Readers of this book have said: For years, I have sat in the pew Sunday

a er Sunday and thought to myself, “Wow! What a good and relevant

sermon!”

Nevertheless, all of these hundreds of Sunday sermons have not made me a

disciple in everyday life! Shocking, but true!

—Dorte

When I read“ e Last Reformation,” it became clear to me how the current

state of the church happened and why there are so few real disciples in our
country. e book reveals facts that most Christians are unaware of about the
unbiblical traditions we have ignorantly accepted into the church. How far
away from true Christianity we have come.

—Ulla

is book is credible, and hugely engaging. Torben is very transparent and

extremely honest in sharing the difficulties of his own journey toward
returning to the biblical way of making disciples, the way Jesus intended. e
message is clear, concise, and biblical.

—Klaus

Torben’s book is a must read for anyone who has become dissatisfied with
the way church is happening today 1n many parts of the world. Its pyramid
system of leadership closes the door to all but a select few while everyone
else pays their tithes into the storehouse, then sits and listens obediently. e
abuses and control tactics (to keep us and our money), and the watered-down
messages to please the “seekers” must change if we are to become the
vibrant and powerful disciples who are carrying on His work and making
disciples in all the nations, as Jesus charged us with doing. Let the
reformation begin!

—Nana

OTHER PUBLICATIONS BY
TORBEN SO@NDERGAARD.:

“Sound Doctrine”

“Christian, Disciple, or Slave”

“Life as a Christian”

“Complete the Race”

“Deceived?” (Booklet)

“ e Twisted Race” (Booklet)

THE LAST REFORMATION

Back to the New Testament model of discipleship

by Torben Sendergaard

Unless otherwise specified, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy
Bible, Modern King James Version, Copyright © 1962 - 1998 By Jay
P. Green, Sr. Used by permission of the copyright holder.

THE LAST REFORMATION

Back to the New Testament model of discipleship

Copyright © 2013 by Torben Sondergaard

All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws
of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or
reprinted for com-mercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations
or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted
and encouraged. Permission will be granted on request.

Paperback: ISBN: 978-1-938526-42-8

ePub (iPad, Nook): ISBN: 978-1-938526-43-5

Mobi (Kindle): ISBN: 978-1-938526-44-2

PUBLISheD By LAURUS BookKS

PUBLISheD IN The UNITeD STATeS of AMeRICA

LAURUS BOOKS

P. O. Box 894

Locust Grove, GA 30248 USA

www. TheLaurusCompany.com

This book may be purchased in paperback from

www.TheLaurusCompany.com and other retailers around the world.
Also available in eBook format for electronic readers from their
respective stores.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

anks to

Sam Blakeley, John van Wendel de Joode,

Scott Galbraith, Ronald Gabrielsen, and others who have helped to

get this book published in english.

you are a blessing.

— Torben Sondergaard

BEFORE YOU BEGIN ...

roughout this book, the words “fellowship” and “church”

are used as having two different meanings.

 e word “fellowship” is used primarily for a gathering of believers
who have no formal church building or structure and are led
exclusively by the holy Spirit and the Word of God.

e word “church,” when used of a gathering, refers to

traditional “organized religion,” with a formal church building,
assigned leadership structure, a congregation of listeners, etc.

Simply said, a “church” is with a building, and a “fellowship”

is without a building. It does not always work out that way, but the
context will make the meaning clear.

In the same way, if a reference to church does not say “state

church,” it is referring primarily to evangelical or “free” churches.

References to the “West” or “Western churches” are referring to both

european and American churches.

Bible quotations are from the Modern King James Version of the Bible.

From the publisher:

Torben Sondergaard, the author of this book, lives in Denmark. 1s

book has been translated from the Danish language into english and
contains many references to Denmark as well as the Lutheran Church,
which is the “state church” in Denmark.

6
TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRoDUCTIoN

PRefACe: ee ird Reformation

Ce, 11

ChAPTeR 1:

A oughtExperiment............0..........00.. 17

ChAPTeR 2:

You Will Make Disciples... 2... 2. 2 23

ChAPTeR 3:
Church
Culture... 2 29

ChAPTeR 4:

Our Trip To eGreenFields...........2..002..002.. 33

ChAPTeR 5:

A New Place And One More Church... .........2.2.. 39

ChAPTeR 6:

Wandering In eDesert...........02..0....0.00.. 43

ChAPTeR 7:

Visited By Angels... 2... 2

47

ChAPTeR 8:

Finances

ChAPTeR 9:

Tithing

ChAPTeR 11: e Seeker-Friendly Church

Ce 71
ChAPTeR 12: What Is Church?

ChAPTeR 13: You Are e

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

ChAPTeR 14: Church Service

ChAPTeR 15: e Power Of Example

ChAPTeR 16: e Two

Mirrors... 0. 0 105

ChAPTeR 17: Equipped For

Ministry... 2 111

ChAPTeR 18: e Five-Fold Ministry

ChAPTeR 19:
Leadership... 2... 0
. 123

ChAPTeR 20: e Holy Spirit

ChAPTeR 22: Simple Gatherings

ChAPTeR 23: Food, Fellowship, and Prayer

Ce 155

ChAPTeR 24: e Apostle’s Teaching

ChAPTeR 25: Let e Reformation Begin

Le 165

INTRODUCTION
We have had the chance to get to know Torben Sondergaard and see
him in action. What we have seen is God’s kingdom being preached,
people being saved, set free, healed, baptized, and filled with the
holy Spirit the way we read about in Acts

—and the way it even happens today in many countries and many
places where the gospel is being preached in the power of the Spirit.

Torben has a passion for the salvation of people and for the
fellowship. People who get saved are quickly introduced into an active
discipleship program and into varying fellowships. New Christians
quickly begin practicing Jesus’ life in word and deed, which in turn
leads to others coming to faith in him.

Torben has studied church history and the Bible, especially Acts, in
order to find biblical principles that are applicable to reaching out to
people. In this book, he describes his own journey, from which we
can all learn something. e training of disciples is a subject that is in
focus throughout the whole book, and Torben shows by many
examples how we can best train disciples.

Most Christians, us included, have inherited a way to have fellow -

ship and be disciples. Torben challenges us to question this,

using examples from the Bible and from church history. is
book is challenging and sharp, but we all want to see more people
believing in Jesus, disciples being trained and fellowships growing
stronger and 9

10

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

multiplying. is is why we believe e Last Reformation is important

when thinking about how we are to be the church today.
We want to encourage you to read this book prayerfully and with an
open heart and mind. how you apply what you learn from this book
is up to you.

We are truly in need of a paradigm shi in regard to fellowships and

discipleship—a Christian lifestyle that reflects what we read in Acts.
We believe that it can happen in each country and in our age today!

for God’s kingdom and for people’s salvation!

— Charles Kridiotis and Mattias Nordenberg

PREFACE

THE THIRD REFORMATION

AGerman researcher, Christian Schwarz, looking into church growth,

says that many things are indicating that we are livingin a time
when we are going to see a third reformation.

e first reformation took place in the fi eenth century when

Martin Luther opposed the Catholic Church and its teaching. he
revived the very essence of the Gospel, namely justification by faith
alone. one might say that this reformation concerned theology. If you
look at the structure of the Lutheran Church today, which 1s the “state
church” in Denmark, you will see that it resembles the structure of
the Catholic Church to a great extent. is is because Martin Luther
did not introduce very much change to the structure itself.

e second reformation took place in the eighteenth century around

the time of the ministry of the Wesley brothers’ activities. In
this reformation, personal intimacy with Christ was rediscovered. 1s
was mainly a spiritual reformation; a reformation in which the
passionate love for one’s personal Savior was cherished. It resulted in
a passion for missions and evangelism. however, once again, the
structure itself—

the framework of the church and the service—did not change very
much. It was, again, like putting a new patch on old clothes.

If you look back through history, you will see that none of the
revivals of the past have seriously done anything about the church
structure. What we really need is a new and radical reformation, a
third 11

12

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

reformation that, as Christian Schwarz and many others think, is going

to transform our whole church structure.

e third reformation is not just about small changes here and there.
No, it 1s a reformation that goes so deep that it requires a complete
new start. I absolutely agree with Christian Schwarz, Wolfgang
Simson, and others who speak out on this subject. What I am about
to present in this book is definitely not just my own opinion. Many
good books have already been written about this topic, but a large
number of them go into such depth that the reader needs a special
interest in church history and its structure in order to be able to read
them. If that background and training are lacking, then it might be a
little difficult to go throughthem. erefore, I will not be going into
such depths in this book as many others have done. Instead, I want
to give the reader a taste of what God is going to do, a taste of the
future of the church. Although I am not presenting anything new, it
will still be new to most people. It seems that this message has not
yet had as much of a breakthrough in Scandinavia and europe as it
has in many other places in the world. I hope, therefore, that this
book will help to start a reformation in you, the reader, and that
a er reading it, you will start to examine the Bible more deeply for
yourself to see what it has to say about these things.

I know God wants something new to happen. I also know that this
reformation is necessary. yet, despite the fact that I am so absolutely
convinced about the things I am writing, I am still writing it with
great fear and trembling because I know this will not be easily
accepted.

We are all still glad today for the reformation that Martin Luther
introduced. yes, a er five hundred years, we think how fantastic that
Reformation was and have an almost idyllic understanding of what
really happened. We imagine how Luther stood by the church in
Wittenberg on october 31, 1517, and quietly and peacefully nailed his
Ninety-Five esesto the door while people were standing behind him
applauding. yes, it was beautiful, and it laid the foundation for
the Reformation, which we are happy for today.

We forget about many things, however. We forget that this reforma -

tion was not accepted so easily. It created great opposition, resulting
in Luther’s books being burned and him being accused of having been
sent by the devil to wage war with God’s church. We forget that it
led

PRefACe: The ThIRD RefoRMATIoN

13

to violent fights in which thousands of men, women, and children

were killed. We forget that the church of that time did not want the
reforma -

tion, and they did everything to fight it. you might be thinking now:
Yes, but that was the Catholic Church. here is my response: Yes, it was the
Catholic Church, but it was still the church. Today, another church
denomination will try to fight what God wants. Why do we think it
will be any different today? I am not saying that we will see
thousands killed, but why should we think that everything will
go smoothly, without divisions, and without being accused of working
against God and trying to destroy the church?

e truth is, we need to see this reformation, and it is not going to

go smoothly! We are going to be accused of destroying the church.
Weare going to experience the opposition of many Christians who
will be against what we are aiming at. We are going to be accused
of having been deceived and of being dangerous. We know, however,
that what we are doing is for the church and for God because
we have seen something that God wants to happen.

Why did the church turn against Martin Luther? Was it because his
words were opposed to the Word of God? No, that was not the
reason. for the church, it was not a matter of what the Bible said,
but of something completely different. Martin Luther’s teaching
opposeda system based on finances, power, and control. We can say
that this 1s also relevant today. People will oppose it today as well,
not because itis unbiblical, but because it will destroy the system
they have helped to build. finances, power, and control still matter a
lot to the church leaders today. is is not because pastors do not
want to serve God and do not want to do the right thing. It is
mostly due to the fact that they either cannot see it or that they have
much to lose that makes it hard for them to go in this direction.
When they see others abandoning their system, they will fight it
because that is how they lose their members and, together with them,
the money that keeps the system running.

We will look at this more closely in this book.

Let’s read what Jesus did and said:

Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and
the moneychangers doing business. When He

14

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the
sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the
tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do
not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” en His disciples
remembered that it was written,

“Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.” (John 2:13-17) God does not
live in a temple built of stone. he lives in us—

Christians, his disciples. however, if Jesus walked upon the earth

today and saw what was happening, he would react in the very same
way. he would not sit back, like we do, and tolerate it.

“Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but
rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three
against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and
son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law ... Yes, and why, even of yourselves, do you not judge what is
right?” (Luke 12:51-53, 57)

Jesus is zealous for God’s church on earth. Do we have the same

zeal today? Jesus said there would be a price to pay if we followed
him. Are we willing to pay that price? It will cause division, and
some Christians will fight it because it seems to be something
that will destroy the church. I can honestly say on my behalf that I
have absolutely no intent of destroying God’s church by publishing
this book. I am not doing this because I am against the church. I
love the church, and, because of that love, I want to rescue it. I love
God’s people, and I love God, and that is why I do what I do. e
only difference is that my view of what God intended his church to
be is different from that of many other people.

