John White

John White
Originally uploaded by yafflickr.

John White
(John White is committed to the Colorado area. He believes God has called him to assist in the development of house churches in the entire region.)

Hebrews 10:25 – What am I supposed to bring to house church to “encourage one another”. What are we to bring to the meeting to build up one another?

Developing a Regional Strategy
House Church Conference 9/05
Time Pynes, Kenny Moore, Mike Steele, John White

The Larger Story (I will include the notes to this after Monday. John White is going to email me the two page document.)

Developing a Regional Strategy means join God in what He is already doing.

In order to join God in His work in our part of the harvest field (ie. develop a regional strategy). There are at least four things that we need to be clear about.

1. Clarity about God's desired outcome. How are we to disciple a whole ethne?

1a. Some years ago, Jim Montgomery, founder of Dawn Ministries, was asking God how the Great Commission was to be fulfilled. The Master’s answer to him was, “See to it that I, the Lord, truly becomes incarnate in every small group of people on the earth.”

1b. A house church within reach of every community around the world. What does it mean for the Central Coast?

2. Clarity about my assignment. What is the region or people group that God has called me to? It is a neighborhood or a county or a city or a province or a nation? Or a particular ethnic group? The "John Knoxer" concept.

3. Clarity about the starting point. We believe that the single most important thing we can do toward the objective is to be highly faithful in praying the prayer that jesus commanded us to pray. Luke 10:2 Everything else grows out of this. Kenny: " This is our Plan A (We don't have a Plan B)

3a. Relentless Prayer. Wear God out. See parales about prayer in Lk. 11 and 18. praying as close to every day as possible.

3b. “.. to send forth workers…” exballo= thrust forth, launch, used of casting out demons, implies high degree of motivation. Once you get one of these “sent ones” everything else is relatively easy. Some probable answers to this prayer: Paul, Cornelius, Aquila and Pracilla, Lydia, etc.

3c. Harvest Workers. Two kinds in this context: apostolic church planters (mobile) and people of peace (stationary). (Kenny: “The Leadership Solution”)

3d. “Beseech” = a command. Connect with Mt. 28:20: “teaching them to obey all I’ve commanded you.” One of Jesus’ commands was the 10:2b Prayer. Therefore, every disciple should be taught this prayer.

3e. Organic and viral in nature. 10:2b Virus (See Felicity Dales book on Getting Started)

3f. God gets the glory. He does the “heavy lifting”. We ask for “fully formed” workers. “1 Tim. 3” kind of people.

3g. The Lord of the Harvest responds to our prayers. 10:2b stories

3h. By-products of praying this prayer daily: increase in our faith (seeing the answers). Develops a “harvest mentality”, close friendships with Kenny and Mike (The people that John White prays with.). see the thoughts from their talk below.

i. Testimonies from the prayer team was great. Here are a couple of points from them.
ii. Feel free to ask God to help you pray for workers. Ask God to teach us how to pray.
iii. Answered prayers kept them going.
iv. Prayer increases our faith and our belief that God does exist.
v. Prayer is a daily reminder that God is at work. I am saying that I am not going to do the work that you God are supposed to do. God please help me remember that it is not what I am going to do.
vi. I am now more aware of what God is doing around me. It is like buying a new car. A white Honda hatchback… all of a sudden everyone has a white Honda hatchback. It raises our awareness of God’s working around us.
vii. We need to pray like the woman that wore out the king and the king finally granted her request because she wore him out. We need to be relentless.
viii. Let God do the heavy lifting.

4. Clarity about my partner. Jesus paired people up and sent them out into the harvest by twos. he knows I need apartner who has the same assignment I have with whom I can passionately and daily beseech the Lord of the harvest to thrust out ( exballo-launch!) motivated and gifted harvest owrkers into our part of the harvest.

4a. Why Jesus sent them out two by two? – Ecc. 4:9-12

4b. The basic relationship in the church is the pair. The healthiest house church will be made up of many pairs (prayer partners, LTG’s, etc.) The house church is not the most foundational unit. The foundational unit is pairs. (Bill Note: Pairs make sense! Are we gathering in pairs to pray and study God’s word together apart from our gatherings?)

4c. When Jesus sent them out two by two, he was sending churches (MT. 18:20) to plant churches.

4d. Good article on the biblical concept of pairs. http://kingwatch.co.nz/church_ministry/power_pairs.htm