I want to continue on with my story. It's a God story, the story of how we've been privileged to help leaders in many nations start house fellowships in their nations, in their cities and in the villages. And they're part of the world.


As I mentioned in the last session, we had all these young people who started give their lives to Christ. So we, we, I was asked to start a Tuesday night Bible study for them a week on weekends, we took them into churches, came back to our house, but I was asked by our team to start a Bible study to train these new believers. And now, as I've been a writer now for the last 20 years, of right guys help me to write about 50 different books, it's people often will say, which you write is so simple? His wife, why, because we learned many years ago how to relate to people who knew nothing about the Bible. 


So we're teaching about Jesus, teaching the New Testament, teaching the Old Testament, to those who knew nothing. They didn't know who Paul Apostle was. I understood that, because even though I grew up in the church, I knew very little about the Bible, very, very little. My, you know, parents, when I was young, we went to Sunday morning services, when they went to Sunday school for a while, and we stopped. And I just knew very, very little. But when I get right with God, I began to simply devour the scriptures and study the scriptures and I mean, I go through the whole Bible and read the Bible. I was up early in the morning praying, reading the Word, reading the Word, and so I began to realize that there's some things were in the religious systems that I began to experience. There were other things that were in the Bible. And I just wanted to live by the Bible. I want to do what The Book says. That's what was important for me. 


So we had these young people came to her house in a Bible study, and this Bible study began to grow and grow and grow and grow, and it was still a dilemma for me, because honestly, I never wanted to pastor a church or a quote. I just wanted to be a chicken farmer who loved Jesus, love my wife, love my family, who would lead young people to Christ, help disciple them a bit, and that's what we started to do. We take young people, and we knew that Paul disciple Timothy, so we take a young person and we disciple them and meet with them once a week or every other week and go through certain scriptures with them, encourage others on the team to do that. I wanted to do that, but I would never thought that I would ever be involved in church leadership, or say this is worth my heart to do that, until one day when God spoke to me, and it was a day when I was really concerned about all these young people who come to Christ, who still were not connected to a local church. 


They came to our Bible study. They were with us on Sunday nights in band, loads to local churches, but these young people were not connecting with us. Was over that time, I found a scripture that really, really spoke to me, and I want to share with you the Scripture. The Scripture is in Matthew 9 and starts in verse 17. He says this. It says, neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst in, the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined. So in other words, new wine must be put in new wineskins, that all wineskins, or it'll mess up the wineskin. 


Now, I began to understand that one of the understanding to the Scripture is that the wine skin is the type of church structure. And realize that new wine, new believers, people, have a new work of God in the lives often need a new structure. Now that could be a structure within the local church, maybe a new kind of small group, or cell group or house church or whatever, but it might be a new kind of church. I had never seen this before. 


And then the end of this verse, 17, says, no, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. God loves His church. Jesus loves the church. You know, he says, I will build my church. The gates of hell will never be built against it. So Jesus loves as long as people's hearts are after the Lord, regardless of church structure. That's not the issue. The issue is, where is he called you to do what you called me to do? And how can we best meet the needs, the spiritual needs of the generation that's before us right now, in your nation of the world, your village, your town, and in my nation the world, how can we do that? So all I want to be again have come clear to me that these new believers we were relating to probably needed a new kind of structure, a new kind of wineskin, so to speak. And but I still was feeling like, I still feel like I'm called to lead a church. 


Well, one day, I was in prayer as I pray to the Lord, what do we do with all these new Christians? And I can remember it as we worship today the Spirit of God spoke to me. Is one of those times when God was in the room, probably the time I heard God the clearest in my whole life. And here's what he said. He said, this is back in 1978 he said, Larry, are you willing to be involved with the underground church in the movie, said that I began to cry because this was back in days of communism. This is when there's an East Berlin and a West Berlin, a wall between. This is back in the days with the USSR. Was it Russia like today? There's a days of persecuted Christians in many nations because of communism. 