A er the Reformation with Martin Luther, God began to use

various revivals in order to reveal to the church lost truths from his
Word, truths that have existed from the day of Pentecost but that had
mostly been abandoned by the fi h century. roughout the Middle
Ages, they were preserved only by small groups of believers here and
there. ere have been many revivals in history, and each one of these

PRefACe: The ThIRD RefoRMATIoN

15

has reintroduced a truth, e.g., “justification by faith” brought by

Luther.

By looking at these revivals, we can see clearly that, every time, it

has brought the church closer and closer to what the first church was
that we read about in the Bible.

It did not stop with Martin Luther and the Reformation. A erward
came the Baptist revival, where God again revealed the “biblical
baptism of believers” (full immersion based on one’s personal faith).
Later, the Methodist revival occurred, where the truth
about “justification by faith”

was revealed in a new way. en there was the Adventist revival with

“the hope of Jesus’ second coming.”

e next revivals renewed the focus on “baptism with the holy Spirit”
and the “gi s of the Spirit.” e last big revival took place in Wales
with evan Roberts. is revival dealt with a renewal of the

“five-fold ministry.” e offices of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor,

and teacher being given to the church by God received a new focus.
Toa large extent, they had become lost as a result of the Synod in
325 A.D., where they started to rebuild the church according to the
structure of the Roman empire, with the pope, bishops, priests,
monks, and nuns, who later, through Protestantism, became
replaced with pastors, bishops, and the board of elders.

As a consequence of all these revivals in which God has renewed

truths from his Word, we have today various denominations, such as
the Lutheran Church, Methodists, Adventists, the Pentecostal movement,
and the Apostolic Church. All these revivals have been important, as
they have brought a new understanding of lost truths. None of these
revivals, however, dealt with the “structure” of the church. Again, the
effect was the same as when you sow a new patch on old clothes.

Jesus 1s coming back very soon, and I am convinced that we are the
ones who will see his return. Before his coming, he wants to prepare
his church like a bride who is being prepared to meet her
bridegroom.

When we look at these revivals, it seems like the only thing we still
lack is a reformation of the structure of the church. It has never been
God’s intention for these revealed truths to result in independent
church denominations that, a er a while, quench the fire of revival.
God didnot intend to create separate churches and denomina tions
with their own “little” truth, while ignoring the other parts and, thus,
hindering

16

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

their members from gaining the whole truth.

Justification by faith is important, and it is the beginning of a new

life in Christ, but a er justification, there is a life to live in order
to follow Jesus. In this life, we need to be baptized in water to bury
our old sin nature and to rise to live in resurrection life in Christ.
We also need justification by faith because Jesus did not die “just” to
forgive us of our sins but also to break the power of sin, so that, in
faith, we can live the holy life to which God has called us. In
addition, we need the baptism of the holy Spirit, among other things,
in order to be able to live as disciples and followers of Jesus Christ
and see the church grow.

our starting point is not Martin Luther and the Reforma tion, nor is
it one of the other revivals. each of them only managed to present a
small part of God’s truth. our starting point is the Word of God, the
Bible, and Jesus Christ because, in him, we have everything we need
for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). is is also relevant when we
look at the structure of the church.

I believe that we are coming close to the third reformation, but I

also believe that this will be the last reformation before Jesus comes
back. is is a reformation where God is going to put together all the
pieces and prepare the church to meet her Bridegroom.

So, let the reformation begin.

—Torben Sgndergaard
 ar S~ mali

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Some time ago, I wrote another book titled Christian, Disciple, or

Slave. It is a journey back into the lifestyles of the first
Christians. We took a particularly close look at what Jesus said in
regard to following him. In addition to that, we looked at the other
names given to the first Christians, primarily “disciples” but also

“Christ’s slaves,” as it actually appears many times in the

original language. We discussed why it is important to dare to read
the Bible asit is instead of constantly interpreting it according
to what we see happening around us today.

e problem is that when we read in the Bible about following Jesus,

we o en look around us and think it is impossible and that it must
be different today. It seems that, today, one does not need to sacrifice
everything in order to follow Christ. is is at least what weo en
see and hear in our churches. We interpret the Bible according to
our circumstances, experiences, and culture, which can be very
dangerous. It can result in a situation where the blind are leading the
blind. at is why it is so important that we let the Bible transform
our understanding and not the other way around.

In my book, Christian, Disciple, or Slave, I presented a thought

experiment, a er which I asked a question: If it was you, how do you
think you would live? Do you think you would live like most Christians do
today?

17

18

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

In this book, eLast Reformation, I want to start with a similar

thought experiment. I have changed the question somewhat, and I will
ask some other questions a_ erward.

Try to imagine that there 1s not even one single Christian in the
whole world. ere are no churches, no Christian books, no Christian
TV, or no Christian newspapers. ere is nothing that directly has
anything to do with Christianity, except for one Bible. one day,
some -

one finds this Bible. he has never seen it before, nor has he heard
about the Bible, Jesus, or Christianity, but soon he starts to
read through the book.

he starts with the old Testament about how it all began and how the
land of Israel came into existence. he reads how God works with his
people, and he gets a clear picture of God as holy and righteous.
he reads about a God Who can get angry, but Who is also merciful
and patient. A God Who has great love for his people. A God Who
would one day send us all a Savior, which is the red thread
throughout the old Testament. When he gets to the end of the old
Testament, he already has an impression of what God is like and
how he acts.

he continues by reading the New Testament where he sees the Savior

that God had promised. he begins by reading the four Gospels that
talk about how Jesus Christ went around preaching the gospel and
healing the sick. Page a er page, he reads how Jesus preached that
people should repent and believe in the gospel, that everyone who
wants to inherit the Kingdom of God should take up their cross and
follow him, and all the other radical things he said and did.
e Gospels tell him how Jesus took his disciples and then sent them
out to preach the gospel and heal the sick. he reads how Jesus was
loved by some and hated by others. he reads how Jesus gave himself
on the cross for all of us and how, through his death and
resurrection, he conquered death. everything put together gives him
a really good understanding of who Jesus was and what he preached.

he continues forward by reading Acts, where he sees that a er Jesus’

resurrection, he came and said that those who believed in him would
receive power from above when the holy Spirit would come upon
them. en he reads about how it actually happened.

ChAPTeR 1: A ThoUGhT exPeRIMeNT

19

As he reads through Acts, he starts to understand how the first

Christians lived. It was a life with a lot of opposition and persecution
where it cost everything to follow Jesus. It was a supernatural life in
fellowship with God and each other.

A er Acts, he moves on to the Book of Romans. In the first four

chapters, he reads that we have all sinned and gone far away from
God.

he goes to chapter five, which describes Jesus as the “new Adam”

who forgives us and reconciles us with God. Chapters six through
eight say that, in Christ, there is freedom from sin and that this
freedom comes when one gets baptized and walks in obedience to the
Spirit instead of the flesh.

A er that, he comes to chapters nine and ten that explain how we

can get saved by making Jesus our Lord. When he reads this, he
bows his knees and asks Jesus to come and save him and to become
his Lord.

en he immediately experiences the new birth the Bible talks about,

salvation in Christ, and he soon gets baptized in the holy Spirit,
which one can read about over and over again in Acts. As he is
sitting thereon his knees, born again, he can feel a difference on the
inside. he now knows that he has been forgiven and that what is
written in the Bible is true because he has experienced it himself and
has the inner witness.

he gets up, deter mined to follow Jesus completely, and_ starts

by baptizing himself because there is no one else to do it.
from that moment on, he begins to live as a disciple based on what
he reads in the Bible. he also sees others repenting and starting to
follow Jesus. A ersome time, he and the other believers plant many
churches around.

My question now is: What do you think their churches would look like?
Would they look like the state church, or would they look more like
our evangelical churches, or would they still look different from that
maybe? Would their fellowship have a nice church building witha
pulpit on a platform and all the chairs standing in neat rows? or
would they have no building, pulpit, or pews at all? Do you think
they would have a service every Sunday morning, with a Sunday
school on the side? Would they have a program consisting of a
welcome, some songs, announcements and an offering, more songs,
sermon, and then communion? or would they have no program at all
and simply allow

20

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

the Spirit to guide them?

e truth is that their church would be very different from what the
church looks like today. e problem nowadays is that a lot of what
we do in church is not based on the Bible but on “Christian
traditions,”

as well as paganism and national culture. I placed “Christian

traditions”

in quotes because many of the “Christian” traditions today actually

come from Judaism and the old Testament.

When we talk about culture, there is a need to distinguish between

the different aspects of that culture, even though it can be difficult.

ere is the aspect of culture within the church that I call “church
culture.” ere are also national cultures that differ from country to
country and from one ethnic group to another. We cannot now say for
sure how they would form a church in the story I made up because
it would certainly depend on the national culture they came from. If
they, for example, came from a culture with strong family bonds,
where they live together for many generations, it would influence
their church ina different way than if they came from a culture that
resembles the Danish one, where one does not always put so much
emphasis on the family and family life.

The story does tell us one important thing about them, however.

ey would not have experienced any church culture and, therefore,

would look for patterns in the Bible. is is contrary to our times,
where a lot of what we do is based on traditions and church culture.
at is why I know that their church would be much different from
what we see inthe Western world today. Much of what we do in
the church today cannot be justified by examples from the Bible, but
is based solely on church culture and traditions.

It 1s important that we try to distinguish between our national culture

and the church culture. e national culture deter mines who we are
as a people, regardless of whether one is a believer or not.

erefore, except for that which is unbiblical, there is no need

to change the national culture. It, rather, 1s a strength to be able to
relate effectively to unbelievers in our countries. e church culture,
however, is a different story altogether.

Much of what the church is being built on today is based neither on

the national culture nor on biblical teaching. Much of it is actually

ChAPTeR 1: A ThoUGhT exPeRIMeNT

21

based on paganism and a church culture that goes back to the fourth
century, a culture that already had changed from what Jesus repre -

sented and the way the first church lived for a few hundred years.

We do not need to impose our church culture on people in order to

make them “proper Christians.” Rather, when we remove today’s
church culture, we will see that people are more open to God. Most
of them indicate they are willing to accept Jesus but reject the
church as it is in many places. Let us, therefore, try to leave our
church culture and the pagan traditions behind and see what the Bible
has to say.

22
2

YOU WILL MAKE DISCIPLES

We will start by looking at the purpose of the church. WhenI look

at churches in the West, I can see that they need to be refreshed.

I want to ask you some questions. What is the purpose of the church?

Is it having a large congregation? yes, of course, we want lots of people

in the church, but did Jesus focus on gathering as many as possible,
or did he emphasize something else? We see repeatedly that Jesus was
never busy with the crowds. he did not leave a big church a er three
years of ministry here on earth, although he would surely have been
able to get a huge church if he had wanted to. No, Jesus did not
focus on the number of people. Jesus wanted people who were
willing to follow him and whom he could use to build his kingdom.
Is the purpose of the church to get a nice building and run a café, youth
meetings, Sunday school, and so on? No, the first Christians did not
have a church building, youth meetings, Sunday school, or much of
what we associate with a good church today. Jesus did not talk about
any of those things.

If the purpose of the church 1s not to gather a lot of people or get a nice
building, then what is its purpose? _e only purpose is what Jesus
commanded us to do; namely, to go and make people into his
disciples.

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go 23

24

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the
end of the age. Amen." (Matthew 28:18-20) Jesus never said to his
disciples that they should go out and builda lot of churches. No, he
said they should go out and make disciples.

he would build his church using them. is means that a nice big
church building with many people is not necessarily a fulfill ment of
this purpose, unless all those people are made disciples and followers
of Jesus Christ in everyday life. (My book, Christian, Disciple, or
Slave, talks much more about this.)

e number of people, the buildings, or the finances should not be

our focus when it comes to the question of whether a church is
healthy or not. None of that matters if the church is not creating
what Jesus has commanded, namely disciples. Jesus has not called us
to start churches but to make disciples. A congregation or a church is
not apurpose. No, it is God’s means to his end of making disciples.
If we then have a church that has failed to fulfill this purpose, why
do we continue in the same way year a er year? ink of all
the resources, money, time, and effort used to keep such a “machine”
going, even though it still does not bring the results God wants.

