HOUSE CHURCH ARTICLES
HISTORY OF THE CHCRN
(Canadian House Church Resource Network)
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HISTORY OF THE CHCRN
2005 - by Grace Wiebe
Over the years, a number of people have wondered how the Canadian House Church Resource Network began. As a result, I decided to finally put pen to paper and try to put together a brief summary. So the following rendition is from my perspective as one of the intial 3 people on the facilitation team that started to develop the network. Here it is...hope it helps...
Blessings,
Grace
Introduction and a Bit of Background:
This story begins, in many senses, many years before the CHCRN was born!
As I reflect on the many baby steps we have sought to follow the Lord in to get to where He has brought things, I am totally amazed by what He has already done over a number of years, and I look forward with increasing anticipation to what He has in mind, which, I believe, is FAR MORE than we have asked or imagined!
How did it begin?
Bob and I, both with the same mission organization and working in the same office for over a decade, (a mission agency which focuses on planting indigenous house churches internationally but especially among a major world religion overseas), have, over the years, had a growing desire to also see house churches planted in Canada as well as to see Christianity lived out in radical, Christ-centered, biblical Christian community.
Along with that, we had increasingly seen missions finances decreasing and so had been seeking the Lord for alternate sources of financing since churches are already so strapped with finances, etc.
We also desired to see missionaries that were going out to plant house churches among the major religious group we were focusing on, going out with house church planting experience, which most had not had previously, and we desired to see missionaries more effectively discipled in holistic ways, themselves, in a house church type of environment before going overseas.
Traditionally, much Bible school/missions training is focused mainly on academics, but there is such a need for missionaries to disciple others who, themselves, have been truly discipled, and who have been developing godly character from an increasingly intimate relationship with Christ, etc.; missionaries who have experienced more holistic discipleship/training/development in various areas of their lives, including some hands-on cross cultural training locally, etc., in order for missionaries to be more effective LONG TERM. So many missionaries go to the field but have to return early due to interpersonal conflicts, etc, and we believe much of this can be reduced as candidates are being mentored in loving/accountable, relational house church environments.
I have also personally desired to see Christian community where musicians and artists could become firmly established in their biblical callings and released into their roles in the Great Commission/the Kingdom of God, and have felt that house churches would be a wonderful way to see this happening.
Another desire has been to see our neighbourhoods and cities transformed by the power and life of Jesus as disciples of Jesus live out Christ-centered lives in loving community.
As well, as Bob and I looked around at our nation, we observed that though we have a number of believers (at least under the 'Christian' title from stats, etc.) in our nation, we are not significantly impacting our nation in the ways we tend to hope to see transpiring...we are not yet 'discipling our nation', as we're commanded to do in the 'Great Commission' in the book of Matthew, but instead we have largely been discipled BY the nation.
Therefore, we had been sensing the need for a major paradigm shift in the Church's thinking if we as believers in Canada are indeed going to be able to carry out the commands that we have been given by our Commander in Chief who loves our nation and is not wanting any of her people to perish.
Again, we have wondered how we as the Church and missions can raise up missionaries who can effectively disciple others when so many heading into missions have themselves not been discipled in a more New Testament style of discipleship rather than what the typical western style of 'discipleship' has seemed to become over the years?
The word discipleship in traditional church thinking seems to have changed a lot over the centuries and seems to be quite different than the word 'disciple' seems to convery in the New Testament. How are missionaries going to know how to disciple others and how to plant house churches in other nations when they have not had that modeled in their lives? or if they have not themselves experienced it for the most part?
We desire to see not just cognitive learning/training in those that God is raising up to lead/facilitate the flock and to take the Gospel to other nations, but desire to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ encompassing every aspect of life, where the life of Jesus is being lived out through every breath of every believer.
We desire to see believers functioning together as a Body and each of them being encouraged to fully function as God has ordained for them to function. Each one is needed in order for the Body to be effective and in order for our cities and nation/s to be reached.
