The Spontaneous Church
John White
John White is a graduate of Fuller Seminary who served as a Presbyterian pastor for 20 years in Denver, CO. He is currently the US Coordinator for Dawn Ministries. The Dawn Vision is for a church (a vibrant family of Jesus) within easy access of every person in North America and beyond. (
http://www.dawnministries.org/globalministries/north%20america.htm )
Spontaneous: From sponte meaning voluntarily. Occurring without apparent external cause, unconstrained and unstudied in behavior.
Introduction. In general, conventional church in America could be called “the programmed church”. By programs, I mean man’s best efforts (plans, strategies, goals, meetings, etc.) to accomplish God’s purposes. This intentional approach is usually characterized by “the gospel of knowledge and duty.” That is, the assumption that Christians will become more godly and the Great Commission will be fulfilled if only those believers are given more information and are exhorted more forcefully to obey God (i.e., external motivation). While usually well intentioned, this approach is deeply flawed and is a departure from both the life of Jesus and the life of the early church. The alternative to the “program mentality” is an intimate, conversational relationship with the Holy Spirit (i.e., internal motivation) resulting organically and spontaneously in the life and mission of the church.
This discussion is central to our thinking about the house church movement. The current danger is that this “program mentality” will be brought along with the many people moving out of the conventional church and into house church. Already, some house churches have become simply conventional churches held in a home. (Some have humorously called this “Honey, I shrunk the church!”.) Our belief is that house church, properly understood, is much more than a mere change in venue. It is, in fact, a “whole different animal”.
With the help of Roland Allen (the great English missiologist from the early part of the 20th Century) and other authors, we will briefly explore three aspects of “the spontaneous church”. First, we will see that this concept is rooted in Scripture. It is foundational to the life and ministry of both Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And, it is modeled by the early church. Second, we will explore in greater depth the differences between “the programmed church” and “the spontaneous church”. Third, we will touch briefly on some ways to move towards this New Testament way of life and ministry.
I. The Spontaneous Church in Scripture. The life and ministry of the church grows out of the life and ministry of both Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
A. The Life and Ministry of Jesus: Nothing on His own initiative. John 5:19-20 is a foundational passage for understanding the life and ministry of Jesus. Consider the two following versions of that passage:
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.
So Jesus explained himself at length. “I’m telling you this straight. The Son can’t independently do a thing, only what he sees the Father doing. What the Father does, the Son does. The Father loves the Son and includes him in everything he is doing.
Even though Jesus was the Son of God, He did not initiate or implement His own plans (no preaching, no healing, no raising the dead). Everything flowed from an intimate conversational relationship with His Father. The Father initiated. Jesus responded.
B. The Life and Ministry of the Holy Spirit: Nothing on His own initiative.
Perhaps one of Jesus’ most surprising statements (at least to those who heard it) was when He told His disciples that it was a good thing that He was going away. This began to make sense when He explained that He would send the Paraklete (Counselor, Coach) in His place. One of the primary purposes of the Paraklete is to enable us to live and minister the same way Jesus did.
Here’s what Jesus tells us about the way communication occurs within the Trinity. The Father tells Jesus everything that He is doing. Jesus tells all that He has heard from the Father to the Spirit. The Spirit hears from Jesus and passes that on to us. We hear from the Spirit and pass that on to others. We can see from John 16:12 that the Spirit functions the same way Jesus did. That is, He does not initiate on His own. He only makes known what He hears from Jesus. Jesus initiates and the Spirit responds.
Gordon Fee helps us understand the critical importance of the Spirit in our lives. “The Spirit is God’s way of being present, powerfully present, in our lives and communities as we await the consummation of the kingdom of God. Precisely because he understood the Spirit as God’s personal presence, Paul also understood the Spirit always in terms of an empowering presence; whatever else, for Paul the Spirit was an experienced reality.”
C. The Life and Ministry of the church: Nothing on her own initiative.
1. Jesus as the Builder of the Church. Jesus is the Head of the church. He makes it clear that it is His church and He is the one who will build it. He calls us to join Him in the process. It is also true that He cares more about the fulfillment of the Great Commission than we ever could. Further, He is the expert on incarnation. We learn all of these things from Him. Therefore, prayer (especially the listening part) is the starting place and the foundation for all ministry.
2. Prevenience – He is always initiating. By saying that it is Jesus who is building His church, we are reminding ourselves that He is always the one who initiates. (His initiation is always a response to the prior initiation of the Father.) A helpful term for this is “prevenience” which means that which goes before or precedes. In a region or people group, Jesus is always working preveniently. This changes everything. It means that it is no longer our job to “make something happen”. Rather, we are to see what He is already doing and ask how (if) we are to join Him. (What we do flows out of intimacy with Him.) An understanding of and commitment to the prevenience principle is key to the organic nature of church.