Why do we keep inviting speakers from big churches, here and

abroad, to come and preach when we have no idea how the people in
their churches are living? Gathering people is not a big problem if
you just give them what they want. Making disciples and followers
of Jesus is something altogether different.

Not long ago, one of the bigger churches in Denmark organized a

conference addressing “how to make disciples out of seekers.” ey
were going to talk about the big challenge today of making disciples
out of people in the church. But why does everyone look at that
church and copy them when all they have accomplished is to make a
bunch of seekers come to their church?

If Jesus came back today, would he take all seekers home with him,
or would he only take all the disciples? Many of the churches
we perceive as big today are very small in God’s eyes. When
persecution starts for real and all things are revealed, everything will
be turned

ChAPTeR 2: yoU WILL MAKe DISCIPLeS

25

upside down. e big churches will suddenly become small when they
find out that following Jesus has a high price, a price most of them
have never been willing to pay. is is precisely why they are going
there and not to a place where the Word about repentance and self-
denial is preached radically. It’s very important that we focus on
making disciples. We are living in a time when most of those in
Christianity are gradually moving away from focusing on what the
Word of God says. Today, many people look immediately at what
seems to work right here and now. But we are not supposed to build
something that can last only here and now. We have to build
something that lasts forever!

We cannot judge the condition of a church by looking at the

finances or the number of people, the church buildings, or the
activities. The only way we can judge a church is by checking
whether the people who go to that church are truly becoming
disciples and followers of Jesus. Are they the ones who deny self,
take up their cross, and follow him? Do they obey the
commandments that Jesus gave? Do they love God with their whole
hearts and their neighbors as themselves?

To live as a disciple of Jesus is not an activity that you do for a

couple of hours on a Sunday morning, while you’re living for
yourself the rest of the week. I think the way you live on a friday
night shows much more about your life with God than how you live
on a Sunday morning. In the same way, what comes out of
your mouth on aSaturday night better shows what is inside of you
than what you say inchurch on a Sunday morning.

If we do not want to continue deceiving ourselves, we must dare to

stop and take a real close look at the condition of our church, even
if itshows a completely different picture than what we might be
expecting.

If you want to find out if your church is a healthy one, check how
the young people live on friday night, or look at what the church
members talk about and what they entertain on Saturday night. at
will give you a better idea of how you are going to end up if you
continue onthe same path as them. We become like those with
whom we associate.

Instead of asking a church the question: “how many people do you

have in your fellowship,” we should rather be asking: “What do the
young people from this church do on friday night?” “What do the

26
The LAST RefoRMATIoN

older members talk about when they are together with their friends
from the church?” “how do you obey Jesus’ command ment
about spreading the Gospel?” e answers will definitely give a more
accurate picture of how healthy that church is. e number of
people, the buildings, the programs, the state of the finances,
etc., are not the purpose in themselves. Instead, they can even be
opposing the ultimate purpose of the church.

e purpose of the church is the fulfillment of the call that Jesus has
given us to make people into his disciples by baptizing them and
teaching them to obey everything he says. Let us therefore not
become distracted by all these other things.

Some may ask, “Becoming a Christian is a journey that takes a long

time for some people. Many of today’s church members will become
disciples a er a while, don’t you think?”

Let me say that this is how many people perceive it today, but we
have to remember that people are not saved before they accept Christ
as Savior and become born again. one is either a child of God or a
child of the devil (1 John 3:10); born of flesh or born of the spirit
(John 3:6); on the way to heaven or on the way to hell (Matthew
25:46). ere is nothing in between. one can be a seeker and be “on
the way,” but if they are not yet born again, they will perish a er
death, no matter if they goto church, pray to God, or read the
Bible. It means that all those who are only “on the way” in our
churches will perish if they die before they get saved. If this was
really understood, we would be preaching much more clearly and
with consequence, which would cause many to repent right here and
now.

If you study revival and church history, you will see that the
acceptance of a long conversion that may take many years is a new
phenomenon. We do not find it in the Bible. So preach the Word and
expect that people will repent, and you will see it happen! If you
preach another gospel that suits seekers, you will get seekers who
never move on to repentance and salvation. of course, there will be a
handful who will repent a er some time, but I can guarantee that we
will lose even more who leave through the back door if we do it
this way. In addition, we will not see the same radical conversions
where people are willing to give everything to God.

ChAPTeR 2: yoU WILL MAKe DISCIPLeS

27

Let us never accept any other purpose than the one Jesus has given
us. he has not given us a commandment to go out and make seekers
or church-goers. he said clearly that it is about making disciples—his
followers—who obey what he has commanded us. When one grasps
Jesus, one will also be willing to obey him. he is the Life and the
reason why we are here.

28
3

CHURCH CULTURE

What do you think of when you hear the word “church”? If you
come from a Lutheran or Catholic background, you will certainly
think of a church building with a big tower, an altar, and pews
where people can sit when the priest is preaching. If you come from
an evangelical background, you will surely think of amore modern
building with a big stage and modern musical instru -

ments. e pews are replaced with chairs that can be moved around,
although they almost always stand in neat rows.

even though what people associate with the word “church” can be
slightly different, there are many things they have in common. e
majority of people think of a building designed for the sake of
worship.

In this building, there is a stage or an altar, pews or chair rows, etc.

ese are some of the first things that come to mind. A church is a
place where one goes to services, hears sermons, and does other
church-related things.

What do you think of when you hear the word “service”? Again, the
associations can vary from person to person. e common thing,
however, is that people think of church as something that takes place
in a building. ere are songs, an offering, a sermon, and communion.

e truth is that the things we think of do not necessarily come from

the Bible; for example, a church building, stage/altar, pews/chair rows,
etc. None of these things were known to the first Christians.
ey 29

30

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

actually first appeared a few centuries a er Jesus was here on earth

anda er the first church was started. e concept of a Sunday
service that consists of songs, offerings, sermons, and communion
cannot be found in the Bible either. e first Christians used none of
these things that we consider necessary for us today to be a “proper”
church or to beable to worship “properly.” ey had no _ special
church buildings designed for services or other church traditions.
Neither did they have an altar or stage where a special person could
stand and preach the Word of God to a mass of people who sat and
listened. Actually, they did not usually meet on Sunday mornings to
have services, and they did not practice communion/the Lord’s Supper
the way we do today.
All the things that seem to be so necessary today cannot be found in
the Bible or in the description of the life of the first Christians.
Maybe this is precisely why they experienced great progress. e truth
is thatthe very things mentioned above can actually be a
hindrance for progress and growth.

Today, when a pastor or priest on a Sunday morning with the Bible

in his hand states: “our churches are based on the Bible and nothing
but the Bible,” this 1s simply not true because a lot of what goes on
in that church is not at all based on the Bible but on church culture
and idol worship.

If we go back to the Christians we considered in the story at the

beginning of this book, they did not have all these things we
associate with a church today. ey had not been impacted by church
culture but only by what it says in the Bible.

e question, then, can be: “Does it matter what our meetings look
like? We have to conduct our meetings in one way or another, so
why can’t we just continue doing it the way we have always done
it?”

e answer is simple. If what you are doing is not directly unbiblical

and does not hinder one from fulfilling Jesus’ commandment to make
disciples, it is, of course, all right to continue as you are doing. e
unfortunate truth 1s, however, that much of what is done is unbiblical,
and that is why it hinders us from making disciples as Jesus
has commanded us to do.

As I mentioned before, people have different thoughts associated with

the word “church,” but one thing is certain: almost everyone

ChAPTeR 3: ChURCh CULTURe

31
thinks of a building, a place designed with the purpose of worshiping,
etc. however, the concept of a special church building for that purpose
is not found in the Bible. further, it did not exist among the
first Christians either.

We would have to fast-forward 300 years in church history before we

could see the first “church” buildings as we know them culturally
today. e first church buildings appeared during the reign of Con
stan -

tine. Many of the things we do today find their roots around that
time.

Constantine the Great was emperor of the Roman empire from 306 to
337 A.D. he played a decisive role in the spreading of Christianity,
but at a price. It happened at the cost of rejecting the Christianity
that had been known for the first 300 years. Constantine
transformed Christianity from a persecuted minority group into an
authorized state religion. But Christianity cannot be forced upon
people. one has to be born again from the heart out of free will, or
else you will not be ableto see the Kingdom of God. forcing people
to become Christians will never bring any good results.

Constantine introduced many changes, and one of them was the

concept of church buildings. Until that time, Christians met together
and broke bread in their homes. Church buildings have their source
neither in the New nor the old Testament but are the result of idol
worship/paganism, which was a big part of Constantine’s life. ere
was a period when he worshiped, among others, Sol Invictus, the god
of the sun, and he wanted to include that worship in Christianity,
thus making it a mixed religion. e holy day was shi ed from
Saturday to Sunday, which had originally been the day of the sun. he
built temples on cemeteries and called them by the names of the dead
so they could be worshiped. e churches faced the east so that the
sun’s rays (Sol Invictus) could fall on the faces of his self-appointed
priests while they were conducting services. Look at these other
practices that have their roots in paganism:
e Why do we see Sunday as holy/as a holiday? Because of the sun god.

e Why do we have cemeteries outside many Lutheran and Catholic

churches if we read in the Bible that the dead were buried outside the city
gates? Because of the old custom of worshiping the dead.

32

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

¢ Why do Lutheran and Catholic churches traditionally face the east?

Because of the sun god.

¢ Why are many Lutheran and Catholic churches nameda_ er a dead saint?
Because of paganism and worship of the dead.

e truth is that much of what we associate with Christianity today

has its roots in the times of emperor Constantine and others who
lived in the centuries a er the first Christians. is church
culture is sodeeply rooted in us that we o en interpret the Bible
in the wrong way because we have the wrong frame of reference.

If I say “service,” then our own frame of reference interprets the

meaning of the word. e same goes for the words “church”
and

“disciple,” etc. It 1s my hope that this book can help the reader look
beyond this church culture. If we can ignore it, we can start to
under -

stand what the Bible really says about how the church was meant to
be and should be today. If we come back to what God intended, we
will see him adding daily to those who are getting saved.
4

OUR TRIP

TO THE GREEN FIELDS

Before we take a closer look at the different areas concerning church

and service, I want to take you on a little trip. What Iam presenting
in this book is actually something that my wife and I were not able
to see ourselves until some years ago, but God took us on a trip
where our wrong understanding of the concept of church was
removed. We no longer just go to church; we are the church. What
God has done in us during the last few years is something we see
him doing more and more in the people around us today. We see
that Jesus is about to build his church, a church that is not built of
dead stones, programs, structure, memberships, church buildings, and
so on, but achurch built of living stones, led by his holy Spirit,
with Jesus himself as the Cornerstone (ephesians 2:20).

It has been a long trip for us, and we have learned a lot. It has been
a lot harder to get rid of this wrong understanding than I thought it
would be. Actually, until now, it has taken us almost twelve years,
the planting of three churches, a lot of experiences,
disappointments, opposition, mistakes, hours with the Bible and church
history before we could say that we felt free to be the church God
has created us to be.

In other words, it has taken me twelve years and the planting of

three churches to come out of the church culture I had become a part
of in the beginning. Today, I no longer go to an institution or a
building we call “church.” I am free from fear and other things that
were planted 33

34

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

in me due to control, which I will come back to later. I am the

body of Christ here on earth, and I love the freedom this gives me.
Life has become so much more exciting, and I want many more
people to experience it. I can also see that the people who are
around us today are growing much more than when we had “church”
in the “old” sense.

I am convinced that our circumstances and the structures that we are

a part of have a huge influence on our personal growth.

As I share our journey with you, I hope it can help, encourage, and
give you an understanding of how things connect together, seen from
our evangelical perspective. I cannot go into too much detail without
the risk of revealing too much about individuals. I will, however, pick
out various important incidents that have influenced us and led us to
where we are today. I also want to comment on what happened at
that time and why it happened. It has been a long journey where we
have repeatedly felt as if we were hitting a brick wall, until finally
realizing we could move on.