And I began to cry, to say, God, I know I've heard the stories of the underground church. I'm willing to do whatever you call me to do. I'm willing to do that, but I don't know what it means. I'm crying. And over the next weeks and months, this scripture from Matthew began to become clear to me, and I realized that in the New Testament, the believers didn't make buildings. Yeah, they met in Solomon home, but they met in homes, as I quoted before, Acts 2:41, to 47 they broke bread from house to house. Acts 20, verse, 20 to 20:20. 


Vision, I'll continue to refer to Paul said, I taught you publicly, but I taught you from house to house of believers, men and homes. Acts chapter 10, where did the Gentiles first receive the gospel, in a home with Cornelius, the Gentile, with his relatives and friends. It was the birth of a house church in Acts 28:30 and 31 Paul's home at the end of his life was a center for ministry. The church began in the book of Acts, in the upper room and in the end of the book of Acts. And Paul's rented house is on a house, and as many other scripture will refer to more later as we go throughout this entire course, Romans, 16, three to 15. Paul writes the Romans. 


There's a church in East in your house, in your house, in your house, because the churches that in homes, because they were the wineskins, there was the structure for the new life in Christ, as God brought people together into families, because God is a God of family. The first House Fellowship, the first house church in the world, where's three. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. First one. It's relational. The kingdom of God is not a program. The church is not a program. It's life. It's relationship. It's people who get to know one another, help people walk through the heart of things in life and see Jesus, the Holy Spirit, cleanse and heal and bring wholeness and blessing. 


That's what it's all about. It means during this time in my life, as we were just waiting through all these things, that I realized that I needed more power in my life, and I would hear about these certain Pentecostal kind of people, and I wasn't sure about them at all. Honestly, I went to a few of their meetings, and I'll be really open with you. I sat in the back row of these meetings. Cases, people got really weird. So I get out that says where my mind-set was at. 


Yet I realize right near where we lived, about 435, minutes away, was this place called Teen Challenge Training Center, led by the Assemblies of God, and they were taking drug addicts found out by David Wilkerson and crossing the swish blade fame and founded in New York City. And they bring hundreds of drug addicts, and their lives get cleaned up in this mountain. And we take these young people in the streets. I was talking about, sometimes Sunday nights. If we couldn't find a Methodist church or a Baptist or we'd take them to Teen Challenge, to their service, and I'd sit back and say, Wow, there's something going on here. These guys have power I know I certainly don't have. 


And so I one day, we had a young man who was dealing with it need deliverance in his life. He had some demonic oppression his life that took him to a friend of mine, who was a pastor, who is a bit more Pentecostal, maybe he could help him. Make a long story short, he brought in his missionary friend him, and my young, young friend talked to him, and he said well, you're having these problems. He said, have you been filled with the Holy Spirit? Because obviously, when, when Jesus, when demons come out of a man, they find a resting place in his neck, clean, cleaned up and filled if they'll come back and it'll be worse than he was in the first place. Then this young man said, I never heard of this. I don't know what you're talking about. He said, Well, let me pray for you. Prayed for him, and God filled him with the Holy Spirit. It was the most amazing thing. 


And then his missionary Look at me. He said, Larry, how about you? Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? I said, I'm not ready for that really. I need to know what the Bible says. And I went home that night, and those next days, I studied the scriptures, because I had been taught that this is not something for today. I was taught that the work of the supernatural, work of the Holy Spirit, was only until, you know, until we had the Bible, and then after the Bible, we don't need that. And I realized how wrong I was. I needed the power of God in my life. And so I went into the mountains to pray. I said, Lord, I need Holy Spirit. I never had the Holy Spirit. Every believer has the Holy Spirit, but I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, whatever terminology you want to use. 


And so I went to the mountains to pray, and said, Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit. And all that I heard was the Spirit of God spoke to me. Up in the mountains by myself. Here's what he said. He said, You need to go to that pastor that you know, and you need to have him pray for you, because you have pride in your life, and you want me to do it without him. No, no, you have pride in your life. Oh, Lord. 


