, we seriously need to repent.

Return to an old pattern for a new time. In Antioch, at the birthplace of missions, the Holy Spirit initially spoke

into an atmosphere of corporate receptivity and collective obedience. The very first mission journey occurred after

Agabus prophesied “by the Spirit” a famine (Acts 11:28-30; Acts 12:25), and the believers responded by sending

financial relief to Judea through Barnabas and Saul. Again, into an atmosphere of worship, prayer and fasting (Acts

13:1-3), the Holy Spirit called Barnabas and Saul for their second mission, commissioned by both the Holy Spirit and

men “laying their hands on them”.

The Mission mandate came directly from God (through prophecy), and was received and put into action in “quick,

costly obedience”, as one of the participants of the Antioch Gathering put it.

As many of the shared testimonies showed, very clearly a new and possibly final season of Missions has arrived.

“The New” is mainly characterized by a decisive return to the Kingdom of God as the home base of Missions. Some

of the symptoms are: unheard of acceleration (as one example: in India, on the day of Pentecost 2009, more than

300.000 persons were baptized); the phenomenal and historic growth of house churches that are now beginning to

make their own contribution to Missions; the re-emergence of prophetic and apostolic ministries; and a return to

Kingdom economics – a life by the financial principles of the Kingdom, not the market.

This new season will require all of us to reassess what we are about and freshly realign ourselves with what God is

currently doing, or we might miss a crucial and defining moment in the history of the Kingdom.

But first and foremost, it requires a series of preparations. God seemed to say to all of us: unless we prepare

ourselves, we will not be able to play a significant role in these unfolding chapters of Kingdom history. Amongst

them are:

Travel lighter. Far too many carry too much weight that God simply has not placed on their shoulders.

Learn to listen before we act. In a busy and fast world, listening to God’s voice requires disciplined time-

outs and the creation of agenda-less spaces so God can speak his heart, if he so wishes. God desires not

only individuals, but a body to speak to, which, on our side, requires corporate listening, hearing God’s

voice together, and discerning not only what he says, but what we therefore need to become and later do

(being before doing). A group of leaders that, for the lack of a better word is called “Listening Group”, has

come together several times since 2007 for typically three days in a row to learn to listen together. The

group helped to steer a part of the Antioch Gathering to avoid jumping too quickly to conclusions, and

help carry the creative tension between prophetic tarrying and apostolic action. The ultimate goal of

listening together is that we can again become “pillar-people”, reminding us of the people of Israel in the

desert that only moved when the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud (Ex. 13:21) moved. Otherwise they

rather tarried on the spot, waiting for new and clear instructions.

Abandon false gospels and re-embrace the Gospel of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is an invisible but

very real political space ruled by Jesus the King that encompasses the entire created world – except the

human race which is given a choice under whose rule to live life, Mammon or Jesus (Matth 6:24). Those

humans that join and populate the Kingdom are the ones that are saved by grace, say farewell to

Mammon and decide to place themselves voluntarily under his kingship in loving obedience, not merely

saying “Lord, Lord” but doing what their King says. The Kingdom is essentially the domain of God’s

uncontested rule. As such it is a disposition, not a destination. “The gospel” was originally the news that

there is a new king; the main message of Jesus was exactly that: he is our new King and we are all invited to

live in the Kingdom, not any longer under the domain of darkness. This is the essence of the Gospel of the

Kingdom. In the history of the Church three false while incomplete gospels have gradually replaced the

Gospel of the Kingdom: a) the evangelistic gospel of “come ye and be saved”; b) the pastoral gospel of

“come ye and be safe” by joining our church or group; and c) the gospel of the teachers and theologians

that created doctrinal systems of truths that can be correct, but lifeless. It is of ultimate importance that

The Gospel of The Kingdom is rescued from its historic obscurity and re-embraced and resonated by all

that belong to Christ.

If the Kingdom of God is to come, ours has to go. The three kingdoms that most violently fight against

the Kingdom of God is a) the kingdom of self, our own drivenness by selffish ambition, a career mindset

and the idea “what is in it for me”; b) our primary identity in the “kingdoms of we”, groups, labels,

organizations or denominations that displaces everything else, including the Kingdom of God, to a rank of

secondary priority; and c) the kingdom of nationalism, tribalism and patriotism, where our sworn or felt

allegiance to an ethnic group, a political expression or a political preference stands in the way of our

primary citizenship in the Kingdom.