Not long ago, I got the following prophetic word, which describes it
really well. “I see that you, Torben, are standing with blood
and blisters on your hands, while you are making a hole in a
huge mountain. Lene is coming to help you, and the children are
coming with water for both of you. on the other side of the
mountain, there isa huge valley with green and fertile fields. I can
see that you are making a way so that many others can go through
the mountain and into those green and fertile fields.”

I hope you want to go out to the green and fertile fields that are
waiting on the other side of the mountain. It can be a long journey,
depending on where you are, but it is worth it.

It did not take a very long time for Moses to get the Israelites out
of egypt where they had been in slavery (exodus), but it took a great
many years to “get egypt out of them.” It 1s the same today. It’s not
hardto come out of the church culture, but it is hard to get
the church culture out of the individual. When it ends in success, it
is like being born again. you suddenly see things in a totally new
way and wonder why you could not see it before and why others
cannot see it when you tell them how fantastic it is.

I was born again in April 1995. I come from a non-Christian family

ChAPTeR 4: oUR TRIP To The GReeN fleLDS

35

that did not have any special church traditions. If I had paid a visit
toa Lutheran church, for example, I would not have had any idea
when I was supposed to stand up or sit down during the service.
Until the night I got saved, I had never set foot in an evangelical
church either, and still it was not long before I started to adjust
myself to the culturein which I found myself. e evangelical church
where I got saved wasa real faith fellowship in which much
emphasis was put on “the manof God.” ey thought these “men of
God” had a special connection with God, and one should therefore
respect and honor them as if they were almost God himself. I
remember one particular experience some months a er I got saved
that really shows how fast one can become indoctrinated into a
particular culture. It sounds like a joke today, but back then, it was
also really terrifying.

I remember a day when I was in the church’s bathroom washing my

hands. Suddenly, I got a big shock because the door behind me
opened and out came, yes, out of it came the “man of God” who
was going to preach that evening. When I saw him, I
thought: “What? Does he go to the bathroom just like everyone
else?” yes, that was the way I was thinking at that time. During that
short period of time that I had been attending church, I had acquired
a view of these men of God as being on a totally different level
than us ordinary Christians. I can not say that others in the church
thought the same way, but I was new inthe faith and did not know
so much about how the Kingdom of God functions. I thought these
men of God were completely different and did not live the same way
as us mortals. at experience still scares me today, and it shows how
quickly one can start to think in a particular way, because of a
certain church culture.

Since I first became a Christian, I have had a desire to serve God.

It was not long before I became an usher in the church meetings. It

was one of the few areas where I could serve God during the service
in an evangelical church. I cannot sing, so the worship choir was not
an option. I became the meeting’s usher and was responsible for
getting water for the big preachers, as well as standing by the
door and welcoming people. I also quickly bought myself a suit
because I had to fit in. I was really happy to be able to serve as a
meeting’s usher, but I also knew that I was called to do more. I was
called to teach the Word

36

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

of God to others, but I had no idea how I could reach that goal. one
day, I asked my youth leader what I had to do to get to preach on
the platform. his answer really impacted my whole future. he said the
following: “Torben, you can become a Sunday school assistant. en 2

a er some years, you can become a teenage work assistant, and,

again,a er a few more years, you can become a youth leader. And
as a youth leader, you will be allowed to preach one Sunday a year.”
I can still remember standing and counting with my fingers a total of
five years.

at meant that if I did all the mght things according to that system,
a er five years I would be allowed to preach one Sunday a year.

at really made me think. I started to look at the others in the

church who had been sitting there for many years but had not made
much progress. is reality made Lene and me start talking
about having to leave the church. If we had stayed, we would have
become like the others who were sitting there year a er year without
making any progress. I would never have started to preach. It was
not a bad church. It was actually good in many ways. But it suffered
under the system that most of our churches are built upon today, a
system where few people minister and a great number just sit
passively and listen year a er year.

During that time, we heard of a young married couple who were

about to plant a church in another town. We paid them a visit and,
asa result, le our church and moved to that other town.

When we moved there, we wrote the statutes for the church and
started our first service. We were all very excited about how it would
go, and I clearly remember standing together with the pastor and
talking about how our first service should be. We were young and on
fire for the Lord. We finally had an opportunity to do exactly what
we wanted, and we did not want to just copy others. No, we wanted
to let God do his work. But how could that be? We agreed that I
would lead the meeting, and the pastor would preach. We were also
going to take an offering, so we talked back and forth that we
should not have the offering and the sermon right a er each other.
We agreed that I would welcome the people, and then we would
sing some songs, take an offering, and have some more songs
before he got up to preach. yes, that was the plan, and we were both
very excited about it, at least right

ChAPTeR 4: oUR TRIP To The GReeN fleLDS

37

up until I looked at the program and thought with disappointment:

oe
is is not different at all! is 1s exactly how we held meetings in
the other church.”

I was really disappointed because I sincerely wanted to do some -

thing different. Today, it makes me think about the author Wolfgang

Simson who said something like this: “ e hardest part of starting a
church that God wants is getting rid of our own understanding of
what church is. is can take several years.”

At that time, our understanding of service and of church was a

hindrance to being able to do what God wanted. God has to remove
the wrong concepts before he can continue to build with us. It’s not
always so easy, however, and those wrong concepts are a huge part of
us and our church culture. I know many people who have started a
church with a longing for something else and for making disciples,
buta er some time, they are le with a half-dead church
where they entertain Sunday a er Sunday without seeing any new
disciples. Why?

Because their church culture hinders them from doing what God wants
them to do. ey start sincerely, with big dreams, but they still end
up with something they do not want at all—that which they ran away
from, that which was the reason for them starting something new in
the first place. for me, getting rid of the church culture has definitely
been the hardest task.

When we moved to the new town, we also moved to a smaller

fellowship. is suddenly gave me the opportunity to share from the
Word of God. My turn to preach came. I remember sitting by
the harbor, thinking about what I was going to say. I was browsing
through the Bible and thinking about the sermons I had heard in the
old church that were suitable for further use. I did not have much to
give at that time. I still remember my first sermon. It was nothing
special, but the most important thing was that I had started
something, and I did not have to wait for it for five years. My turn
came a er just a few weeks, and Lene also found herself in the role
of worship leader.

e€ reason we are where we are today is because we le the big

church in the past. I know now that if we had not le then, we
would never have reached our destination. It sounds tough, but I
am convinced of the truth that lies behind it. When I look back, I
can see

38

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

that we are living a life today that is totally different from the life of
many of our old friends. Many of them are actually not living with
God any longer. I must sadly conclude that the system we came from
has not managed to make disciples and minister as it should. Instead,
ithas slowly quenched people’s zeal and fire for the Lord. is is
true not only for our old church but for many churches in general.

It’s sad to think that I had to leave the church to be able to make
progress in my life with God. Look at how many are sitting in
churches today merely listening and how few are really working and
on fire forthe Lord, even a er so many years. Look around and
think about how few ministries have been started by doing what the
system has expected of them. e condition is similar in Lutheran
churches, and there are many more denominations that lock people up
within their system.

Recently, I recetved these prophetic words: “I can see a big pot with
large flames. A lid is being put on the pot, and the fire is slowly
being quenched and is dying out. I can see that God has given you
a special call and grace to remove that lid so the fire can burst into
flames again.”

is is what I really want to happen, even through this book.

It was difficult for us to be part of starting the church mentioned

above since we were young and had no experience in leadership. It
brought many challenges, and, a er a year, we moved on. When I
look back at our life, I can see that escaping from the other church
was the beginning of an exciting walk with God. If I’m honest, I
still do not know whether or not it was God’s will that we move to
that town and help the young couple plant the new church. I do
know, however, that it gave us momentum so that God could later
move us to where he wanted us. I wish many others would have the
opportunity to do what we did, even though it was difficult. It is the
best Bible school training one can get because we learn by doing and
not just by hearing.
5

A NEW PLACE AND

ONE MORE CHURCH

A era year, we moved to another town in order to work together

with a friend. At the beginning, we went to an evangelical
church, but, a er a short while, my friend cameto me and said that
God wanted us to plant a new church. We knew we were to work
with him and agreed to start in our living room. he was the pastor
of the church, but we were both in the leadership, andI worked as
an evangelist.

We saw people getting saved and transformed, and the fellowship was
growing. As usual, the other churches in town were not particularly
excited about the new “rival.” at is unfortunately how it is in the
West today, where we run churches like small companies that need to
compete for members and finances to keep running. is _ results
in frequent warnings against a new church to prevent “loss of the
members.” is is an important reason as to why I have written this
book.

We have to look beyond the ambition to build our own small

companies. If we are really free and working for the Kingdom of
God, then we would rejoice that the Kingdom is growing, instead of
focusing on the danger of losing members.

our new church grew primarily with new people and not with people
from other churches. even though the other churches did not like us
in the beginning, the cooperation improved a er some time, and we
began meeting together with the other leaders from town. It 39

40
The LAST RefoRMATIoN

was in our very own living room that we seriously began to

experience being used by God’s Spirit.

I remember one evening when a lady suddenly fell on the floor, and
a demon began to manifest itself through her. She was lying on her
back, writhing sideways, and saying something in english with a very
deep masculine voice. My first thought was: “help, a demon! We
have to finda pastor!” But then I realized: “oh, no, there is no one
here but me!” [Thad no choice but to pray and hope that God would
help us. he did, and the demon le her. I began to see that what is
written in the Bible really works. Since that time, we have cast
demons out of many, and we have seen that God is the same today,
just as we read in his Word.

once again, I am convinced that I would never have acted if this had
taken place in one of the bigger churches where it is the pastor, the
board of elders, or a prayer team who do such things. 1s leaves a
big flock that observes passively and never gets going. fortunately, we
had le the big church and now had to take this responsibility upon
ourselves. A er some time, we grew too large, and our living room
became too crowded, so we rented a building where we could have
our meetings.

I was happy that we were finally a “real” church with a venue, drum
set, rows of chairs, etc. At first, we were all very excited, and we
felt alittle more “real” because we had another place to gather other
than in our home. When we got the place together, however, with the
rows of chairs, drum set, program, and everything else that a “real”
church consists off, it felt as if we lost something personal that we
had before.

Many of the people slowly became passive viewers. A er some time,

we started to get frustrated and decided to divide the church into
three groups to be able to go back to the good beginnings. e three
couples in leadership got one group each, and we began to meet in
our homes once again. is never really became successful, however,
because we had separated the people from one another. Some people
in our group would rather be in another, and vice versa. It never
went back to what it used to be—an organic and living fellowship.

A er some time of frustration in the church, we introduced some

changes to how we ran it. As a result, I had to choose between the
church and a mission organization, “ e Last Reformation,” that I had

ChAPTeR 5: A NeW PLACe AND oNe MoRe ChURCh 41

started. At the time, I was busy working in e Last Reformation and

organizing meetings in various places. Now, however, we were going
to build together in a new way, which meant that I would have to
close down the organization.

ere was a teaching that was very popular in some churches at that
time. It went like this: “Let the seed die and obey your leader in
everything, so you will succeed even more in due time.” I could not
do it. I could not close down’ e Last Reformation and stop traveling
to meetings in various places, not even for a short time. We had to be
faithful to the call God had given us. at is why we had no other
choice but to stop our ministry in the church. Some other elders also
resigned at that time. e period following was very hard for us, and
we felt really down, but we received a word from the Lord: “Go, but
take one step at a time.” About a year a er we le the church, it
closed down, and the people started to go to other churches.

A er we had decided to leave the church, a friend of ours called us

and encouraged us to come to his Bible school. We agreed because
we needed peace and some time to seek the Lord. Suddenly, the
situation changed, however, and we found out we would have to
close down our organization in order to go there. Again, it sounded
as if we had to let the seed die before it could bring more fruit. I
just could not do it, sinceI knew this work, this organization, was
from God. I had to obey him more than I obeyed people. As a
result, we refused to go to the Bible school and did not know what
to do next. It was a difficult time. As I said, the decision to leave
the church had been ours, but it felt as though we had been thrown
out of the fellowship that we had started, since we had no other
choice but to go. Most of the people who went to the church had
gotten saved through me, and they suddenly started to treat us like
we were made out of thin air. We did not understand that either.