So I called him on the phone, went to his house, and that night, he had a couple I had a couple questions, theologically he answered, and he said, Could I pray with you? I said, Sure, you pray for me. And you know, I had spiritual gifts. Began to flow through my life. Something happened to me. All I can say is that my life has changed forever because I knew I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I spoke a language I never spoke before in prayer, and began to see things I never seen, supernatural things, you know, was interesting. Even though that all happened, I still didn't want to tell people, because I didn't want to be labeled. I just wanted to be a Christian. And one day, in our little Bible study, we had these young people, a girl who grew up in a Lutheran faith, came to me and she said she had given her life totally to Christ. 


And she said, Larry, you make me so angry. And I said, What? Why do make you angry? She said, You make me so angry. And I said, why? She said, Because you had something that we need, and you're not telling us. You are filled with the Holy Spirit. You are different. You're not telling us. She said, I went to a meeting last Saturday night, and I was filled with the Holy Spirit, and I know that's happened to you. And I said, Oh, Jesus, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. From now on, I'll be open with my life, and I'll be open let people know, for the glory of God, what he's done. And from that time on, it was interesting. 


After I was filled with the Holy Spirit, I'd have the same Bible studies. I'd be teaching a lot of the same things, the young people getting healed, young people's lives being changed. It was dramatic difference, because it wasn't me, it was the power of the Holy Spirit. And so in the middle of my, midst of my journey as work with all these young people, long before I was ever a pastor of anything, realized that I needed God's power and His grace, and he filled me, and he had filled me the Spirit of God. And then I began to be very open. We prayed for literally 1000s to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you're to fill the Holy Spirit, I strongly encourage you just go to the scriptures, ask God to fill God fill you without anybody else praying. 


My experience was I had pride my life. You may not but trust God to fill you the Holy Spirit, because in order to plant house churches, we need all of the power of God that's available through everything he's called us to do. So God says to me, are you willing to be involved with the underground church, and I just still wasn't quite sure what that meant, until I noticed in the scriptures that the church met underground, that the main way they met was underground. Yes, they met in Solomon's temple. Yes, there were times there are big meetings, but the most important part of the church was they met underground. They met in homes. They met in places people weren't even thinking about it because they met underground. It was the underground church. And then I began to realize God was calling me to give my life to see the development of churches that are quote, unquote underground. I don't mean necessarily in communist countries or China. I've been with the underground church in China. I've experienced all that. We have churches all throughout the nation of Bulgaria with leaders who were part of the underground church in the past. 


But today, they still have house fellowships and cell groups, and call it whatever you want. They still, they still go that way. But here's what I realized, God's called me to the underground part of the church. So we took a step of faith. We took a few of these young people, I felt some who could be leaders. And we began this little house fellowship. And this House Fellowship grew and grew and grew, and my wife and I are living with filled the capacity. So then we thought, what do we do? So we decide to train some leaders, start a second house church. We start a second house church. 


So wasn't ready to say, well, I'm going to be ordained, and all those things, I was taking it very slow, step by step, by step by step, and that's the key. The planning a house church is starting where you're at. It's just one step at a time. God isn't in a hurry. You just need to obey him. Take one step of faith at a time. I never dreamed back in those days that today, 45 years later, I've been involved in traveling to many nations of the world. I just crossed over 2 million miles on United Airlines because of training leaders in the nation's in house church ministry, in small group ministry. And I never dreamed that back there, but we took one little step of obedience.


I was working on the farm, one little step of obedience. We started our second house church, and then some friends joined us, and we started a third house church. And then God spoke to me a second time. I was sitting in a church pew, as we call it, in those days, in a Mennonite Church pastored by my wife's father, and I was sitting between they had a Sunday School hour and they had a church hour, and they're sitting there waiting between Sunday school and church, and the Spirit of God spoke to me, and he said, he said, Larry, I've called you to start something new. And I knew what it was. It was a new kind of church. 