And if the world is going to see that we are Christians by our love, indeed we will need to live in much closer proximity to each other than we have traditionally lived - geographically, in terms of intimacy, in terms of openness, in terms of practical living out the love of Christ with each other and in our neighborhoods, in terms of sacrifical loving of our brothers and sisters and laying down our lives, in terms of mutual accountability and building each other up in the grace and love of Christ, etc. etc. And so one desire has been to see house churches become effective training ground for future missionaries, and also to become effective senders of missionaries.
Personally, I had also long been wondering about, and praying about ways in which we as the Church could more effectively reach the Gen Xers, Gen Ys and further generations who seemed to be increasingly difficult, in many ways, to reach, due to the huge change in perspective on the truth, and a perspective which increasingly seems to be wide open to anything supernatural except to THE TRUTH.
In praying about this over the years, and seeing how these generations are longing for true and open, loving relationships where they feel like they belong to a family, where they are looking for meaning to life and searching for true spiritual experience, etc., increasingly it seemed to become more and more clear that house/simple churches and the fellowship possible in networks of house churches, as well as a growing revelation of Christ as reflected through a loving Body of believers that are functioning more and more as the Church did in Acts, etc., was the kind of approach that may be more effective with many of the youth and young adults of this generation.
Another aspect that Bob and I had been praying about for many years had been the area of 'tentmaking', and as we had increasingly seen missions funding decrease in traditional ways and through traditional channels, we felt that other ways of raising funds and spending less on ourselves and funneling that into the Kingdom of God are needing to be considered. We believe that house churches and 'tentmaking', together, can potentially lay excellent foundations to not only provide the needs of the house church and the needs that God leads them to meet through finances and other practical ways, and not only help to send missionaries, but also to provide potential platforms to help to provide funding for newly emerging churches in other nations who cannot afford to pay a pastor, for example. Also this is a way to increasingly address local needs that the Lord puts on our hearts as well - to meet the needs of the poor, widow, orphan, fatherless, etc.
Around the beginning of 1999, our mission office's staff were being asked to seek the Lord about His directions for our Canadian headquarters in the upcoming 5 year period, and in so doing God seemed to be giving us some new directions and encouraging us to take some next steps in these directions which had already been growing in our hearts for many years.
As a result of our prayers and as a result of the above and other reasons, I had at one point felt that I should take a step of faith in these directions (re house churches) and see whether God would keep opening the doors, etc. How He would respond would indicate to me whether it was the right time to move ahead with this to the next step or whether we needed to keep waiting for God's timing.
I had personally had a desire to be involved in house churches since I recommitted my life to the Lord in 1979, but had never felt released to do so over the years. I had been involved in church planting in about 5 church plants in a row (from various denominations, and one church plant was among a particular ethnic/religious group in my community), and would always find myself getting very frustrated every time the church would start talking about building a building, rather than multiplying.
Anyway, I had been doing a lot of reading and researching the internet re house churches, and although there wasn't much available online at the time, I had compiled some resources/web sites to help to encourage others that had similar interest/vision.
It was probably around April 99 that I had sent out an email to various missions/house church mailing lists/newsletters/web sites, etc. to ask whether anyone knew of others in Canada that were either involved in or interested in house churches, and if so, could they contact me. The resources were offered to those that responded if they wanted them.
Within two days about 200 people from around the globe requested the email resources, but no one responded saying they knew of anyone in Canada with these interests!
I was about to conclude that perhaps this wasn't the right time, when I received two significant emails!
One of them was from a brother in the UK, who 'happened to be' (thank you, Lord!) one of our international mission's main coaches that helps our international church planting teams to plant house churches. He and those he was connected with had started house churches/networks of house churches in the US some years before that and so were using their experience to train and mentor others, including our missionaries. I had been in touch with him a number of times over the years (since the early 90's) because of shared vision, but this time, because he had received my email about possible house churches in Canada, he asked whether he could help to facilitate what was on my/our hearts. I gave him a list of about 10 ways that he could help, and he agreed to all of them!
