Monday, 5 November 2012

And they met round each other's houses by Chris Welch


Facebook Note on Friday, 26 October 2012 at 15:21 ·


Picture: People just "happening"
So, how's church for you? I wanted to share a bit how church, or fellowship or gathering together was for us at the time of the Jesus Movement. This was around my conversion in 1972. You've got to understand the context. Yes, actually, I had in fact joined a mainline Baptist church that had the riproaring Baptism in the Spirit tearing through its members. So, no, I never ever was aligned with the Baptist denomination, what I was aligned with was the experience of the Holy Spirit making Jesus suddenly more real than ever before to a whole mammouth age range from our school revival of mainly 13 to 14 year olds, but also including our head boy and some sixth formers, right through to seventy and eighty year olds in the church.Mostly though it was us teenagers with a ravaging hunger for Jesus. Yes, we had meetings, don't get me wrong. But much more than that we were around each other's houses. Every week we were discovering new things about how this New Life worked, and about what we could now do.To give you an idea, we'd pray for people to come to know the Lord and by the next week the Lord would answer.We learned that we could prophesy. We learned that we could suddenly have great revelations from the Bible. Whole passages would light up to us.We discovered we could pray for each other's needs. We discovered that if one had a need we could cobble up some financial or practical answer.We discovered if someone was really down, we actually had the power and impartation in the Holy Spirit to lift them up. Or may be on some occasions cast out a generational spirit dogging someone their whole life.Jesus was real.He was telling us stuff daily that we couldn't bear not to share with the others as soon as we'd see each other again.We'd go round the houses of people who would have us. Largely, Olive Dover, and later Ron and Pam Knight. But as the Knights had everyone, we'd meet up as I say with 70 and 80 year olds.Think about it!!! Much earlier than this, if you were baptised in the Holy Spirit you identified with one group, and their teachings...the Pentecostals...Elim or Assemblies of God.  From the Jesus people onwards, the Holy Spirit was flooding all denominations, so for our generation onward we nolonger identified with a denomination. This was a first. For us it was, do you know Christ in the Power of His Holy Spirit?  Right, let's share and learn from each other.Do you understand what a dynamic Wild West feel it was? The things we were discovering literally became the foundations for all the current churches which you see all over the world. It's just that we still had daily spontaneous fellowship with the Living Lord. We hadn't plateaued out back into "control".We lived from our hearts. The spontaneous life of God. This was when most of the songs were written...or "came" in meetings which were continually sung until the "grunge" period of Martin Smith and Matt Redman.We are part of Havant Church. If Christine and I turned up at all but a few houses  just to find out what Jesus had been speaking lately to them they would consider that weird. Now, we have to have special gatherings like area meetings. The very phrase area meeting has a pall of death over it.People don't turn up at other people's houses because they love them.Because they want to hear what Jesus has been saying to each other. To gossip Jesus.They only meet together because "leadership" has decided that we are going to do such and such a meeting.I don't know whether Christine and I have ever verbalised this as a pact or something...but we were both involved in very similar setups in completely different parts of Britain. We just don't do  "Table Talks", "House fellowship meetings", "Area Meetings". We live with spontaneous life dating back to a spontaneous inundation in 1972. If you don't do real. If you've got nothing to share other than all the ways you are crashing against the Proverbs 1 wall, because you just haven't been attentive to God's real heart to keep you alive and moving on in Him...no...I'm not sure i am willing to be your sounding board for hours about  your uncle's nephew's dog having ingrowing testicles, and how one of your nostrils is bigger than the other, and how well you are doing climbing Rothschild's  achievement ladder....NO I got saved from all that when I met Jesus.Before I was saved, I was stranded in middle class Britain, condemned forever to a life of middleclassness, middleclass achievements or not, middleclass diseases, middleclass attitudes and goals and opinions.....why in heaven's name would I want to spend an hour with you, if all you have to offer is the thing I've been saved from?   Now if you are hungry for something else. If you have real problems. If you want God to get involved, that's different.About 30 years ago the gear shift changed in the Kingdom. Most haven't paid the slightest notice and have the most boring Christian meetings you can imagine, which combine middleclassness with a tiny bit of God revelation.30 years ago God set in motion a gearchange to start moving His corporate Body from out of the 2nd level, or the pentecostal charismatic level, into a much more full-orbed teaching which is the MATURE CHURCH. This is all by revelation. As Jesus said "If a man's will is to do God's will, He shall know the teaching whether it be from God....."If your heart is to do God's will you are caught up in His heartbeat. You are excited. You know that Psalm 19 is right. Every day the Lord DOES pour forth speech. Every day He adds layer and layer of wisdom and understanding so that we can build from where we are at...into where He is taking us.THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why Elaine Waterfield has to wait for a meeting to take place at our house in order to visit us. She might not understand all that I am saying, but it doesn't matter because Jesus is alive in her heart and telling her different stuff each day. So if Elaine comes over to visit me and Christine...IT IS A MEETING. We are drinking Jesus from each other.SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY...if you can't go round each other's houses and have genuine Jesus heart to hearts....you can forget your church. Your church is in a morgue.
It needs resuscitation...or reserrection.
It needs ZOE life. The Life and Resurrection that Jesus is.I see no possible reason why I as a former part of a Jesus Movement have to compromise into some substandard church movement just to please you so you can plug up your lack of connection with Christ and His spontaneity with some alien life form called "Table Talk" or an "Area Meeting"...but if you want to get real...come round to my house straight away and we'll have some Jesus together.
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