Many years later, I found out they had been told by the leadership
that we were experiencing a call to move on, and that was why we
le . Itmade them think that it was us who did not want them
anymore. at was one of the reasons nobody contacted us.

Some weeks a er leaving the church, we were at a Bible camp. At

the time, I felt we could not put up with the rejection any longer.
oneevening, I le the meeting and cried to God, ready to
give up

42
The LAST RefoRMATIoN

everything. e next evening, however, an African minister called me

forward and gave me these words: “I can see you signing contracts. I
can see documents being given to you. I can see you signing
contracts, and you’ll not pay yourself. I can see others paying. I
don’t care who did not stand together with you. I don’t care who
le you. ere issomeone who has been so meaningful in your life,
but you should know that this separation is from God so_ that
you don’t become comfortable and miss your vision from God. If it
went on, you would lose that vision, but God sent this separation and
made you go througha desert so that you don’t get dependent on
anyone else other than God.

Now your painful time is over, and you will see that God is going to
pick you up from the dust and put you up on top of the mountain.
your pain is over. It’s going to be a new day for you. It’s going to
be a new season for you.”

It really was a great encouragement for us. It was true that the
separation came from God. If we had stayed, we would have lost our
vision. It really hit home. at was why I thought our wandering in
the desert was over and from then on there would only be progress.
e truth was that it was just the beginning. God was going to
remove the wrong understanding of church from us, so he could
build together with us. Little did we realize that the process was
going to take the next five years ...
6

WANDERING IN THE DESERT

We had no church, and we did not know what to do, but then a
church from another town contacted us. ey wanted us to come and
help them. We met the leadership team, but I withdrew due to some
particular issues including membership and submission to them. I
could not agree to become a member of that church because, by
doing so, I would also have to approve of everything that was
happening there, which I could not. e church had a wrong view of
re-marriage a er divorce, and I could not accept that. Moreover,I
was not able to find proof in the Bible for the idea of membership.
Inthe previous church, we did not have to sign any papers in order
to become a member. We were together, just like the first Christians.
furthermore, the issue of having to submit to them was hard for me.
Why should they make decisions for me concerning my life, as if I
was still a child? At that time, I considered it very unhealthy, not
because I did not want to do what the Bible said, but because leaders
had tried to subdue/control me too many times in the past by saying
that I should give up my vision or compromise on the Word of
God. Iwas simply afraid it would happen again. I had to be faithful
to God and his call instead of people’s opinions. e issue of
submission is abig problem in some evangelical churches. is does
not mean that new believers are not to listen to their spiritual
parents, but I think that mature Christians get locked up in a
hierarchical system that stops 43

44

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

them from making progress.

for this reason, we had some more talks, and the outcome was that
we did not have to become members. I was supposed to preach one
Sunday a month and could spend the rest of my time working for

eLast Reformation. We considered this to be a good deal, so we

decided to move to the town. With regard to the issue of submission,
they said it would not be a problem, and it wasn’t as long as I was
within the system. however, they later used it against me in order to
stop me from doing what I felt was God’s will.

I am not writing about these things in order to let out hurt feelings
but to give you an impression of how this system can work in some
places. rough all of this, we have learned a lot, and, even today, we
would not have wanted to miss any of it.

When we were supposed to move, we suddenly found ourselves with

no place to move into. I remembered the words I had received about
signing some papers without paying, so I thought it had to be about
a house for us. I prayed and absolutely believed that God would give
us a place to live. fourteen days before we had to move, we still
had no place to move into. Ten days before, we still had not found a
place to live, so we felt pressured and sought God. eight days before
we had to move, a Christian man came by and said that God had
told him to buy a house for us. All I had to do was find one. Seven
days before the day we were to move, I found a beautiful house. I
gave the papers to him. Later the same day, he called and said he
had bought the house on the condition that the ones who had been
living in the house for 33 years would move out within six days.
ey had agreed because they had a summer house into which they
could move. eday we were supposed to move, we had a big house
ready to move into.

We were really happy and were praising God. e deal was that we
would have to pay the house rent and all the house expenses to the
man. As soon as we were able to take a loan from the bank
ourselves, we would be able to become the homeowners, and the
home equity would be ours.

We started to minister in the church as had been agreed upon, but

within a short time, I was asked if I would like to be the youth
leader because they had no one else for the task. We felt a little
pressured but

ChAPTeR 6: WANDeRING IN The DeSeRT

45

agreed. It went very well for a while, but a er a time, I could see
that it could not go on the way it was going. What we had
experienced in our living room before had made a strong impression
on us. As a result, our view of a Christian fellowship was much
different from the view of the rest of the church. I could see that if
we continued as the youth leaders, we would lead the youth group in
one direction while the church went in another. Besides that, we
could also see some theological differences. So we withdrew and
started to seek God about what we should do.

Some time a er that, I was on the faroe Islands where God spoke to
me through a prophetic word. When I came home, we knew it was
time to take the next step, which was starting our own fellowship. We
knew that the leadership would definitely not be happy about it, so I
inquired with some other churches that were in the same network in
order to find out what I should do. As a result, we gathered together,
and I shared with them what kind of calling we were experiencing.
We believed everything was fine then, but it was far from fine. our
under -

standing of things obviously differed, and the church leadership was

not able to follow our view on fellowship. At the same time, they
were really afraid of losing their members. As a result, others were
warned against us, and we suddenly lost a lot of friends in the
church. e man who owned the house changed his mind because of
what happened.

As a consequence, we missed the home equity worth forty to

fi y thousand dollars, and we had to move again since he did not
think the deal was valid any longer. It was really difficult, and
we could not understand why there was so much trouble just
because we were doing what we felt was our calling. ings did not
work out, even though we really tried to do it by the book.

Why are the churches so afraid of new fellowships if all the

numbers show that this is the solution to reaching the world? I felt
particularly hurt because of the issue with the house. I had
experienced before that people called me names and told lies about
me, but this time, it also affected my wife and children. ey had
been so happy to live in the house, and we had some nice neighbors
with whom our children could play. I tried to talk to the other
churches in the network, but it seemed they did not care what we
thought. It was just us against
46

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

a bigger church, so nothing more happened.

e story of suddenly being warned in advance is unfortunately not a

singular event. Later on, I met an African who had le the same
church in the same town some years before and started an
international fellowship. he experienced exactly the same problem,
having suddenly been accused of “heresies” and being warned against,
which resulted in his losing a lot of friends. In many ways,
our “system” resembles that of Jehovah’s Witnesses. is might be
hard to understand before being in a similar situation oneself. Since
then, I have met so many people who have le the “system” and
have told me about their experiences a erward that I can say it is
not totally wrong to say that it reminds me of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses’ practice of ostracism.
7

VISITED BY ANGELS

During that time of upheaval, we also received some great encourage

ment. We were visited by some very special people who became a
great blessing in our lives. In an unusual way,I got in contact with
a married couple from Canada who live in the Netherlands six
months of the year. eir names are Steve and Marilyn hill. I talked
to Steve about our situation over the phone, and even though we had
never met before and they did not know us at all, they jumped into
their car and drove all the way from the Netherlands to Denmark to
pay us a visit. It was such a blessing because, for the first time, we
got to meet someone connected to a house church network who
really understood us. having them over for a visit was great. I came
to understand that our view of what church should be like was
absolutely biblical and that we were not alone in this. So many times
before, I had experienced the feeling that I did not fit into the church
system and that something must be wrong with me. eir visit opened
our eyes and showed us that we were not crazy.

When they le a er a few days, Lene said: “have we just

been visited by angels or what?” It was so great and felt so unreal
to us that such mature and experienced people had been willing to
travel such along way to meet us. out of this first meeting
developed a good friend -

ship and a connection to a network that we are still cooperating with

today. Steve hill was like a father to us, one who only wanted us to
47
48

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

succeed and who had no ambition in any way to use us to build his
own vision. for the first time, I felt I had met a leader I could
submit to with all of my heart.

Since we had to move out of our house, we bought an older house,

and I started to renovate it. At that same time, we started a new
church, or whatever we should call it. e church consisted of two
newly saved young people and our family. In some ways, it felt like
taking a step backward. A er all, we were used to gathering with
about 20 people inthe youth group. But, today, I know that it’s
better to build from scratch and do it properly.

During that time, I made a big mistake for which I later had to
repent. When we got started, there was a lot of gossiping going on
about us. People were saying that I had caused problems, that I had
been rebellious, and that I did not want to submit. Sadly enough,
gossip flourishes in our churches nowadays. Nobody, however, came
to us and listened to our side of the story. Because of all the
criticism, I wanted to prove that I was not on the wrong track and
that I had started achurch. I therefore sent a press release to a
Christian magazine called

“Udfordringen” (“ e Challenge”) and created a website for our church

so that people could see we were a “real” church. I did so despite
the fact that I clearly experienced God telling me not to enter into
such asystem again but that we should just meet at home, without a
website or an organization, etc. Unfortunately, I did not listen. I
felt such pressure and wanted so much for the criticism to end that
I did not listen to what God wanted but went along with the idea
anyway. By the way, this does not mean that it is wrong for a
church to have a website, but the motive behind it is important.

Starting this new fellowship and officially announcing it as a church

also meant that I had suddenly become a pastor. With the other
church plantings we had been involved in, there had always been
somebody else, but now it was just me. With this, something
unpleasant happened on the inside of me. Suddenly, a big pressure
fell upon me that even felt demonic. With the responsibility also
came all kinds of questions.

one of them in particular weighed upon me heavily, and that was the
number of people we had in the church. is question was
really embarrassing for me because we were only five or six people,
and I now

ChAPTeR 7: VISITeD By ANGeLS

49

felt as if everything depended on me. If everything went well with

the church and the people, it meant that I was a good pastor, but if
not, ittoo seemed to be my fault. is caused me to lose the focus I
had before when I simply worked for the Kingdom of God
without being responsible for a particular church. When someone
got saved inanother town through my ministry or my website, I
just directed them to a local church and was glad the Kingdom of
God was growing. Now,I felt I was to be held accountable for the
wellbeing of this church, the people in it, and how many there were.
It even felt like a competition to me where it was all about which
church gets the biggest numbers and which church has the best
people. e other churches had now become rivals with whom I had
to compete.

I remember a particular day when someone from another part of

Denmark got saved through the website. I tried to convince him to
move to our town so that our numbers would grow. Doing so
felt terrible, and I remember asking God to help me because I could
not understand what was going on with me. I also got an unhealthy
drive to see the members of my church succeed. Because of this, I
started to control them even though I really loved them and truly
wanted the best for them.

fortunately, I was set free from all this later. I can, however, imagine
that all of this might sound quite extreme to you if you do not know
what it is like to be a pastor in the church culture we have created.
isis the reason why so many pastors of churches resign or burn
out. It 1s because of stress. It is also why so many church members
feel abandoned or imprisoned by control when they want to move on.
experiencing these things myself really gave me a new
understanding of these dynamics. Luckily, not all pastors think that
way, but the truth is that the body of Christ has been divided into
small “companies” that o encannot work together, especially when
they are from the same town and have to compete for the same
potential “customers.”

What happened next was that Lene became sick due to fear and
stress. Among other things, it was caused by the things we
went through—opposition, moving, loss of friends, etc. At the same
time, we were pressured financially. We had lost a lot of money, and
I had also suddenly lost my job because I had been telling my
colleagues

50
The LAST RefoRMATIoN

about Jesus. We ended up in a difficult situation without any regular

income, and we had a big old house that badly needed renovation.

When all of this happened, I really felt I did not want to live
anymore. e opposition we had experienced in the last years and our
current situation gave us a lot of pressure in many ways. I was tired
of it all and did not know what to do. We had truly ended up in a
desert, and it seemed it was not to stop any time soon. We were
seeking God intensely, and, during one period of time, I actually
prayed between eight and ten hours every day because I could not do
anything else.

ings slowly started to change, and one night God gave me a dream
that made a huge impact. In that dream, I saw myself standing with
two men who were smoking. one of them reached out his hand with
a cigarette and said I should smoke it. I refused, but he insisted and
said I had to smoke it or else people would notice that they
were smoking. I took the cigarette and started to smoke it, even
though Iknew I should not. en I woke up.

