Finally, and this is quite exciting, I procrastinated for about half an hour, and designed the front cover. I don’t want just another dull dissertation style front cover where all it does is give the title, word count, author, tutor and all that, I want an aesthetically pleasing front cover. So here’s my idea:

It’s all a load of rubbish; you need to start again!

But then he was reading it off his computer screen!

Then we got on to talking about how things were going and he gave a few perceptive comments. The main two points were that I need to rework the introduction to point out where I am going and that I need to keep in mind my main question. As it is, my introduction is flat and does nothing much more than explain what simple church is. Also, in my first chapter particularly I spend a lot of time analysing the nature of church but not enough time explaining how being small aids such an understanding.

I think one reflection I would add is that the chapters need to be tied togther more as complete wholes rather than a collection of somewhat disconnected paragraphs.

Oh and I’ve got a meeting with my dissertation tutor tomorrow so I’ll try and remember to update here on how that goes. I’m hoping he doesn’t say that it’s all a load of rubbish and that I need to start again!

Just as using church to refer to the building can limit church activity to a certain locale, and using church to refer to the act of gathering limits church activity to a certain time, a misunderstanding of individualism limits church identity to nothing more than a group of individuals.

For simple churches to do this goes against the grain of trends for many years. Ed Stetzer points out that, “Throughout history, Christians have tended to meet in larger and larger groups under more highly trained leaders when they have the freedom and ability to do so.”¹ Steve Timmis points out further that it has become more than just a trend, because in Western countries the assumption is that the bigger the church the better it is and many ministers are pursuing this, not even necessarily with false intentions or selfish arrogance.² For simple church, smaller is better, at least smaller than most contemporary churches.

…This leads us to ask then what the difference is between a network of simple churches and a larger church that has home groups. The distinction is that the individual simple church considers itself autonomous, even when networked to other simple churches, whereas house groups are small effigies of the overseeing whole church.³ Kimball explains it this way: “Over and over again, I hear the rising dissatisfaction with what we typically call ’small groups,’ particularly as a vehicle for worshiping together. There is a rising desire among emerging generations to be in smaller worshiping communities that are not so directly controlled as extensions of the larger church.”⁴ Simple churches, rather than being controlled by the network, are self governing. Though they may make decisions with the network in mind and even amongst the network, it is ultimately up to each church to govern its affairs.

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¹ Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 165.
² Stephen Timmis, “Setting the Scene,” in Multiplying Churches (ed. Stephen Timmis; Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 2000), 15-6.
³ J. D. Payne, Missional House Churches (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), 14.
⁴ Dan Kimball, Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2004), 196.

I need to start writing soon. I think I’m almost ready to do the first chapter after having written an essay on Presbyterian government, funnily enough!

Here’s a quote from Organic Church by Neil Cole to finish off this post:

“Don’t bash the bride no matter how ugly she looks to you. If you start bashing the bride, sooner or later you’re going to have to take on the Groom, and I don’t think you want that!” (p.139)