The structure of the Jewish day illustrates this concept. The day begins with sundown. The first thing we do is sleep. This is a picture of “prevenience”. We awake to find a world where God has already been at work. Our job is to find out what He has been doing and see how we are to join Him in that day.
Eugene Peterson gives a great explanation of this concept. (We are called to) “…a cultivated awareness that God has already seized the initiative. The traditional doctrine defining this truth is prevenience: God everywhere and always seizing the initiative. He gets things going. He had and continues to have the first word. Prevenience is the conviction that God has been working diligently, redemptively, and strategically before I appeared on the scene, before I was aware there was something here for me to do.…there is a disciplined, determined conviction that everything (and I mean, precisely everything) we do is a response to God's first work, his initiating act.”
3. The Spirit provokes spontaneous worship. Biblical worship does not begin with our own initiative. It is not motivated by a sense of duty or obligation. Rather, it flows from the prevenient work of the Holy Spirit. John Piper helps us understand worship from this perspective.
The role of the Spirit. “The fuel of worship is a true vision of the greatness of God; the fire that makes the fuel burn white-hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit; the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit; and the resulting heat of our affections is powerful worship, pushing its way out in confessions, longings, acclamations, tears, songs, shouts, bowed heads, lifted hands and obedient lives.”
The nature of spontaneous emotion. “It (genuine emotion) is there spontaneously. It is not performed as a means to anything else. It is not consciously willed. It is not decided upon. It comes from deep within, from a place beneath the conscious will…The feeling is there, bursting out of my heart. And it is an end in itself.”
The insufficiency of duty in marriage. “Consider the analogy of a wedding anniversary. Mine (Piper writes) is on December 21. Suppose on this day I bring home a dozen long-stemmed red roses for Noel. When she meets me at the door I hold out the roses, and she says, “O Johnny, they’re beautiful, thank you,” and gives me a big hug. Then suppose I hold up my hand and say mater-of-factly, “Don’t mention it; it’s my duty.”
What happens? Is not the exercise of duty a noble thing? Do not we honor those we dutifully serve? Not much. Not if there’s no heart in it. Dutiful roses are a contradiction in terms. If I am not moved by a spontaneous affection for (my wife) as a person, the roses do not honor her. In fact they belittle her. They are a very thin covering for the fact that she does not have the worth or beauty in my eyes to kindle affection. All I can muster is a calculated expression of marital duty.”
The insufficiency of duty in worship. “Worship is a way of gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of his worth. This cannot be done by mere acts of duty. It can be done only when spontaneous affections arise in the heart.”
4. The Spirit provokes spontaneous mission. As with worship, Biblical mission does not begin with our own initiative. It is not motivated by a sense of duty or obligation. No one understood this foundational concept better than Roland Allen who was one of the greatest missiologists of the 20th Century. In the biography written by Allen’s grandson, Leslie Newbigin writes the following in the Foreword:
“At the center of Allen’s message was the conviction that the Holy Spirit is the active agent in the Christian mission. For him Pentecost was the key for the understanding of mission. He could write about “The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church” because he saw it, not as a human enterprise, but as a divine activity. To understand that is to be delivered from the anxieties, the burdens and the sense of guilt which so often form the atmosphere of discussion about mission. Missionary thinking is still pervaded by Pelagianism. Mission is conceived as a task, rather than as a gift, an over-spill, and an explosion of joy.”
(Note: Pelagius was a fourth century British monk who believed that salvation could be achieved entirely through human effort.)
Gordon Fee supports this same idea regarding the role of the Spirit in the early church:
“Thus the Spirit is absolutely presuppositional to their entire experience and understanding of their present life in Christ;”
5. The Spirit leads the church meeting. Watchman Nee, the Chinese church leader, explains the kind of church meeting that is described in 1 Cor. 14:26. “In this kind of meeting any gifted member of the church may be preacher and any may be audience. Nothing is determined by man, and each takes part as the Spirit leads. It is not an ‘all-man’ ministry, but a Holy Spirit ministry.”