I knew that the dream was from God, and I immediately under -

stood its meaning. e other two men represented the churches we

had helped to start. I represented the church we had at that moment.

e cigarette and the smoke represented the whole system that

contaminates the body and kills life. God did not want us to become
part of that, but because of the pressure and fear of what others
would think, I had smoked the cigarette, so to speak. I felt so bad
when I realized what I had done. I was tired of myself and knew
very well where I had been “smoking.” It had to do with the fact
that I had sent the press release to the Christian newspaper and made
our website for the church. I had been feeling such pressure, due to
the fact that others considered me to be rebellious and did not think
our church was a
“real” one. at was why I did it, even though God only wanted me
to trust him. As a result of this, I suddenly had become part of the
church system again.

at same day, my friend Steve hill called me and said that he would
be coming over to visit us. he really appeared at the might
moment. When he arrived, we talked about the dream, and he could
easily see how I had started to resemble the system we had le . e
first time Steve had been to our place, I had been walking back and

ChAPTeR 7: VISITeD By ANGeLS

51

forth in our living room struggling with a wrong understanding of the

church. even though I was able to follow his line of thinking and
saw in the Bible that what he said was right, the other view of the
church was still deeply engrained in me! 1s time, I was again
walking back and forth, saying to myself: “When will you learn that,
Torben? When will you learn that?” yes, it’s really hard to get out of
that system and trust God alone.

A er this, I gathered the church together and told them about my

dream and asked for forgiveness. I closed down “the church” and the
website. e people were there all the time, and we kept on meeting,
so all that we actually closed down was the “system.” But it
was important for me to close it down and start all over again.
A lot happened a erward. A fresh wind came and “took over” the
church, and we saw many new churches starting around us. God had
finally led us through the desert and called us back to our old town
where we are living again today.

ose five years in the desert were really difficult but also necessary.

ey were necessary to get rid of the church system in us and to

teach us to depend only on God. Now I finally feel free from that
system and from what people expect of me.
 e recent times have been very powerful for us. We have seen God
moving more powerfully than ever before, and many lives have been
transformed. We know that this is something God wants to do
all around today. We are going to see people coming out of church
systems and into the green, fertile fields. We are going to see Jesus
building his church—a church that is not based on membership,
control, and outward structures, but a church guided by his spirit and
built of living stones, that is, his disciples. A church that is happy to
see people move out and start their own families in the neighborhood
instead of waging war with them. What kind of parents would be
happy if their children were still living at home at the age of 40? or,
who wants to live with Mom and Dad throughout their whole life?
e same goes for a biblical church, which is supposed to be like a
family.

I am convinced that God has taken us through all of this so that we

could learn how to trust him and how to be free from the system.

Although it has been really difficult, we do not bear a grudge against

52

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

anyone. yes, the brothers “threw us into the well,” just like in the
story of Joseph, but God was with us and brought us here so that
we could set his people free today. he has been with us in every
situation and used it for his purpose. I know that God uses whom he
wants for whatever purpose he wants, and this is why I can
forgive anyone.

Sometimes we do not understand it, but later we see God’s presence

in everything that happened. erefore, I want to encourage you to go
the way you’re supposed to go even though it can be hard because
there is freedom and victory on the other side of the mountain.
Today, we do not just go to church, we are the church. ever since I
got saved in 1995, I have heard that the body of Christ does not
consist of buildings but of us Christians. only now do I understand
what it really means.

We can see that God is really building his church, a church that 1s
not built of stones, programs, finances, fear, and control.

I hope that our journey will encourage you and give you an under -

standing of many of the things that happen in churches today. ’'m

sure that many will recognize a lot in what I have been describing.

FINANCES

When I look at churches today, I can see that church buildings are
the biggest challenge. having a church building 1s not necessarily
wrong, but it o en implies many other things that can sabotage
God’s ultimate purpose with the church.

Let’s take a look at finances. A lot of money is needed to pay for

buildings, chairs, carpets, heating, and all the other necessary things.

Because of this, the church members quickly become essential for

maintaining the church. With an increase in members, the expenses
rise as well. Because of this, having many church-goers does not
necessarily mean that one has a huge surplus in the budget. on top of
this, the pastor with responsibility for the church is being paid a
salary by the church. 1s means that members are not only essential
for maintaining the church but also for the pastor’s personal income.

Imagine a church with 80 members and a yearly budget of about

$300,000. from this money, about $60,000 is paid out as the pastor’s
salary, and ten to fi een percent goes to missions, which, according
to research, is the norm in churches today. is means that the rest,
whichis more or less $200,000, is used to keep the church
running. ebiggest expenses are usually the mortgage on the
church building, furniture and maintenance. Due to the fact that these
expenses 0 enincrease with a growth in church membership, this
situation is not likely to easily change. Let us then imagine that a
married couple from 53

54
The LAST RefoRMATIoN

the church experience a call to move on. or, even “worse,” they feel
called to start a fellowship in their own home. is means that two
tithe payers leave the church. Let’s say that these two members have
been paying about $10,000 in tithes to the church every year, and
now this income suddenly disappears. Imagine how that $10,000 will
impact the budget of such a church, especially if the church already
has a tight budget. Now, imagine what happens if one or two
more couples experience a call to go away and become missionaries.
 e truth is thatmany churches today are run as_ businesses.
Church-goers become paying customers that are needed to keep the
church running.

Imagine that a mature married couple who have been living with God
for many years come to the pastor and say: “We’ve really been
seeking God, and we feel that it’s time for us to move on. We would
like to have your blessing.” Do you think the pastor will bless
them? I feel that if there was no money issue involved, and if the
pastor had nothing to lose, he would bless them with great pleasure.
It should be every parent’s wish that the children will one day leave
home and start their own family. It’s a good thing to be ready to
move on and stand on your own two feet. even Jesus lived with his
disciples for only a shorttime before he sent them out. It’s a
leader’s job to make people dependent on God and not on
themselves, to lay a foundation in their life that they can later build
on themselves. If we talk about what is natural, we can easily all
agree that it’s unnatural for a 40-year-old to still live at home with
his or her parents. e same rule applies to the Kingdom of God,
and this is exactly the way Jesus and the first Christians
discipled people.

e truth is that where finances are tight, there is o en much

control to keep people in the church. And this is the reason why
some pastors would answer the parishioners above: “No, I don’t think
you're ready, and you have to obey your leader.” Unfortunately, we
are not talking here about rare incidents. I have experienced it many
times, and I consider the concept of “church as a business” to be the
main reason for it. Unfortunately, pastors who are dependent on the
church members’ money to keep the church running too o en let
themselves be controlled by finances rather than by what the Word of
God says.

Instead of releasing people into their ministries, they instead want to

ChAPTeR 8: fINANCeS
55

use them to fulfill their own visions.

I am not out to criticize pastors but to see them as victims of this

system. I feel sorry for them, and I want to save them from it. e
problem is not them, or any other people! No, it’s the whole church
system we have built up.

e need for finances even affects situations where there is sin in the
camp. e Word of God outlines the proper procedures for
addressing sin in the church. It involves admonishing the sinner and,
as a last resort if they remain unrepentant, excluding the sinner(s) as
the Bible says. In the current church system, it 1s also about finances.

In this current system, when a sinner is expelled from the church, one
does not just say goodbye to a person who is choosing to rebel
against God and live in sin but also to a stack of money. 1s,
unfortunately, results in many churches compromising the Word of
God when itcomes to preaching about what sin is and how we
should react to it.

Just a few months ago, I had a talk with a pastor about some of his
church members he did not feel comfortable about and who had
caused a lot of destruction in the church. I asked him why he did not
let them go, to which the pastor replied: “We need their money.”
Money is the reason why so many do things they should not do and
fail to do things they ought to do. is is o en a cause of great
stress for pastors.

Some time ago, I heard this powerful quotation: “Christianity started

out in Israel as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and becamea
philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to
europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an
enterprise.”
Unfortunately, we can no longer say that it is only like that in
America. To a large extent, the same thing 1s true about Denmark and
the rest of europe.

An enterprise is the same as a business. e church 1s the body of

Christ. If a body is transformed into a business, is that not
prostitution?

at is why we do not find any church buildings or employed pastors

in the first fellowships. ey did everything in a very different way
compared to today, and that includes finances.

If we look at the Danish Lutheran Church, it becomes even worse.

e state, or “people’s,” church runs about 2,300 churches and

employs

56

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

about 2,400 pastors. e church tax is not enough to keep the system
running, so on top of the church tax, the state donates 180 million
dollars every year. e turnover of the state church becomes thus one-
to two-billion dollars. is means that the state has influence on the
church. It is no longer God’s church but the state’s, just like it is
called.

In addition, we see more and more how the church adapts in putting
the state and the people above the authority of the Bible.

My own opinion is that we should close down the state /Lutheran

church completely, since it corrupts people and creates a church
culture that is not biblical. If you ask a non-Christian in Denmark
what he thinks of when he hears the word “Christianity,” the most
common answer you will receive reflects on the Lutheran church: it
is buildings and doctrine. When you look on a world map, you will
see that the Lutheran church is rather small. When including the
Catholic church, there are around 2 billion Christians in the world.
e Lutheran church has just over 70 million members, a rather
small percentage. e Pentecostal and Charismatic movements contain
around 800 million people. All in all, that is over 10 times more
than the Lutheran church.

however, it 1s the Lutheran church that overshadows everything in

Denmark and influences the picture most Danish people have of
Christianity. e state church culture 1s so deeply imbedded in most
of us that it even influences the culture of the free churches. As you
will see later in this book, there is a huge difference in the state
church and how Christianity functioned two thousand years ago. I
say, close down the whole system and put the money into something
else!!
ee : “> . =
TITHING

Let’s look at the idea of church as business. Most free churches

nowadays follow the principle of paying tithes. for those who are not
familiar with the concept, it means that believers should be paying
ten percent of their income to the church they are attending.

e state church in Denmark is not familiar with the principle of

tithing but is financed through the church tax. If you were to take
away the baptism of babies you would end up taking away most of
their members, too, which, in turn, would take away their economy.
In that way, the state church would soon die out. e state church is
controlled almost entirely by money. e baptism of babies is an
important part of the church because it brings in money. ere is a
big fuss about baptizing babies that does not actually have biblical
support. e ideaof “baby baptism,” as I call it, comes from the 4th
Century. Investigation into the history of baby baptism shows that it
was almost always linked to church membership and therefore had an
economical side, too.

Let’s look again at the free churches. What would happen if we took
away the tithing principle from the free churches? It would mean that
many free churches would have to close because they are built
entirely around this principle.

you might be thinking that tithing actually belongs to the church and
is a biblical principle. e truth is, however, that tithing is not a New
Testament principle the way we teach it today, which means that 57

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many are building churches on a wrong foundation.

Many Christians in the free church have heard these words from the
book of Malachi:
“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way
have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse,
for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the
storehouse, that there may be food in My house, And try Me now 1n this,”
says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and
pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive
it.” (Malachi 3:8-10)

“you are stealing from God if you don’t pay your tithe,” the pastor
will say. “It belongs to the church. e tithe belongs to God and
should be paid to the storehouse, which is the church to which you
belong.”

In some free churches, this is as well known as John 3:16. e truth

is that many pastors who are using this argument might be stealing
from God themselves. ey first misuse the Bible and then the
money, spending it on something other than what God has said.

Do you know what the text in Malachi is referring to when it

mentions tithes and offerings? Do you know what the offering is truly
for? Do you know that there are different forms of tithes? of course,
not. Most do not consider this because the only thing they have ever
heard is that tithing means giving ten percent of their income to the
church. I dare to say that most Christians who pay ten percent of
their income to the church do not know to what Malachi is referring.

Did you know that when you were going to pay your tithe,
sometimes you needed to pay an extra fi h?

“If a man wants at all to redeem any of his tithes, he shall add one-fi_h to it.
And concerning the tithe of the herd or the flock, of whatever passes under
the rod, the tenth one shall be holy to the Lord.” (Lev. 27:31-32)

Did you know the Bible says you yourself were sometimes to eat of
your own tithe?

