I’ve written extensively on organic church life (see the links below this post). Reimagining Church and Finding Organic Church are theological and practical treatments of the subject. Yet the term “organic church” continues to be used for any group of believers that meets in a home. (This is a misnomer as we’ve previously discussed.) The concept of  authentic organic church life is very hard to get over to a person who has never seen it firsthand.

What follows is a report from a person who visited one of the organic churches that my co-workers and I planted and are working with presently. I’m deliberately not giving the city where this church exists as this is not an advertisement, and it will detract from the point.

I hope the report will give you a better handle on what organic church life looks like in living color. Similar testimonies of those who live in organic church life appear in the links below. Note that “organic church” is nothing other than the church that the New Testament envisions. Continue Reading…

Those of you who have read my books carefully . . . as well as this blog . . . know that I’m not an advocate of “house church.”

Asking me if I endorse a house church is like asking me if I endorse plants. To which my response is, “what kind of plant are you talking about? I like crape myrtle trees, but I don’t like cactuses or poison ivy.”

House churches are like plants. There are extremely different varieties.

As I’ve often said, a house church is simply a group of Christians who hold their meetings in a home.

That can range from a scaled-down version of the institutional church (very common), to a glorified bible study (even more common), to a once-a-week songfest accompanied by a potluck, to a grade-A, certified cult. Continue Reading…

Yesterday, I was sent an email from someone who I do not know. The email began with these words:

As I walked into church at Morningstar in Ft. Mill this morning, I saw a poster on the church door for our upcoming Harvest conference which is this week. I saw the USUAL speakers and said to myself…. “Same old faces, same old voices, where is the new breed of prophets …?”

This email stirred up a memory. The memory was of letter I wrote to Rick Joyner (leader of Morningstar) some 14 years ago. So I searched for it on my hard drive, and lo and behold, I found it.

What’s striking about the letter is that this person’s concern (above) was identical to one of the points I made in my letter to Rick a decade-and-a-half ago. (See the third point.)

Rick and I have never met. I regard him as a brother in Christ, and I have no negative word to say about him (as is the case with every person who serves the Lord today, whether I agree with them or not). I don’t follow his ministry and haven’t for many years. So the email I received was quite interesting to say the least.

Note that when I wrote this letter in 1996, I hadn’t written any books and was completely unknown to anyone outside of my close friends and family. At the time, I had been out of the organized church for 8 years and was experiencing my first taste of organic church life during that time. Also: none of the references in the letter are to myself. Rather, they are to others who I knew at the time (some of whom I still know today).

In addition, I have rarely written to a ministry in this way. And that’s still the case.

I still stand by the letter and hope that it will encourage, and possibly challenge, all ministries that hold large conferences. Hence the reason why I’m posting it some 14 years later. Continue Reading…

Keith Giles, who is a prolific author and blogger, recently interviewed Neil Cole and me on the subject of organic church. I really appreciate that Keith did this. My hope is that the interview will serve as a conversation starter on some important subjects.

I’m breaking custom by publishing the entire interview on the blog today. Normally, my blog posts are fairly short, so my normal tendency would be to break this interview up into 2 or 3 smaller segments.

However, I feel that the content of the interview is so important that it should remain as a whole. It’s pretty long, so I’d recommend printing it out and reading it.

On tomorrow’s blog, I will share what I’ve learned about blogging over the last two years. If you are a blogger, you don’t want to miss it. I really look forward to hearing your contribution to the discussion as well. Continue Reading…

I just returned from the INFUSION 2010 DC Conference.

Hungry Christians attended from all over DC, MD, and VA. It was a wonderful time. The reports and testimonies were outstanding.

There was a spirit of grace throughout the whole event. Lots of laughter, lots of sharing heart-to-heart, and lots of love and grace. What also impressed me was that it was the most culturally mixed audience I’d ever seen gathered together in one place in the name of Jesus. Some of the people who attended remarked that this blew them away. To their minds, it represented a genuine work of God. Continue Reading…

I received this email yesterday. Thought it was worth posting.

Hey Frank, I’ve been following a recent discussion on organic church and I’m frustrated. It seems like some people are using the word “organic church” to just mean Christians in a home who want to multiply rapidly, and with a pastor over them. One pastor wrote an article about it saying organic doesn’t work, then another guy who uses the organic church label is trying to defend it, but his whole understanding is pretty mechanical. He sees organic church to be all about church multiplication, that it has to start with lost people, has to have strong leadership. I appreciate your two books Reimagining [Church] and Finding Organic [Church]. They enriched my understanding of what organic church is. Does it irritate you when people use these same terms so differently?

My answer:  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there is and will continue to be massive confusion on the term “organic church.” The word has been hijacked and turned into something very human, very man-centered, and taken captive by the network marketing movement of the business world. What many are calling “organic” just isn’t. Not even close. And Jesus Christ is not central to it. Continue Reading…

Those who are regulars to this blog know that my favorite Resurrection Song of all time is by my friend Don Francisco.

I’ve heard all the other popular Resurrection songs, and as far as I’m concerned, this one has nevah been trumped . . . evah.

Warning: Keep some Kleenex nearby. Even though I’ve heard it many times, I can’t hear it without tears.

What follows is a report from the women in one of the organic churches I’m working with regarding what happened this past Valentine’s Day:

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How do you put love into words?  The brothers (men) in our church blessed the sisters (the women) with Christ’s love in such a beautiful way for this past Valentine’s Day.

Every brother contributed personal words of encouragement, love, and affirmation for each sister, and then the brothers combined all of these sentiments into a beautifully written memento for each of the ladies – a card. Each card came from all of the brothers as a group. Continue Reading…

A statement I’ve made over and over again in conferences and events all last year was:

“Organic church life is the most glorious experience a Christian can know. But it doesn’t work, it never has worked, and it never will work unless you embrace the cross.”

The church of Jesus Christ — in experience — only works when the members are laying their lives down, “losing their lives,” submitting to one another and to their Lord, and giving Christ room to live, move, and have His being.

“And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” Luke 9:23-24

For this reason, authentic body life is one of the most glorious — yet difficult — things a Christian can get involved in. It’s a railroad track to the cross. And this is one of the reasons why it’s so incredibly transforming.

Yesterday, Christianity Today published my response to Mark Galli’s article Long Live Organic Church. For those of you who have been following the dialogue, this article is where I fall out on it. It can also be read as a stand-alone piece. There’s a PDF link at the bottom should you want to pass it along to others.

I hope it clears some of the fog that surrounds this issue.

Why the Organic Church Is Not Exactly a Movement

“If the driving force of any movement or phenomenon is not Jesus Christ, we are building castles in the air.”

A response from Frank Viola to “Long Live the Organic Church” by Mark Galli.

Words are funny things. Sometimes a word can get into the drinking water of a subculture and morph into clay. A word becomes clay when it loses its universal meaning and becomes molded and shaped to mean different things to different people.

Enter the phrase organic church. Continue Reading…