So I walked to after the service was over, I walked to the back of the auditorium, and I'm. Met me a man, a man who's a friend, a spirit filled friend. He said, I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, but tomorrow there's a meeting with some Mennonite leaders, and they want to talk about planting churches. I just thought you should know, very intriguing how God works. I went to that meeting. The next day, met some leaders, Mennonite leaders, and they said, We're just encouraging people to start new kinds of churches. So we begin to pray. We prayed all night, week after week after week, we I'd pray an hour, I'd call my friend, he'd pray an hour. Call my friend, he'd pray. 


Now this was birthed in prayer, and I want you to know that if you're going to be involved in planting house churches, you're gonna be involved in seeing Kingdom expansion. It all starts in prayer and seeking God and seeking his face. So we simply continue to pray and pray and pray. And so it became clear after we got it, we got a group of people together who may have an interest in starting a house church. And if you're called to do this, I encourage you to do the same. See who God builds with you. We're not called to do anything alone. Jesus sent them out two by two, and he's called you to do the same.


 Find those who have an affinity with you to see new House Fellowship, new house church start, and that's what we did. And then we finally were ready with these three underground churches, so to speak. And we thought, no, do we become a house church network, or are these going to be a house fellowships and a larger church? We weren't sure we have followed the Holy Spirit, step by step by step.


In October of 1980 we started our first. We call it in a large living room. We started our first. We called it a true church today, and we finally ready to do that, and we asked some Mennonite bishops if they'd be willing to help us now, honestly, they didn't know what to do with us, because we were the people we related to. Were mostly new Christians. So like what we were doing, but we weren't following the mould necessarily, of, you know, of all the structures of the of the Mennonite Church, and the Mennonites were wonderful to us. 


So one day, they brought in one of their leader, key leaders, to meet with us because they didn't know what to do with this. I remember in fear and trembling. I remember sitting down with all these bishops, and they brought in this man for another part of the nation. They said, What do we do? We these young men who want to plant this, these new churches, and what do we do with them? He looked at us. He was a man full of the spirit of men of great wisdom. He looked at the bishops. He said, release them and let them go. 


And you know, they did that, two Mennonite bishops became our mentors for about a year or two after that, one Mennonite leader was our mentor. But then after about three or four years, we were growing and growing and growing, and we had grown in 10 years to over 2000 people. And so all meeting in East house fellowships during the week. And then the it became clear to some other Mennonite pastors that we weren't really Mennonite church, even though I was ordained at that point along with one of my other brothers of the Lord of the leaders with the Mennonites, we weren't a Mennonite church because culturally, we weren't the same.


And so then these pastors asked the Mennonite bishops to have us make a decision, are we going to join them or not? And we weren't called to join them. So we then withdrew and kept the relationship as much as we could, and we became dove, D O V E, dove Christian Fellowship International and my sister in law, one night in prayer, we said, Lord, what do we call this group? And she felt like the Lord showed her, D O V E, declaring our victory, Emmanuel, honestly, I didn't like it. I thought it sounded like vertue personally, but it was what God spoke to us, and we had to be obedient to God. I encourage you. Obey the Lord, do what he's called you to do. And then we saw the blessing of God, the grace of God, the growth of God, and we began to grow 300 people every year and get added to our numbers as this. And you said, what were you? Well, we, we had to make a decision. 


Were we going to become a house church network, or are we going to become a more of a cell based, house church, based church? So in those days, we lean more toward we had many we call celebrations everybody. I mean, the most common denominator was, you're involved in a small group. We call them house fellowships. 


And so we kept changing the name, it doesn't matter, and until we go to over 2000 people. And I want to tell you more about our story, because it gets even better, and how we did a full circle and came back to saying, house fellowships, house churches, is something God's doing for a new generation in the nations today, and we're going to talk more about that in the next session.



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