A new authority: from charisma to exousia. The current level of spiritual authority in the church is far too

much based on charisma (gift, ability), in which people are typically encouraged to function based on their

personal giftings without the proper legitimization (exousia) that comes by accurately functioning within

the framework of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is no democracy or even anarchy that boasts a

permissiveness where everyone can do what he likes, when he likes, if he likes. The secret to the spiritual

authority of Jesus was not to free-flow in his charismatic gifting, but to only do what he saw the father

doing and to only speak what he heard the father speak. The devil who tempted Jesus in the desert to

make him use his spiritual gifts for and on his own, outside a Kingdom framework, was utterly frustrated as

Jesus basically told him that he would not function disconnected to his father but is absolutely bound to a

higher reality, to the wishes of the father; he cannot and will not do as he could, but only as he should. This

sets the standard for our own spiritual authority and calls for all of us seeking a level of authority that is not

based on our charismatic gifting alone, but in the authenticity and legality (exousia) we are awarded as

citizens and emissaries of the Kingdom.

Deal with the “burnt earth syndrome”. The devil, in a diabolical attempt to intercept or at least corrupt

and therefore discredit any new initiative of God has tried to “burn the earth” and create an atmosphere of

distrust or even rejection of whatever new initiative God is causing. Seeking to mobilize immature

believers and appealing to their desire for significance Satan has often created a smokescreen of distorton

that serves to confuse the body of Christ and immunize them against the real thing God is bringing. For

example, before the larger Body of Christ could regain a healthy and balanced discipleship focus,

wellmeaning movements like the “shepherding movement” in the 70s burnt trust, relationships and

dampened the hope of many. Before a healthy prophetic or apostolic species is again seen as functioning

accurately within a Kingdom framework, immature, uncrucified, unhealthy, flaky, selfappointed and

selfsustained “prophets and apostles” and their organizational creations brought a large amount of

mistrust into the wider Body of Christ, up to the degree that many have simply dismissed the prophetic or

apostolic dimension of servanthood. Rather than resigning to this demonic strategy and pointing only to

the damage and carnage it has brought, God is calling us to see through this satanic plan, deal decidedly

with any hurt or suspicious residue in our hearts and move on to live God’s healthy original, life in the

Kingdom, leaving behind a life of constant complaint, warning and pointing out what is missing. Rather

than being experts in regards to the problem, we need to live the solution.

A new level of unity. It is a proper stage to begin our lives as servants of God. The unity amongst servants

is often expressed in a “labor union”, a form of unity that is task oriented and makes sure the needs of the

servants are heard and met. When Jesus said to his disciples: “You are my friends if you do as I say” he is

inviting his former servants to step up into a more intimate relationship to him and each other. A society of

friends lives a far deeper, relaxed and informal relationship, not only towards Jesus, but also towards each

other. We sensed that Jesus, as a preparation for the decisive days to come, is inviting those that are

already friends to step up into yet another level of unity, that comes out of being partners with Jesus

because of our destination to become and act as his bride. Bride and bridegroom will need to learn to

function at an eye to eye level and live out a love-based unity, where the body of Christ and Jesus, the

head of the body, function again in sync to finish the apostolic tasks that Jesus began 2000 years ago.

II. Who has not yet been to Tarsus?

Tarsus, the birthplace of the Apostle Paul, has not at all welcomed it’s most famous citizen of all times when he

returned home a converted man. Paul did not come home with a big success story. He had even become a serious

problem to the church that sent him home (Acts 9:30). Paul had believed that after his three years in the desert and