I also received an email from Murray Moerman (who 'happened' to be the brother of my then current pastor of a denominational church I was attending as I was waiting for God to release me into house churches), asking whether I'd heard about the upcoming conference in May 99 about church planting, where one of the tracks would be on House Churches!! (Thanks again Lord!!) Interestingly, this event was to take place IN MY CITY!!!!! This conf. was eventually cancelled but Murray and I decided to get together to meet, share vision, and see how God might lead us to partner together in this regard where our visions overlapped.
The First Meeting where the network was birthed:
Murray asked whether one of his friends could join us, and so in May 99 I met with his friend and then met with Murray, followed by a meeting of the 3 of us meeting together. It was very encouraging for us and as mentioned earlier, we felt God was leading us to begin to partner together and form a resource network which could help to encourage and facilitate others across Canada whose hearts God was and would be stirring in similar directions.
By the next meeting, my pastor at the time (of the traditional church), also was interested and came to the meeting and has been a part of the facilitation team, and by the next meeting Bob also came to the meeting and had been a part of the facilitation team for a number of years as well.
From there, the resource network began to take shape as we began to pray and think through a vision statement, began to gather resources in order to make them available to those moving in these directions or who were interested in checking out these possibilities; we put together a web site to provide resources and to network others that share similar vision, and began to pray and network with others that God had been bringing into our lives who shared similar vision. A database was also developed to help facilitate the needs of the resource network in order to facilitate the needs of those that we are in contact with us.
"By the power and leading of the Holy Spirit, we seek to mobilize, resource, encourage, network, train and facilitate those that God is raising up in Canada who, while complimenting other forms of Christian gatherings in Canada, share and carry out the vision of establishing Christ-centered, easily reproducible, multiplying house churches in house church networks as a vital part of seeing Canada discipled and taking a more effective role in discipling the nations, in order that Jesus will be glorified as King of Kings among all nations. We desire to see His life lived out through us in every aspect of life."
First Networking Meeting:
Soon there were a growing number of interested parties in the Lower Mainland
who were interested in meeting and finding out more and getting connected
with others that share similar vision for the lost and for the church to fulfill
her calling.
So we hosted the first evening meeting in Surrey, where about 15-20 people attended. It was a very encouraging time as vision was shared and everyone in the room had a heart for the lost. It was encouraging for people to realize that they weren't alone in this desire and that God was also stirring other hearts in these directions. It was encouraging for people to know that there is a support network that God is raising up in order to help facilitate what He is putting on the hearts of His people, etc.
Following that, about every 3 months or so for a couple of years or so, there were similar networking meetings (which we called 'whosoever will' meetings when we discussed them as a facilitation team), which sometimes brought mostly newcomers and other times a mix of newcomers and folks from previous get-togethers. It seemed that those that came and we as the facilitation team were always so encouraged to see how God seemed to keep raising up more and more people in the Lower Mainland with this heart.
Example of a 'Whosoever Will' Networking Get-Together Invitation Letter
IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE RSVP, by phone or email by JUNE 15). Grace's contact info: 604-584-9371 and email address is: CHCRN@DiscipleTheNations.org. Feel free to invite others that you think would be interested, but please also have them let Grace know if they plan on coming so we can be sure we'll have enough room. Thank you.
***Please also send us your mailing address,
phone no., email address, web site address, fax no. and any other pertinent
information to help us contact you about future events, etc. Thx! :
===========
Grace Wiebe
Canadian House Church Resource Network
c/o 194 / 6832 King George Hwy
Surrey, BC V3W 4Z9
Email: CHCRN@DiscipleTheNations.org
Phone: 604-584-9371
June 16, 2001
Re: July 20th Meeting re House Churches - hosted in Surrey
Dear Brothers and Sisters;
As you may or may not be aware, the facilitation team of the Canadian House Church Resource Network has scheduled another evening where Lower Mainland folks/folks from the Island who are interested/involved in the utilization of house churches as a part of seeing our cities and this nation reclaimed for the Kingdom of God can come together to:
1) Meet others who are interested/involved
in house churches in the Lower Mainland
2) Share similar vision with each other
3) Pray for each other about these directions
4) Discuss some issues regarding house church development, etc. (please let
us know if there are some questions/issues you would like for us to discuss
at future meetings. Thx!).