ChAPTeR 9: TIThING
59

“You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces
year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place where
He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new
wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you
may learn to fear the Lord your God always.” (Deut. 14:22-23)

Did you know that tithing in Israel was from the land and not of
money?

But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the
tithe, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too
far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall
exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place
which the Lord your God chooses. And you shall spend that money for
whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for
whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God,
and you shall rejoice, you and your household. You shall not forsake the
Levite who is within your gates, for he has no part nor inheritance with you.
(Deut. 14:24-27)
at’s right. It says here, too, that you were to eat it yourself. Did
you know that, every third year, your tithe was to stay at home? It
was to be fed to the fatherless and the widows.

“At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce
of that year and store it up within your gates. And the Levite, because he has
no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and
the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied,
that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which
you do.” (Deut. 14:28-29) As you can see, we have taken from the
Bible without knowing what it really means and have built up a
whole church system on it. We could continue to see more examples
in Scripture indicating that the way the church teaches about tithing
is just one of the tithes we see inthe Bible. e fact is that there
are many different types of tithes. ere was, for example, a tithe to
the Levites because they did not get any

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land as an inheritance, and, in turn, they were to pay a tithe out of

their own to Aaron and the other priests (Numbers 18).

ere was also a celebration tithe that was to be transported to

Jerusalem and was used for celebrations. en, as we read earlier,
there was the tithe for the poor that was to be paid every third year.

It is also worth noting that Abraham did not pay a tithe with his
own money but from the spoils of war, and this happened only once
during his entire life, according to what we read. All these examples
show that the issue of tithing is not as simple as it seems. one thing
becomes clear, however, and that is the fact that the “storehouse” is
not necessarily the local church.

e reason I stated that pastors are actually sometimes the ones

stealing the tithes is that the tithe was not meant to finance a church
building and all that is included. e primary goal was to support
those who worked in the temple, because they had not any land of
their own, and the widows and the poor, so that they could eat and
be full.

Nowadays, the tithe goes to large buildings and paychecks for

pastors who are doing the lot of things that the people should be
doing themselves. Today, we are all God’s priests. e service of the
Levites in the old Testament is over, and we should not try to
maintain it. Weo en even forget about the widows and the poor
who are among us.

Why not pay the tithes to them and get a little more biblical?
 e early church did not spend money on big buildings or pastor’s
paychecks. e money was used according to the needs in the fellow -

ship and was given to those who were traveling and had the task of
spreading the gospel and equipping the saints. e Bible does
not require us in any way to pay ten percent of our income to the
local church with which we are affiliated.

okay, then, but did Jesus not say that we should pay a tenth of our
income?

“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of
herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. ese you ought to have done,
without leaving the others undone.” (Luke 11:42) No, Jesus did not say
that we should give a tithe. he said that the Pharisees should pay a
tithe. e reason for that was that they were a

ChAPTeR 9: TIThING

61

part of Israel, and tithing and tributes were part of the tax system
that God had ordained at that time. ey were to give a tithe of
crops and of cattle. In connection to what Malachi writes to them,
they rob God if they do not pay this tax because it was there to
support the land of Israel.

e truth is that only a few people know what tithing is really all
about. So when someone today says that you should pay ten percent
of your income to the church, which is the storehouse, well,
that person either does not know the written Word or is
misusing it consciously to finance their work.

I am not saying that it 1s wrong to pay ten percent of your income.

I actually mean to say that ten percent is a good start. But the way
I see it, according to the New Testament, all our money belongs to
God and not just ten percent. Tithing can be a really good thing, and
I think that we should give with a joyful heart if we are to give.
But tithing can actually keep people in their comfort zones. ey can
easily begin to think that since they have given their ten percent, the
rest is theirs. But, no, my friend, everything you have belongs to
him, and you shall one day be held accountable for how you used it
(Matthew 25). e Bible has a lot to say about giving. If you have
become confused by all of this, go and search the Scriptures yourself
and ask God what you should do with your money.

Why did I bring up such a delicate subject? I know all too well that
this is a fuse waiting to be lit and can cause a lot of problems. e
reason I bring it up 1s to show you that a lot of churches are built
on afalse foundation. A foundation that helps to hold up a system
that is simply not functioning properly. is system traps people and
prevents them from obeying God. It is a system that stresses out the
pastors and obstructs us from spreading the gospel and training
disciples. Many church-goers wish they could spend their money to
support other causes, but they simply will not do it because of what
they have been taught. Instead of giving to the poor, widows, and the
spreading of the gospel, which is what the Bible tells us to do, they
are giving their money to buildings, chairs, sound equipment, etc, and
mostly out of fear. ink about the hundreds of thousands of dollars
that could be spent in other ways to reach out with the gospel to the
world.

e money would truly start be used for what God really wants to

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achieve. Imagine a fellowship in which a married couple decides that,

this month, they will give their tithe, or a suitable sum, to a single
mother of three within the fellowship. Wow, it would spread like
wildfire as soon as people heard. “In their fellowship they actually
help each other.” Imagine all the young people who could be sent
out to spread the gospel.

e teaching that says ten percent of your income should go to the

church certainly does keep the church going, but it takes the focus
away from what God has planned and from what we read in the
New Testament.

“Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and
sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had
need.” (Acts 2:44-45)

Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should
live from the gospel. (1 Cor. 9:14) As you can see, economy plays a
big role in today’s churches. It traps people and creates passivity.
When you pay a pastor to hear from God for you, which you are
called to do yourself, you are inevitably going to become passive. e
pastor quickly becomes the professional middleman between God and
man.

If you are now thinking, “yippee, I don’t need to pay my tithe any -

more and can spent it all on myself now,” I would like to tell you
that, in doing so, you would be revealing that God is not Lord over
your money. If you belong to him, then so does your money. is
teaching should, instead, make you search the Lord to be free to give
even more but to give to those you feel led to give it to. God will
surely bless it!

“But shouldn’t I obey the church that I’m a part of and give my tithe
there?” If you are a member in a church where one 1s expected to
give tithes, then you can, of course, continue to do so, as long as
you are amember or until the discipline changes. e fact that some
churches decide to impose on people to give ten percent of their
income in order to be a member is something I do not wish to
comment on. It is not biblical, but it is not a sin either. It is up to
each individual church to decide whether to enforce tithing or not.
e individual church will

ChAPTeR 9: TIThING

63

give an account before God as to what the money was used

for. It should not be taught, however, that it as a biblical law
because it is not.

People should be free to decide whether they want to be part of the

church or not. If some stop paying their tithe and therefore stop being
a member, it does not mean that they are disobeying the Bible. It is
not the Bible that says one must give ten percent.

It is not a problem for me that some churches choose to take in ten

percent of their member’s income. e problem comes in when
churches consider it stealing when people decide not to tithe to the
church, or that they are considered to be disobedient to God and
undera curse if they continue, or if they decide to stop being a part
of the church. Both are examples of stealing—stealing people’s money
and stealing their freedom to serve God.

“But what about all the testimonies of people who have been
blessed by giving tithes?”

ere are indeed a lot of testimonies about people who have been
blessed by giving ten percent of their income, but I believe they were
blessed for giving, not for giving exactly ten percent of their income
toa specific church. If you give in faith, God will bless you. It says
so inhis word. If you experience that God 1s saying ten percent, and
youare obedient, he is going to bless your obedience. If he says to
give fil een percent, or a certain amount, and you give it, it is the
same. If he says you should give to some missionaries or others in
the fellowship, then he will surely bless it. God loves a joyful giver,
and he blesses those who give in faith.
I have many testimonies from people who have stopped giving ten
percent to a church and, instead, gave a different sum to a number of
others and suddenly experienced blessings. It is not the ten percent
that counts. It is the obedience, just as God says. And, yes, giving
ten percent to a fellowship could be part of this.

64
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10

A TOOL FOR MISSIONS

Before we move on and take a look at how the church functioned in

the beginning, there is something we first need to come to grips
with. In order to do so, I am going to ask you a question: Do you see
the church as a place where Christians come together to become equipped,
or is it a place where non-Christians should come to hear the gospel?
your answer to this question is vital. If the purpose of the church is
to equip Christians, then the entire focus will be on how to do this
the best way possible. however, if the purpose of the church is to be
a place where non-Christians can become Christians, then the focus
will be on something completely different. e focus will be on
finding the best way to bring non-Christians to church and how to
keep them there. erefore, it’s very important to have a clear idea of
what the purpose of the church should be.

e idea of the church being a place where non-Christians can come

and hear the gospel is actually a relatively new idea. We do not have
to go back many decades to find a completely different idea about
the purpose of church. In those days, the church was a place where
Christians could come together to be edified and to be discipled.

When pastors and leaders talk about the church today, they are
mostly focused on how to get non-Christians to come to their church.

Instead, they should be looking to God to find the best way to equip
65

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the Christians who are already there. is would actually give an

entirely different and more biblical focus for the purpose of the
church.

e first fellowships were simply Christians coming together.

When they were together they were one in spirit and in truth. ey
were one, and they had all been born again into the same family.
ey all had the same longing—Jesus Christ. for that reason, and that
reason alone, they could share their lives in fellowship and grow
together in the Lord. Whenever they came together, they also shared
communion, which was not just a little bit of bread and wine. No, it
was part of ameal they ate together. Regardless of whether you
share communion the way we read about it in the Bible or you do it
like the majority ofthe Christians do today, communion is still
very powerful. It’s not something to be taken lightly.

ese verses are o en read with regard to communion: For I received

from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the
same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given
thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for
you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the
cup a_ er supper, saying,
oe
is cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, aso en as you drink it,
in remembrance of Me.” For aso en as you eat this bread and drink this
cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

(1 Cor. 11:23-26)

But this can be a catastrophe if we simply leave it here as many do

today. We need to read the following verses, too:

erefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of
the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks
judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.

For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.

For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are
judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with
the world. (1 Cor. 11:27-32)

ChAPTeR 10: A Tool for Missions 67

Communion is something much more than “just” a meal with food or

a little bread and juice. is meal has a spiritual effect that is very
powerful and that might even be negative if it is being dealt with in
the wrong way. erefore, it is important that we do not let just
anybody take part in communion like we do today. We read here that
it canresult in the person eating and drinking judgment on
themselves. echurch needs to be a place for those who have Jesus
as their Lord and are living with him.

I recently read of a pastor who said he no longer had a problem

with non-Christians taking communion. he said this because he had
read that Judas had taken communion, and he did not have the right
relationship with God. he said this in order to defend the fact that, in
his church, those who were not born again were allowed to take part
in communion. But Judas is a very bad example to use in this case
because we read how Satan came into him and that, a er some time,
he betrayed Jesus and then died.

Communion has always been set apart for Christians, and it should
be like that even today. e lack of understanding that the church, and
communion, are meant for Christians might have very negative
consequences.

e popular idea of the church being a place where non-Christians

can come and meet God is a new way of thinking. Why not invite
people into your home to have dinner instead and meet them where
they are. en you can share the gospel with them yourself and even
baptize them in your bathtub! at way, they already have a natural
relationship with those who led them to Christ instead of the
unnatural relationship they o en have to a pastor who does not really
know them.

It 1s obviously the best and most biblical way to do it. A erward,

you could take this new Christian with you to the gatherings of the
church you join. en, when they are there, they will not be amazed
as to why people, for example, speak in tongues. It 1s no longer
strange to them because they do it as well! is is actually the way
things are done in alot of other countries, especially in those
countries where Christians are being persecuted, and where the church
is growing a lot more thanit is here in the West.

Unfortunately, many have taken away speaking in tongues and

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other controversial things from the church in order to accommodate

non-Christian seekers. at is not only unbiblical, it’s also dangerous.

Someone asked me whether we pray in tongues when we meet, andI

answered yes. She then told me that it was not biblical since Paul
says:

erefore 1f the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with
tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will
they not say that you are out of your mind? (1 Cor.

14:23)
My answer to that 1s: “We do not have uninformed or unbelieving
people coming to our meetings! however, if an unbeliever happened
to join us, we would naturally take that into consideration. We would
take the opportunity to teach them about the holy Spirit and speaking
in tongues, and that would mean they would no longer be
uninformed!

