so we started small groups at a fast food joint and in an apartment on the campus of a university. we then started a group in the home of a family which eventually led to a group that meets in an art center. but even with all this i knew there were more ways to expand the vision.

so we took it onto the net at http://www.theholywild.com thinking that we would draw online community from the contacts we were making in our day to day lives and that this online forum would allow us to connect as we were able. but then google crawled us and people from all over the world got involved. we now have 71 people connecting with us online in some fashion thru the forum.

its amazing what god has done to connect us with people in need at every step and it would be easy to overlook this from my comfortable office at the local baptist church. after all ive been away from the frontlines for 2 years now. but i know that god is getting ready to take me back into the wilderness where i will work a normal job and continue to foster community in small groups wherever god may open an opportunity.

god bless you as you do the same where you are bro.

Excellent comments.

The technology around us is changing so fast, and yet we still must contrast ourselves with a medieval theocratic mindset in a sworn enemy to us, and reconcile how we deal with that. Our world is so confusing that one wonders what to hang on to for stability. For some, it is the chasing of financial stability. For others, it is the stability of a denominalized authority structure. The thing is, we either choose where our stability will come from (what we will stand for) or we get blown around by any capricious wind (we choose to stand for nothing, so we fall for anything).

One wonders what the real root of our social structure is anymore, and I am more and more concerned that it may be a mythical “structure” if it is not God-centered. For instance, our freedoms don’t come from the government, they come from God. They may be institutionalized in the government (which is changing), but were based on the recognition that they came from God (who does not change).

We throw away the permanent in exchange for the temporary.

Matt, I think the timing is right for the releasing of the Spirit, to help us see as God sees and love as He loves.

Your points are well taken about the need for authoritative structure, but we may be facing a need to internalize that authority rather than to look to external authority like the church denomination — even if a lot of people will become lost in the mists of spiritual confusion as a result.

The stability of a powerful secular government (let alone media) or institutional church may be illusion. Even in the modern world, many governments have regularly collapsed on scales on the order of a Century, taking their religious institutions down with them; there was a Russian Czar and an Ottoman Empire in 1909. We live in what my denomination used to call the “hastening time”, environmentalists refer to as “the bottleneck”, and science fiction writers and futurists refer to as the “approaching singularity”. All of these terms carry the notion of unpredictability, instability, and the need for the prophetic — ready or not.

I understand and like your microchurch concept, and I realize it is not shared as a “solve the world’s problem” proposition. Institutions build people up, and they tear them down. Like money, they are neither good nor evil, but can be used for either, and often are. All institutions go through cycles where it comes time for a revolution, and this may well be the time for the contemporary Christian church to do this. But, the question always comes down to is every person a prophet, and if so, what is the meaning of their utterings? Without some sort of authoritative structure, how is one to sort through the contrasting and conflicting noise of a world of prophets? Not that it is easy with our denominalization, but we cannot just tear down institutions like we have for the past 40 years and replace them with the state and media – they are the wrong prophets.

Like your ideas.

God Bless You!