More skinny on new Asian churches
Last week, I linked to a post by the Andrew Jones (the “Tall Skinny Kiwi“) called “9 reasons NOT to plant a church in 2012.” It turns out that he had problems with his post after I wrote my link. So, some of you may not have actually seen his “9 reasons,” but only saw his introduction. If you did not see the 9 reasons, I would definitely encourage you to follow the link above.
Now, he has published a follow-up called “Practices of a new Jesus movement.” In this post, Jones describes some of the common practices that he found among new churches in Asia during his 2011 travels.
His main point from the previous post – and a point that is continued here – is that these churches were not started or maintained by a solo church planter with a worship service. He asks:
So if they didn’t start worship services, how did they start a replicating movement of Christian communities and how do they maintain such a high level of spiritual growth?
In the rest of the post, Jones recounts 9 different practices that these groups of Christians had in common (in no particular order):
- Bible study
- Open houses
- Fringe focus
- Simple habits
- Good business products
- System for rehabilitation
- Native flavor
- Daily rhythms
- Not outreach TO but outreach WITH others
- Something for the whole family
- Prayer
Jones describes what he means by each of those “practices.” I found several of them to be familiar, while others were challenging and thought-provoking.
Which practices listed above do you see most often among the Christians in your area? Which ones do you think would be the most challenging or difficult for the Christians that you know? Why?