Churches have been going through a remarkable revolution this past 50 years. Denominational barriers are much lower and less important. The Holy Spirit is more welcome. Christians are much more open to new ideas. But there is much more to come (I believe)!

One of the very positive influences on world christianity is the ‘simple church’ movement, and Felicity Dale (a sometime commenter on this blog) and her website Simply Church blog is one face of this movement. I subscribe to her blog and gain a lot of insight from it. And one brief recent post summed a lot of things up for me.

7 shifts towards organic

It was titled ‘7 shifts towards organic‘ and here is what it said:

Here are some of the shifts toward organic:

1. We’re moving from being building and event focused to lifestyle and family focused. Church is no longer an event to go to or a building to assemble in. We may meet together, but church is more like a family. You don’t go to family; you are family. It’s based on relationship and lifestyle.
2. Church is missional rather than attractional. We’re looking to make disciples rather than converts.
3. We no longer need specially trained people to do all the work of ministry. Ordinary people are fully equipped to minister. The clergy/laity distinction is becoming less and less relevant.
4. Churches are expected to multiply out–to reproduce–rather than getting larger.
5. Jesus is head of his church and ordinary people can be trusted to hear the Holy Spirit.
6. Our times together are becoming simpler and therefore reproducible. Everyone participates in what goes on.
7. Leadership is servanthood.

I feel strongly that every one of those seven points is true and important.

If you’re interested in what God is doing in simple churches, and (I believe) in the worldwide church, I encourage you to head on over and check it out.