Video Transcript: House to House - Chapter 16 Two Myths— Holy Men and Holy Buildings

Henry - I have been enjoying this class. Larry, I've been actually listening to this. I know it's live and all that stuff, and I know we've been talking off and on all day. Last night, we were talking at lunch today, and then dinner tonight, exactly. So  now these topics that we're talking about now are interest, interesting to me is,  yeah, so what Larry does? He said, Hey, let's do these together. What I didn't  write your book, you know? So  

Larry - I want to talk about holy men, holy buildings. I think they're myths. Yes, I  think there's this myth that you have to have this holy man, that holy Pope, a  given holy message. You know, we honor leadership. We believe in the whole  body of Christ, the whole deal. But I believe with house church, yeah, I believe  there's so many people who could be in a role of leadership, because God's told all the sweet energy, and we don't need some holy building someplace to go to.  I mean, praise God, if God's given the church a building and you want to use  that it's fine but man is another. It wasn't in the Bible for 323 years after Jesus. I  mean, they met from house to house. And you know that?  

Henry - Well, I just came back from a vacation with my wife, and I got one of  those early church books and dug deep into such things as, you know, where  they met, what they did, right? Those were doing this whole launch on a house  church movement, right? I thought, you know, we better get into this. And I  planted a house church a couple months ago. I've had off and on house  churches, my various church plants, right, right? We've supported house  churches. So I dug deep into the whole thing. It is fascinating how no holy  buildings and no quote, holy unquote men occupied the first couple 100 years of the early church exactly, and in dramatic ways. Yeah. I mean, even in ordination, it wasn't just like big Bishop type thing. And right? These are ordinary people.  

Larry - They were, they were ordinary people who had other jobs. In many  cases, yeah, I mean Priscilla and Aquila and Paul. These guys were business  partners, at least for a season. They were making tents and doing the whole  construction thing, but they're doing that at the same time. They were church  planters, and they had the church in the house with Aquila and Priscilla. Of  course, Paul was starting all these churches. Everywhere he went, circled back  and during the day and hours, two years old, the Lord, some of these people are less. They were elders in the church. Come on. I know that that was book of  Acts, and so that's what we saw for the first 300 years in the old church. 

Henry - I was just recently at a church I preached that Sunday morning. The  church was absolutely gorgeous. I would imagine, if you'd build that church  today, that church would be about $3 million I was asked to preach. There were  about 60 people in a sanctuary of about 3-400 they still have money, but 

everybody is about 60 to 80 years old, with a few smatterings of younger, yeah.  And as I was sitting in the front pew waiting to mount the pulpit, I thought to  myself, Oh, how the mighty have fallen and this building and there hasn't been a new believer there in a long time,  

Larry - I've been telling the students that I've learned so much from John Wesley founded the Methodist Church and studied his journal study the church history  of I mean, all that he had done, and Charles Wesley and all they had done, it's  really interesting because there was this move of God, 1000s coming into the  kingdom, all these coal miners. I mean, just a common, ordinary people training  them. He believed one out of every six persons could be a leader. He really  believed that class means they asked her three or four questions for  accountability. You know, some of my Methodist pastor friends have told me this, they said, Larry, what you read is true. It really happened. But they said, really  today, and these are my Methodist  

Henry – They often have old buildings. Oh, yeah, it was about, yeah, 20 people.  

Larry - They said, today. Many times, what's happening today is a memorial,  okay, from the movement that happened in the past. Yeah, interesting. That's  me saying that that's often some of my friends who are, you know, still called to  that system, and I appreciate that very much. But let's do it again. I mean, let's  believe God for new moves of God for a new generation to plant new churches.  Have real Christianity that's based on relationship with God and relationship with people.  

Henry - You know, in my reading recently, I came upon a quote from Pliny. So  here Pliny is this guy who is a local magistrate and he's trying to please the  Emperor Trajan. Okay, so in this quote, round 110 ad. This quote is about how  Christianity is spreading everywhere, spreading into every class, is spreading  into every region of their area, and Pliny is trying to say to the Emperor, it's a  good thing you're persecuting Christians, okay? And this is how he makes this  case. He says, I kidnapped two female slaves who are deacons, even using the  word and it's translated into Latin. It's the first time that Deacon was used in  Latin as ministry in public record. Interesting. So I kidnapped two female  ministers, deacons, yeah, and I tortured them to find out what this cult was all  about. Okay? Now he was trying to make a point to Trajan, yeah. He was  saying, there are no holy men in this movement. They have slaves. The slaves  are leaders. Well, the slaves are women, right? This movement, this is breaking  down the order of the Roman Empire. And then he went on to say, After he said  this, and it's good you give attention to this, because it's spreading, and nothing  we do stops that. Wow. 

Larry - That is amazing.  

Henry - So, again, we're back. You know, how did Christianity start, right? It was  the work of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, and it captured the hearts and  the imagination of people that were completely unlike, you know, unliked by the  Roman Empire. Yeah,  

Larry - what's happening again? I mean, I meet them. I'm sure you meet them  all over the world. People who come from different kinds of religious  persuasions, different denominations, but they have this heart for simplistic  Christianity, just organic Christianity, that people love Jesus. They're reading the  Word of God. They're filled with the Holy Spirit. They're reaching their neighbors  for Christ. And they're simply saying we don't have to have, you know, a big  building or big program to do that now again, praise God for the good program.  They're not saying that's wrong at all, right, but there's this whole group of  people that we I find, I'm sure you find in the nations, who are saying, Yeah,  that's the way. What? When I was in China ministering to leaders of the  underground church, I was amazed, because, you know that they were just  starting church, 25,000 people come to Christ every day. Crazy, you know,  amazing. And I sat down and heard the harsh and talk to me. I said, What are  you gonna do when you no longer have to be underground? Are you gonna  keep doing this? They said, We don't want to ever stop. We want to keep doing  just the way we're doing it now, even if there's no persecution, because this is  something that's working yourself and that God's doing, you know,  

Henry - I'm gonna ask them, you really believe this, don't you? I do. I really do,  and I believe that. I really believe this. Yeah, and everybody, I want you to know  I'm around this man who believes this, and I believe just being around you, look  into your eyes, and I see the fire, yeah, that, you know, nothing is going to hold  the work of the Lord back. I mean, it's disruptive. It's not going to be revitalizing  

old buildings. It's not going to be, you know, holding up, you know, this high  Stratus ordination to people who now got all this education to the point where  the fire is educated out of them, it's going to be ordinary people, yeah, that are  at Christian Leaders Institute that you need at Dove International. Exactly, or  even the training they need. Yes, we are Yeah, the opportunity to be able to  plant house churches, exactly organic churches, yeah, simple churches, exactly  micro churches, exactly a church here, a church there,  

Larry - and we will bless every kind of church at the same time. Well, you know, I was a mega church pastor. Will bless that will create God's leading someone to  do that. That's fine, but let's open our hearts, whoever you are, wherever you're 

from, whatever your experience has been. Let's open our hearts to the Lord and  do what he wants to do in this generation, and give those a chance who have  this burden of the hearts to plant these new kind of churches. Be there for them,  pray for them, encourage them, so they can be all God's ever called them to be.  And we can see the revival comes.  

Henry - You know, I'll tell you I believe this guy. I kid you not. I mean, just be  around him. I feel the Holy Spirit has so moved my heart, and I just again. I very  good. I.