5) Find out about possible upcoming events. For more info contact: CHCRN@DiscipleTheNations.org
Some of you we know or have met before; others of you may be new to us. We are looking forward to seeing many of you on July 20!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DATE: Friday, July 20, 2001
TIME: 7 - 9 p.m.
LOCATION:
Recreation center at townhouse complex where Bob & Edith live:
Name:
Address:
Contact info:
Phone no. to call if you need directions:
##### PLEASE NOTE the IMPORTANT NOTE ABOVE!!!!!!
Parking available on 82nd Ave. If you park there, just walk around and go through the gate (you may need to buzz them to open the gate if it isn't left open. The rec center is close to the gate.
TENTATIVE AGENDA:
Themes for the evening: House Church/City Church, etc.
+ Introductions
+ Intro/sharing by Bob and Murray
+ Overview of resources available and upcoming events (Please note that we
now have a new resource available: a free quarterly e-newsletter which you
can subscribe to from us: CHCRN@DiscipleTheNations.org
If you are not email or internet accessible,
perhaps you have a friend who can receive it and print it out for you.) ###
Please see info below on the upcoming House Church Conf. being held in the
Northwest.
+ Q&A
(If you have related questions that you would like to see us discuss in future
meetings, please let us know in advance or be prepared to bring these questions
with you to the meeting.)
+ Vision sharing of those that come
+ Prayer/Ministry time
+ Snacks/Getting to know each other better
Looking forward to seeing you there!
God bless you!
On behalf of the Canadian House Church Resource Network facilitation team,
Grace
Another encouraging fact was that God also began networking us as a facilitation team with people in other Canadian cities who also shared similar vision of seeing house church networks developing as a part of God's overall strategy to draw Canada to Himself. We began to pray for God to connect us with folks across the country whose hearts He was already stirring in these directions, and He has indeed been doing so!! PTL!!! He connected us with a group of people from various cities and regions throughout the country and led us to meet together in a first-ever consultation of Canadian house church networkers some months later. An amazing answer to prayer!! through which God brought things to another level. More about that below....
First One Day House Church Facilitation Conference being coordinated:
One of the desires of the facilitation team had been to host a local one day conference for those in the Lower Mainland and surrounding regions in order to help to answer questions for those that were interested in moving in these directions but had not yet started, and to help those that had started to move ahead, etc.
The team hosted its first event/conf. in Oct. 2000 in Surrey. We were very encouraged by how it went. There were about 20-25 people? that came, but it seemed like everyone was glad they had come!
Following that, we began to sense God was leading us to expand nationally and began to pray about him bringing additional people on board to work with us to see God's purposes for house churches in Canada moving forward. It was from this that we felt there would need to be both a local and national focus, and from that developed the vision for the Consultation at Roberts Creek of summer 2002! (briefly mentioned above) which was followed, about a year later, with the First National Conference on House Churches with Wolfgang Simson meeting with interested parties in several cities across Canada.
The Consultation was a several-day retreat event where house church networkers from across the country met together, worshipped and had fellowship together, shared some of their vision and story, we shared our vision for the event - to see us, together, seek the Lord for His direction for what HE wanted/wants to do in Canada re house churches and how we could/can network and cooperate with Him and each other in taking our roles to encourage the Body in these ways. It was a time of praying for/ministering to each other and beginning to develop relationships which will continue to develop as the Lord leads.
As mentioned above, the first corporate plans we felt we were being led to work together on were to host, in various cities across the nation, house church conf.s.
Since the consultation, the various networkers have been focused mostly on what God is doing in their midst in networking them with others of like heart/mind in their own regions, and some, such as in the Greater Toronto region, have also been working together with other regional networkers to host events locally.
As networks and house churches are learning and growing/reproducing, growing numbers of networks are also developing resources to help assist others, such as writing books, developing training, producing their own newsletters to better network folks in their own regions, etc.
The story has continued, but an update has not yet been written to bring you up to date...perhaps we will be able to do that in the not-too-distant future... :)
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