Damascus, following his conversion, he would fit in with the other apostles, but he was obviously unaware of the

fact that he, as a person, was still far too strong, forceful, argumentative and irrefutable (in other words, immature,

too much Paul, not enough Christ). His ministry did not cause conversions, but made his audience wanting him

murdered (Acts 9:23 & 30). For eleven long years in Tarasus Paul went through a deep process of humiliation. From

the perspective of his family and former community, he was neither fitting into his original place as a Jewish rabbi

any longer, but he was even rejected and sent home by his own new “cult”. He was ignored, rejected, probably

publicly flogged five times until he would say “I am dead; Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20) and “I discard everthything

else, counting it as garbage” (Phil 3:8). Only after Barnabas called him away to Antioch, Paul left Tarsus as a changed

man, utterly dead to the idea of showing off his apostolic role, establishing elitist apostolic clubs or even pseudo-

apostolic kingdoms, or simply following his own immature ambition any longer. If a prophet does not count much

in his home country, how much less does an apostle count in his home town? In this way, Tarsus had become an

altar for a premature apostolic man, a place of death to his own visionary self, a place of apostolic preparation

through a time where seemingly nothing happened. Only by enduring this stage of apostolic life as the ego-driven

seed was falling into the ground and died, not rebelling against it or becoming bitter, God finally entrusted this

man with a foundational apostolic work that changed this world forever. Visiting Tarsus in this spirit was like

visiting an important stage in the maturing process of every follower of Christ. We dare not miss the importance of

everyone of us “going to Tarsus” and dying to self, before we become engaged in the work God is calling us to do.

Otherwise, too much of us and not enough of Christ will be built and planted into everything we do, and this has

never been the way of the Kingdom.

III. Outlook into the future of “Missions”

Ideally, all of us wishing to participate in Missions will need to accept that the Holy Spirit is not only the head and

CEO of Missions, but we are to accept and respect each other as “commissioned agents” in the same Kingdom

Mission. He still speaks and is in control, we follow his orders and are not in control. The prophetic scriptures of the

Bible even speak of a time “in the last days” where “the word of the Lord will go forth from Zion” (Isa 2; Micha 4),

where Jesus gives directives to those that want to hear them in order to complete the task. In practical terms this

means that, for the final leg of the missionary initiative of God, our human Missions headquarters are going to fade

in their significance, while the center of Missions will wander back to Jerusalem that becomes, yet again, the final

place of commissioning, the last epicenter of Missions. This will not mean that Mt. Zion, a hill west of Jerusalem, will

see the construction of an impressive Missions complex, but that God choose and foretold to reveal himself and his

directives in Zion “in the last days”. Some of us sensed that very soon God might be calling those from among the

nations that he wants to come to Jerusalem to hear and implement his final decrees in regards to finalizing the

apostolic Mission of the Kingdom.

How will this look like? Some of the facets of this we strongly felt about in Antioch were:

“The Kingdom of God is right behaviour (according to the constitution of the Kingdom), peace and joy in the

Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). Rather than defining Missions in the very narrow terms of evangelism, soul winning and

planting churches, what this world waits for is “the revelation of the sons of God”, the visible modeling of life in the

Kingdom, the “city on the hill”, where the people can see good deeds and praise our father in heaven for them. This

means that in every significant sphere of life – family, education, culture, business & finances as well as politics – the

Kingdom needs to be first modelled and demonstrated, before anyone has the right to be publicly heard. Rather

than copying secular models of life (like business or arts) and creating Christian versions of it, we need to pioneer

expressions of life inspired and designed from the very beginning by the Kingdom of God. To act constitutionally,

according to Kingdom principles, that, if needed, superseeds any political law, and to do so with peace and joy in a

time where love grows cold and many people grow bitter, is the primary hallmark of Kingdom people. Mission

shaped by the Gospel of the Kingdom therefore needs to be dramatically expanded in order to express life in the

Kingdom in all areas of the arena of life, and no longer hide God’s light under a bowl (like a church building).

Some of the ways this will have to be expressed are:

Missions flows primarily from divine fatherhood and sonship, not the expansion of denominational

spheres or the visions of individuals. From the time of Adam and Eve, there was a “baton of Missions”, a

sense of missional responsibility passed on through the generations, moving through the hands of people

like Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Josef, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Jesus and his apostles until today. We

sense there is an apostolic grandparents generation alive today that needs to let go of their agendas, give

their heart (and the baton of responsibility) to the fathers, who will in turn pass it on to the young men,

who will, in turn, pass it on to the children.