(For practical help on this kind of church meeting, see the video/DVD produced by House2House Ministries, “When You Come Together” )
6. The Spirit produces missionaries. More from Roland Allen: "The same is true of St. Peter and St. John, and of all the apostolic writers. They do not seem to feel any necessity to repeat the great Commission, and to urge that it is the duty of their converts to make disciples of all the nations. What we read in the New Testament is no anxious appeal to Christians to spread the Gospel, but a note here and there which suggests how the Gospel was being spread abroad…for centuries the Christian Church continued to expand by its own inherent grace, and threw up an unceasing supply of missionaries without any direct exhortation.
7. The result of the Spirit’s work – the expansion of the church is spontaneous. Roland Allen: “As I have said spontaneous expansion is spontaneous. It is not created by exhortation. It springs up unbidden. Where men see it they covet it…”
II. Implications for us: the Spontaneous Church vs the Programmed Church. Understanding some of the differences between the churches that many of us grew up in and the churches in the New Testament.
A. Functional vs relational. Which is the starting place – task or relationship?
1. Intimacy is central. Generally speaking, the church in the West has focused more on function (task) than on relationship (intimacy). Discipleship especially is seen as a task rather than as a relationship. We have developed programs and tools to accomplish the task but have often missed a profound connection with the heart of God and others. Motivation doesn’t come from within. Rather, we have to continually exhort people to do the right things. Over time they give up on the task because their hearts are not engaged.
2. The toll of the gospel of duty and obligation. Our gospel of duty and obligation (“make it happen ministry”) has taken a great toll on believers – especially those in leadership. One of the most difficult places to live as a Christian is in leadership of a church or parachurch ministry. In that environment there is huge pressure to “get the job done”. This pressure frequently destroys relationships with other leaders and even with God. (“Sixty percent of U.S. pastors don’t feel they have anyone they can talk to honestly about their job.”) There is lots of activity but little genuine transformation. In the end, there is often a high degree of burnout with disastrous consequences for the marriages and families of those in leadership.
3. Mission as a natural fruit. The house church model is a new (old) wineskin. It is very precious to Jesus and, therefore, it is important to not put the cart before the horse. (Horse = intimacy with God, living from the heart, listening to the Spirit. Cart = mission). The concern is that house church not be used simply as a tool to get other things done (like evangelism). We must not put the old wine (exhorting people to mission) in the new wineskin. Mission is meant be a natural fruit and not an obligation.
4. Mission like marriage. Consider the analogy of marriage. People get married out of love, not in order to have children. Children are the fruit of relationship. They happen naturally. This is the way God wants to birth things. Again, a movement will only be sustained if mission (children) is the fruit of a marriage, not its purpose. We would do well to ponder the primary reason for our existence. Is it functional or relational?
In writing about the Trinity, Darrell Johnson says, “And here is the Gospel: The God who is love draws near to me, a sinful, mere mortal, to draw me near to Himself, in order to draw me within the circle of Lover, Beloved and Love itself. I become a co-lover with God! It is the very reason for my existence.”
B. External vs internal motivation. Does motivation for ministry come from the inside or outside?
1. Symptom vs cause. We all agree that the Great Commission is important. The key question is how it is to be accomplished? When we consider the issue of people not being involved in mission we need to make sure we are making the right diagnosis. What is the symptom and what is the cause? Diminished mission may be the symptom and not the cause. We are all committed to the concept of “mission”, the expansion of the Kingdom. The question is: how does this come about? Is it internally motivated by the Holy Spirit working in the heart of the believer? Or is it externally motivated by teachings, exhortations and structures from men?
Spontaneous: From sponte meaning voluntarily. Occurring without apparent external cause, unconstrained and unstudied in behavior.
2. Those who have “life” don’t need to be exhorted. The reason that Christians don’t engage in evangelism and missions more than they do is not because they haven’t been exhorted. It is not because they don’t have enough training. Rather, it’s that they have so little “life”. Consider the story of Jesus. People ripped roofs off in order to get to Him. Why? Because they saw LIFE in Him. When people have that kind of life in them they will flow naturally into mission. It will flow spontaneously from the inside out. This is a much better model than trying to motivate people from the outside. (The reason that people don’t reach out is not that they don’t care. It’s that they have so little life.)
From Roland Allen: “This then is what I mean by spontaneous expansion. I mean the expansion which follows the unexhorted and unorganized activity of individual members of the Church explaining to others the Gospel which they have found for themselves; I mean the expansion which follows the irresistible attraction of the Christian Church for men who see its order life, and are drawn to it by desire to discover the secret of a life which they instinctively desire to share…”
3. Our mission: the manifestation of the Spirit from within. Roland Allen: “The work of the missionary is education in this sense: it is the use of means to reveal to his coverts a spiritual power which they actually possess and of which they are dimly conscious. As the converts exercise that power, as they yield themselves to the indwelling Spirit, they discover the greatness of the power and the grace of the Spirit, and in so doing they reveal it to their teacher. But we are like a teacher who cannot resist telling their pupils the answer the moment a difficulty arises…The work of the missionary cannot be done by imposing things from without. The one result which he desires is the growth and manifestation of the Spirit from within.”
