A simple church is a spiritual family that has Christ as King in the areas of loving God, loving others, and making disciples.
What is a church?
In the Bible, the word church is mainly used in three different ways:
- The Universal Church: All believers in all places at all times.
- The City or Regional Church: The church in a specific city like Jerusalem, or the church at Ephesus, or Galatia.
- The House Church: The church that meets in a person’s home.
What is a simple church?
In short, a simple church is a spiritual family.
What are the main characteristics of a simple church?
Their members have Christ in their midst as King mainly on three things:
- Loving God
- Loving others
- Making disciples
Why do we have to love God, others, and make disciples?
‘Loving God’ and ‘loving others’ refer to the first and second commandments.
Jesus said,
“the greatest commandment is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength”.
He also said the second is like it:
“you shall love your neighbor as yourself”.
Likewise, all the law and the prophets hang on these two Commandments.
In other words, Jesus is saying that these two Commandments can be viewed as a summary of all of God’s revealed will in the Old Testament.
Making disciples and the Great Commission
The call to make disciples is taken from the Great Commission.
Jesus’ last instructions to his followers before he was taken up into heaven were that they were to:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And then he promised:
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Simple Definition of Disciple and Church from Zúme Training
The Great Commission
In this Great Commission, the command is ‘make disciples’.
We’re to do it as we’re going, and we are to do it by baptizing and by teaching them to obey all Christ commanded.
Making disciples is the heart of the Great Commission.
In addition, Jesus described that making disciples includes teaching them to obey all he commanded.
In a sense, making disciples summarizes all of God’s revealed will in the New Testament.
Furthermore, making disciples is all that Jesus taught.
And, all that the Apostles taught is based on further explanations of what Jesus taught.
In conclusion, if we talk about loving God, loving others, and making disciples, we’re talking about summary statements that encapsulate all of God’s revealed will.
It’s because of this that simple churches focuses on these things.
How do simple churches multiply?
The simple church doesn’t have to do with things like buildings, budgets, staff and programs.
There’s nothing wrong with these things but they’re not essential for church, especially not at the house Church level.
The reason we don’t want to include these in our discussion is because we care about multiplication and these things are very difficult to multiply.
On the other hand, a spiritual family like a simple church is easy to multiply.
Even more, anyone can do this, anywhere.
But, multiplying the building’s budget, staff and programs is very difficult.
Simple things reproduce more easily and since we’re focusing on multiplication, we want to keep things simple.
So that’s why we talk about simple churches or house churches.
More Multiplication Concepts
This concept is part of the “Multiplication Concepts” series by Curtis Sergeant. Consider working through the entire series and challenging someone you know to do it with you. See an entire list of the concepts in the article titled “Multiplication Concepts”.
The Zúme Training course teaches this same concept using video animation in 40 different languages. See the training “Simple Definition of Disciple and Church“.
Zúme Training is an on-line and in-life learning experience designed for small groups who follow Jesus to learn how to obey His Great Commission and make disciples who multiply.
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