“Safe Houses of Hope And Prayer” Update

Dear Friends,

This is a short letter  to simply give you an update on recent activity. I continue to receive emails  and responses to our article, “Ten Years of House Church: Where Do We Go From Here” which  you can still view and discuss on our blog. It has  been discussed and linked on several house church blogs with active discussions. Apparently we  have touched a nerve in the larger house church community. Thank you all for your support and  encouragement.

“Safe Houses of Hope And Prayer” Update

Several of you have requested to read and review our book manuscript, and responses have  begun to trickle in, so I’ve decided to include a couple of them here. Our friend Jim Rutz wrote:

Maurice,

Great book! I just finished reading the whole thing tonight, and I hope it gets the wide circulation it  deserves.  Sorry to annoy you, but the biggest flaw is the title.  Everybody knows what a safe  house is, but it has no connection with a house church.  And when you pile that and hope and  prayer on top of each other, it gets too crowded.  And hard to remember.  You'd do much better  by coming up with a sexy title and shoving safe, hope, and prayer into the subtitle.  River  Houses would be a good start, but you may find something better.  Like, Change Houses,  perhaps. Best, Jim

As a result of Jim’s observation, and after discussing it with other people, we have decided to  change the name to “River Houses Rising” with a subtitle of “The Rise of Safe Houses of  Hope and Prayer”. Again, it will be volume 1 of at least two books (with a possible third on  building biblical community).

I received another response from Alan in Great Britain who wrote:

Morning (here!) Maurice. Thank you again for sending this to me. I read it last week and felt to  leave commenting for a few days to let it 'settle' rather than 'knee-jerk' in reaction.   I do really think it is very good indeed. The message of the book takes the whole 'movement' a  stage further and moves us all along a bit. Your writing is 'easy on the eye' and gets the  message across so that even 'turnips' like me can understand. That's a gift! The content is spot  on, and the practical outworking (often missing from such books) a welcome addition. When can I buy it?!   And when's Vol 2 due? Have a very good day! Alan

So, if you are reading the manuscript, try to get your observations to me as soon as possible as  we hope to finalize the book in the next couple of weeks and get it set up for printing. In the  mean time we have been working on the design for a new Safe Houses of Hope And Prayer  website, including an “Association” page giving the specifics of our proposed organic house  church network (or “Association”), “Safe Houses of Hope And Prayer”. I am encouraged by the  discussions I am hearing and witnessing regarding the need for infrastructure to accommodate  the coming harvest. I am convinced that the rapid planting and multiplication of organic house  churches in the West (America and Europe) is going to be the product of a genuine move of  God’s spirit in spiritual awakening and revival. Our role at this point in time is to prepare our  “infrastructure” to accommodate the fruit of that sovereign move of God, and to fast and pray  that He will indeed soon visit His Church. During the Welsh Revival of 1904 Evan Roberts’ motto  was, “Bend the Church, Save the world.” Apparently, saving the world is the easy part. Bending  the Church is the hard part.

The more prepared we are to quickly multiply house churches as “discipleship incubators” the  greater will be the long-term fruit of this coming spiritual outpouring and harvest. I immediately  think of Wesley’s “Classes of 12” and their role in preserving and discipling the fruit of the  Evangelical Awakening in England in the 1700s. A similar thought occurs regarding the early  Methodist “Circuit Riders” on the American frontier during the 2nd Great Awakening. When  viewed biblically they were essentially “5-Fold” Pastors who had an itinerant ministry among  widely scattered “house churches” on the frontier, traveling among them to equip and  encourage. Funny how old things seem new, and new things are really old. My sense now is that  we need to move quickly to get our infrastructure in place because time is short. I have set a  goal of having the book(s) and website ready by Thanksgiving. We’ll see if that’s God’s schedule!

I am thankful for people who have stepped up financially to say that they want to encourage this  project along. Personally, I would love to be able to either give the book away free, or to make it  available at cost plus shipping. But in order to do that we need some donors willing to underwrite  the project. We welcome your participation. If you feel  led to help out, send me a “REPLY”  email and we’ll hook up, or you can use PayPal .