Were Roland Allen alive today, I believe he would enthusiastically embrace the discipline of coaching. In the Christian context, the role of a coach is to help others listen to the Spirit in their own lives. The following comment by Tony Stoltzfus illustrates this foundational principle: “God initiates the changes He wants, and the Holy Spirit brings those things to the surface through teachable moments. The transformation of the client happens through experience and relationship, not the information you bring to the table. So let go of the need to fix the client, and allow room for the client to deal with God.”
C. Prevenience vs Programs. Is ministry initiated by us or by God?
1. Functional deism. We have to learn to “do nothing on our own initiative” like Jesus. We have learned well how to do “something”. That is, to “make it happen”. This is the definition of a program – our best efforts to accomplish God’s purposes. This is functional deism. (God got everything started, gave us instructions and then left – ie, no Holy Spirit.) We would deny this as our theology. But the way we have “done church” exposes our true beliefs. As Evangelicals, in practice our Trinity has often been the Father, Son and “Holy Scriptures”.
Gordon Fee:
“I do not mean that the Holy Spirit is not present; he is indeed, or we are not of Christ at all. Nonetheless, despite the affirmations in our creeds and hymns and the lip service paid to the Spirit in our occasional conversations, the Spirit is largely marginalized in our actual life together as a community of faith.”
“If we do not have the Spirit, Paul says, we do not belong to God at all; my concern is that in our having his Spirit, we not settle for a watered down understanding that gives more glory to Western rationalism and spiritual anemia than to the living God.”
“In contrast to the common understanding of contemporary believers, first-century believers understood – and assumed – the Spirit to be manifested in power. So much is this so that the terms “Spirit” and “power” at times are used interchangeably.”
Roland Allen:
“…Paul’s method is not in harmony with the modern Western spirit. We modern teachers from the West are by nature and training persons of restless activity and boundless self-confidence…We are accustomed to do things ourselves for ourselves, to find our own way, to rely upon our own exertions, …We are accustomed by long usage to an elaborate system of church organization…We cannot imagine any Christianity worthy of the name existing without the elaborate machinery which we have invented…With that spirit, St Paul’s methods do not agree, because they were the natural outcome of quite another spirit, the spirit which preferred persuasion to authority.
St Paul distrusted elaborate systems of religious ceremonial, and grasped fundamental principles with an unhesitating faith in the power of the Holy Ghost to apply them to his hearers and to work out their appropriate external expressions in them. It was inevitable that methods which were the natural outcome of the mind of St Paul should appear as dangerous to us as they appeared to the Jewish Christians of his own day.”
2. Program evangelism vs power evangelism. This principle is described by John Wimber: “In programmatic evangelism, Christians witness to everyone they meet, in obedience to the general command of Scripture to ‘go and make disciples.’ In power evangelism the same command is obeyed, only differently. Each evangelism experience is initiated by the Holy Spirit for a specific place, time, person, or group…In programmatic evangelism, the Christian says, “In obedience I go. Holy Spirit bless me.” In power evangelism, the Christian says, ‘As the Holy Spirit tells me to go, I go.”
D. Not both/and. Roland Allen believed that “the programmed church” and “the spontaneous church” could not coexist. “Nothing could be clearer than that Allen saw “mission” as the “unexhorted and unorganized activity of individual members of the Church” who were impelled by the Spirit. The fact that Allen was not willing to accept a “both/and” perspective was one of the things that got him in so much trouble with the church leaders of his day.”
III. How to become the Spontaneous Church. Some beginning steps towards a way of doing/being church that flows spontaneously from conversational intimacy with the Spirit.
A. Learning to do nothing on our own initiative. We have become addicted to taking the initiative, to doing “something”, to developing programs to accomplish God’s purposes. Giving up this addiction is difficult and requires that we go through a period of “detox”.
Don’t serve God. John Piper: “… (Ps. 50:15) forces on us the startling fact that we must beware of serving God, and must take special care to let him serve us, lest we rob Him of his glory. This sounds very strange. Most of us think serving God is a totally positive thing; we have not considered that serving God may be an insult to him. But meditation on the meaning of prayer demands this consideration…
If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world and all that is in it is mine... Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. (Ps. 50:12,15)
Evidently there is a way to serve God that would belittle him as needy of our service. “The Son of Man came not to be served” (Mark 10:45). He aims to be the servant. He aims to get the glory as Giver.”