A divine partnership between the apostolic and prophetic will need to be forged in and across regions

and apostolic jurisdictions so that apostolic-prophetic foundations can be laid in all areas of the globe.

From the 12 to the 72. Many of us have grown accustomed to working in “groups of 12”, smaller, intimate

and even organic groups of leaders like Mission agencies, church planting thrusts or newer networks.

Many of these groups have been given valuable experiences and insights, but need to face the reality that

God is building Kingdom synergies over and beyond traditional Missions wineskins and is forming a

Metamission, a level of Kingdom partnership in Missions goes beyond all our former alliances.

We need to learn dealing with the “Keys of the Kingdom” (Mt 16:19), a symbol of Kingdom authority to

“lock and unlock” situations, gates, portals, demonic claims etc. For this we need to learn to function not in

our own names or in the name of human organizations, but in corporate selflessness, in legal

representation of the King, in other words, in the name of Jesus.

Can the dove land somewhere? God spoke to us about the prophetic significance of the dove landing on

Noahs arc, bringing in the first fruit (an olive branch) after a time of judgement. Could it be that the age of

Missions made by man is being graciously covered by the waters of God, and he is wanting to bless and

therefore multiply the new fruits of a Kingdom shaped Mission? Just as Jesus was riding into Jerusalem on

two donkeys, the mother donkey and her colt (representing the old religious system and the new

wineskins?), the new moves of God seem to currently receive unprecedented anointing and blessing from

God to multiply and “carry Jesus” into his destination.

Just as the Kingdom is a metacountry, God seems to be calling us to the formation of “Kingdom

Ministries”, global competence groups that function like ministries of a particular government that draw

together the best spirits and minds on the planet. Some of these ministries are:

A council of gifted men and women to re-define, promote and defend the “Gospel of the Kingdom”, as this

is the core message of the Kingdom that cannot be watered down. Ministry of Women. We know about the role of women in church-as-we-know-it, but the role of women

in the Kingdom needs fresh definition, so that women are free to function not under the constraints of a

religious church age, but within a healthy Kingdom framework.

Ministry of family and education. This entire arena needs to be rescued from secular and humanistic

goals and shift from being market shaped (producing human resources for the workplace) to being

Kingdom shaped (training humans to fulfill their Kingdom calling).

Ministry of Kingdom economics. The “World Economic Forum” in Davos brings together those excelling

in a materialistic, market-driven economy. A global council on Kingdom Economics (in connection with

regional councils) will have to start its work to formulate, express and help shape economic behaviour

based on the Kingdom to introduce the nations of the world to the “radical original” of the economic

wisdom of the Kingdom, providing God’s original to the flawed alternatives of Capitalism & Communism.

Kingdom Media. Rather than listening to one more Pastor X, TV Evangelist Y or teacher Z who raised the

funds to put himself on TV, Kingdom content, particularly of apostolic and prophetic nature, needs to be

aired in a way that introduces billions to the most well-kept secret of the planet: life in the Kingdom. In his

brilliant communication strategy, Jesus used parables for everything he said to outsiders, but explained

the secrets of the Kingdom only to insiders (Mk 4:10 & 11). Much of Christian media today does the exact

opposite and attempts to preach plain text to those outside, while telling stories and parables to those

inside. This media situation needs to be turned the right way up again and therefore calls for a new

Kingdom synergy in media.

Transport Ministry. God is on the move, and many speak of the epicenter of Christianity, after having

circled the globe westwards, moving decidedly from Asia “back to Jerusalem”. Interestingly enough, the

ancient Silk Road from China to Jerusalem enters its last leg of the journey at the port of Antioch.

Reflecting on this in our gathering in physical Antioch, we need to develop new logistical solutions

(Kingdom logistics) to move information (including “war rooms” discerning prophetic intelligence for

apostolic action), money (including regional apostolic foundations), goods (products, relief etc) and

personnel in such a way that it serves, and not obstructs, Kingdom expansion.

-----------------

PS: During the conference in Antioch, the PDF-version of the book „The Starfish Manifesto“ by Wolfgang

Simson was released and is now ready for download at www.starfishportal.net.

A series of five TV shows on DVD, produced by the Finnish TV7 group, are soon available as the “Starfish

Vision Series” on www.starfishportal.net as well.