B. Learning to listen to the Spirit to find out what the Father is doing.
“We learn to be attentive to the divine action already in process so that the previously unheard word of God is heard, the previously unattended act of God is noticed… (The Prevenient questions are):
What has God been doing here?
What traces of grace can I discern in this life?
What history of love can I read in this group?
What has God set in motion that I can get in on?”
C. Learning to live from our heart.
Passion comes from one’s calling not from exhortation or from someone else’s passion. We shouldn’t project our calling/passion on others. Better to help them find God’s calling for them and let their passion emerge. Don’t promote one passion (such as evangelism or missions). Rather, get people hooked up to God’s heart and let each one find what they are called to do.
“Understand that you are God’s idea. You will be held accountable for using what he gave you to work with, not for pursuing someone else’s agenda…
The main way we enjoy God is by enjoying the use we make of the giftedness with which he endowed each of us – in service to others and in love, praise, and adoration of God. The things of life we personally and uniquely enjoy are there because of our God-designed giftedness.”
“Jesus provokes desire; he awakens it; he heightens it. The religious watchdogs accuse him of heresy. He says, ‘Not at all. This is the invitation God has been sending all along.’”
D. Learning to tell stories.
Our job? Discover and tell stories of spontaneous church and missions.
"Ivan Illich was once asked, "What is the most revolutionary way to change society? Is it violent revolution or is it gradual reform?" He gave a careful answer. Neither. If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story."
E. The Key to completing the Great Commission: Faithfulness
While the world has many strategies (such as marketing) to reach a large number of people, Jesus has a different plan. He emphasizes the quality of faithful obedience. In Lk. 19:17, the Master says,”‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’” In Mt. 25:21, the Master says something quite similar, “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.
We may think that the goal of making disciples of all nations is a huge and almost impossible task. We may think that this task will require an immense amount of work by brilliant and highly gifted people.
The Master, however, sees this differently. He is prepared to give us not one city but ten! He is not necessarily looking for highly gifted people but rather highly faithful (trustworthy, obedient) people. Our job is to be clear about the few, small assignments the Master will give us. If we demonstrate that He can trust us with the few and the small, He will give us the many and the large.
What is your assignment?
Webster’s II, New Riverside University Dictionary, The Riverside Publishing Company, 1994.
The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
Peterson, E. H., & Peterson, E. H. 1997, c1995. The Message : New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs (Electronic ed.) . NavPress: Colorado Springs
Also see Jn. 8:28-29, 12:49-50, 14:10-14, 15:14-15
Jn. 16:7
Jn. 16:12-15
Jn. 5:19-20, 16:15
Jn. 16:12-15
Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, Hendrickson Publishers, 1994, p. xxi.
Mt. 16:18
Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, Word Publishing, 1989, p. 69.
John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, Multnomah Press, 1986, p. 66.
Piper, p. 71.
Piper, p. 73.
Piper, p. 72.
Hubert Allen, Roland Allen: Pioneer, Priest and Prophet , Forward Movement, 1998, p. xiii.
Fee, p. 2-3.
Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Church Life, International Students Press, 1969, p. 119.
http://www.house2house.tv/
Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962, p. 7.
Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962, p. 155.
Tony Stoltzfus, Leadership Coaching, BookSurge, 2005, p. 86.
See Revolution and other books by George Barna.
Darrell Johnson, Experiencing the Trinity, Regent College Publishing, 2002, p. 63.
Webster’s II, New Riverside University Dictionary, The Riverside Publishing Company, 1994.
Jn 1:4
Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962, p. 7.
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: Paul’s or Ours?, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962, p. 146.
Tony Stoltzfus, Leadership Coaching, BookSurge, 2005, p. 158.
Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, Hendrickson Publishers, 1994, p. 1.
Fee, p. 9.
Fee, p. 35
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St Paul’s or Ours? , Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1962, p. 6-7.
John Wimber, Power Evangelism, Harper, 1986, p. 46.
Hubert Allen, Roland Allen: Pioneer, Priest and Prophet , Forward Movement, 1998, p. xiii.
John Piper, Desiring God, Multnomah Press, 1986, p. 138.
Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, Word Publishing, 1989, p. 70.
Arthur Miller, The Power of Uniqueness: How to Become Who You Really Are, Zondervan, 1999, p. 111-112.
John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003, p. 233.
Tim Costello, Tips from a Traveling Soul Searcher, p. 33.
The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