Instead, our speaking in tongues would become a sign to them, one

that they could read about throughout the Bible.”

My point is that we should not turn the church into a tool for
evangelism when, in reality, it should be a center for discipleship. e
church’s primary goal is to make disciples, like Jesus commanded. e
fact that we have, in many ways, changed the purpose of the church
by trying to make it a place to reach non-Christians means that
the Christians who are coming to the church are not being
made into productive disciples. ey are not getting the food they
need to growand produce fruit. Another consequence is that, in
many free churches, people are no longer speaking in tongues.
e result is that new Christians are neither being baptized in the
holy Spirit nor receiving the gi of tongues because they do not see
it put into practice. ey might encounter tongues later in a cell
group, but they are not likely to understand the importance of it
because they did not receive it from the beginning. We see this in
many Pentecostal churches today as well, and if they continue further
down this road, there will be no “Pentecost”

le in them!

We cannot put a lid on the movement of God’s Spirit among us if

we are going to be effective. Without God’s Spirit, we can do
nothing.

When Christians come together, they ought to be focused on

pursuing God and being filled and equipped to live as disciples every

ChAPTeR 10: A Tool for Missions 69

day. Being a disciple means spreading the gospel, too, so that

the fellowship can grow. is aspect is o en overlooked when the
church’s focus is on reaching non-Christians. ere are many dangers
in using the church as a tool for evangelism instead of a center of
discipleship the way the Bible says we should.

e idea of the church primarily being a place for non-Christians to

come into relationship with Jesus can not be found in the Bible. is
new way of having church has paved the way for what is now
called the

“seeker-friendly” church. As the word implies, it is a church that is

designed to meet the newcomer. e focus is not removed just from
equipping and training Christians, but many other important things
also get changed in order to please the seekers (non-Christians), which
is both incorrect as well as dangerous.

I understand why many pastors and leaders today have chosen this
path. ey long to see people come to Christ and are having a hard
time seeing other possibilities for that to happen. ey rarely see
Christians doing the things I’ve talked about before, like inviting
people into their homes and leading them to Christ. is is something
that has been discussed in the church for many years, but we simply
do notdo it. erefore, the pastor has to find other ways. It’s much
easier for Christians to invite non-Christians to a concert at
church or to aseeker-friendly service than to invite them into their
homes and share the gospel. even the very thought can o en create
an immense fear in many Christians.

however, any way you look at it, in the end it is just an excuse for
not doing what we should be doing, and it is the main reason for the
lack of growth in the church. e reason for this is that the church
has been transformed from a center for discipleship into a tool
for evangelism. 1s has resulted in the fact that Christians simply are
not being discipled anymore, and that makes it hard for them to reach
people with the gospel. e church has not been trained how to do
this, and most are filled with fear at even the thought of having to
reach out to the world.

We have lost the capability to make disciples because of this change

in the church’s focus and purpose. Because the church is not growing
anymore, pastors are getting desperate. however, instead of going back

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to the model we find in the Bible, church leaders are going down a
totally different path. ey are creating seeker-friendly churches and
changing lots of things in order to get non-Christians into church. But
this does not solve the problem. It actually does the opposite!!
With great sadness, I have to conclude that most free churches today
are moving in this direction. ey are focused on the wrong thing and
are working hard to be more and more seeker-friendly all the time.
By doing this, they might be getting more people to come to their
church, but in the long run, they are not going to produce good and
lasting fruit.

Remember, if we want to see whether a fellowship is healthy or not,

we should not just look at the number of people attending. Instead,
look to see whether the people are being made into disciples
and followers of Jesus. is is not something that can be done on a
Sunday morning when the fellowship meets for an hour and a half
service. No, we get a better picture by looking at what the
members of the fellowship are doing on friday and Saturday nights
and whether they are following Jesus’ words each day. e purpose of
the church is to make disciples that produce good fruit in their daily
lives, and that is how we help the fellowship grow.

> i=
11

THE SEEKER-FRIENDLY CHURCH

The other day, I heard of a seeker-friendly church that removed the

cross from a wall because it had provoked some of the people who
visited. I think this paints a pretty good picture of the idea behind
the seeker-friendly church. We have removed from the gospel that
which offends people, with the hope that if we make the gospel more
acceptable, non-Christians will want to come and meet with us.
however, this means that Christians do not get the nutrition anymore
that they need to grow.

If we take away the cross and that which offends the sinner, what
then do we have le of the Gospel?

e church states that it 1s not the gospel message they are changing,
but it is the “packaging” that must change. e truth of the matter is
that we can wrap the message up so much that the salt loses its
saltiness, and then we no longer even have the gospel. I personally
do not think we should change the packaging; we should remove
it altogether!

Instead of spending so much time discussing what needs to be

changed in order to get non-Christians to come in, we should be
busy equipping Christians to go out and live the Christian life day in
and day out. I believe that would solve the problem once and for
all! And, again, all of this could happen if we simply began to
fellowship like the first Christians did.

e gospel of Jesus Christ is not only God’s power unto salvation, 71

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it is also a stumbling block. is is something Jesus said time and
time again.

en He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come a_ er Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself
destroyed or lost?” (Luke 9:23-25) It is not popular today to say you
have to deny yourself. It was not actually popular when Jesus said it
either. Many times, the result was that people went away grieved or
offended. however, Jesus did not turn around and run a er them in
order to compromise the truth or to try to package his message in a
different way. one of the largest and most popular seeker-friendly
churches in the USA made a survey of their members a while back.

is is what came out of that survey:

¢ 47% of the members did not believe they were saved by grace.

¢ 57% of the members did not believe in the Bible’s authority.

¢ 56% of the members did not believe that Jesus is the only way to
God.

Is this what we want to see happen in our churches right now?

Again and again, I meet “Christians” who have no idea what the
gospelis really about. ey have gone to church for several years,
but they do not live at all like disciples of Jesus.

Sadly, they did not ask how many of the members in the fellowship
were truly disciples of Jesus and obeying him each day, but that’s
what it’s really all about. however, looking at these numbers, I can
only imagine that the number would be very low. e survey gives a
good picture of what might happen when we change the purpose of
the church and turn it into an evangelistic tool rather than a center for
discipleship.
In order to make the gospel attractive, we remove that which can
bring salvation and actually change people. is will result in many
people living in delusion and being lost.

ChAPTeR 11: The SeekeR-fRIeNDLy ChURCh 73

Some time ago, I was contacted by a lady from Copenhagen. She

listened to our teaching on baptism from our website and wanted to
be baptized. She had attended a seeker-friendly church for many years,
but she never really understood baptism until she heard our teaching.

e fact that this woman still did not understand the meaning of
baptism worried me, especially because, according to the Bible,
baptism is the entering into a new life in Christ. Nowadays, it has
been exchanged for the prayer of salvation, for which we do not find
any clear biblical evidence. everyone who wanted to accept Jesus as
their Lord was baptized at that moment, even if there were three
thousand in one day or in the middle of the night. Some might
say: “But what about the thief on the cross? he wasn’t baptized.”

It is true that he was not baptized, but the baptism of Jesus did not
yet exist at that time. When the thief was hanging there on the cross,
the old covenant was still in effect. Jesus was hanging beside the
man.

e baptism of Jesus symbolizes Jesus’ death and resurrection, and that

still had to take place when Jesus hung beside the thief on the cross.

is is also the reason why we do not find anyone in the gospels

being baptized with the baptism of Jesus. on the other hand, we do
not find anyone a er the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus coming
to faith and not being baptized at the same time. I do realize that
baptizing people immediately a er conversion is not very practical
today with church programs where most churches have baptisms only
once every three to six months, but we need to build our practice on
the Bible and not our own traditions. is again shows how far we
have actually strayed from the first church practices we read about in
the Bible.

A er the woman heard our teaching on baptism, she really wanted to

hear more and came to one of our meetings. A er my talk, she sat
down and cried, saying she had never heard anything like it before,
which is, in and of itself, frightening. I was simply preaching the
gospel.

I took her hands, and we prayed together. God’s Spirit came over us
ina strong way, and she immediately began speaking in tongues
while we both cried. She opened her eyes and looked at me and
quietly asked,

“What am I doing?” I explained to her that she should simply

continue, that she was speaking in tongues, and that it was the holy
Spirit who had come over her. She closed her eyes again and
continued speaking

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in tongues. e next morning, she came to be baptized. She said that

when she had gone home that evening, her daughter had come to her
in pain. Some years ago, she had cut her hand on a window and still
had a lot of pain. e mother had prayed for her many times,
but nothing ever happened. When she arrived home that evening,
her daughter came to her in pain. e mother put her hand on her and
prayed, and this time it was as if the prayer came from her heart and
not her head. Immediately, the daughter’s pain disappeared.

A er that, Lene and I visited the woman and her family. When I
met the 13-year-old daughter, I asked her if she had been baptized in
the holy Spirit, and she answered no. People do not really talk about
such things in seeker-friendly churches like the one they were
involved in. of course, she was still quite young, but she really
wanted to be baptized in the holy Spirit. To God, a 13-year-old girl
is “old enough,”

so the girl’s mother and I went into her room and prayed for her. e
holy Spirit came over her in a strong way, and she began speaking in
tongues while she prayed and explained that she had never in her life
felt so fantastic. yes, God works just as powerfully in the room of a
teenage girl as he does in a church. Later, the mother baptized her
daughter herself with water in their bathtub. Since then, they have
stopped attending the “seeker-friendly” church they had attended for
many years and have started their own fellowship in their home,
which no doubt is much more fulfilling.

ey had attended one of the seeker-friendly churches that focused on

having a large congre gation, but we cannot let ourselves be fooled
by the number of members a church has.

Seeker-friendly churches are most capable of getting people into their

churches, and, of course, there are people who meet God there. I do
not want to question that. however, I do hope that many of them
will move on a er a while in order to get closer to the Lord
because, in most of these churches, they do not get the spiritual
nutrition they need in order to grow. e concept of the seeker-
friendly church simply creates difficulty in making disciples.

e problem here is not necessarily the fact that there is so much

focus on those who are seeking. Setting the focus on those who are
seeking is a good thing in and of itself. Personally, I try to reach
out to

ChAPTeR 11: The SeeKeR-fRIeNDLy ChURCh 75

non-Christians in different ways. for example, I will use language

that non-Christians can understand. however, the problem lies in the
fact that we have made the church into an evangelistic tool rather
than aplace where discipleship and mutual encouragement can take
place.
 e church should be a place where Christians receive training in
order to go boldly into the harvest fields.

Today, however, most Christians are not being equipped to go out

and share the gospel. Instead, they are expecting the pastor to
do everything. is creates an even bigger gap between
the “professionals”

who are active in ministry, and the majority of the people who simply
sit in church and support them. In seeker-friendly churches, the world
comes into the church, even though the church is called to be holy
and set apart for God to equip people to go out and evangelize the
world.

Several years ago at a Christian summer conference, the organizers

arranged to hold a disco dance with a light show and smoke for the
youngsters. ey explained that they would begin the service with a
time of worship to get people in the right frame of mind. A er
worship, the young people could dance and party with non-Christian
music.

is is yet another attempt to be a church where non-Christians can

feel at home. As we have already seen many times before, the result
will be backslidden and lukewarm young Christians.

Because of my extensive traveling, I have become increasingly

aware of this danger over the last few years. I have the opportunity
to meet many Christians from many different churches, and what I see
worries me. I am very concerned about what the next generation of
Christians will be like if we continue down this road.

is is what the Bible has to say about sin: Flee also youthful lusts; but
pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out
of a pure heart. (2 Tim. 2:22) We should flee from the things that
might tempt us instead of letting temptations be served to us on a
silver platter. To be relevant for non-Christians is not the same as
being like the world in which they live. To be relevant is to separate
oneself from the world and, instead, offer something that the world
can not give them. e church

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is a gathering for Christians where they come together to build one

another up. en they can go out into the world again to display the
life of Christ within them. 1s is something we should not change.

Non-Christian can, of course, be invited to a meeting. 1s works best

in small groups where it is easier to discern the newcomer’s need.

is does not necessarily have to take the focus away from the
equipping or training of the disciples. In fact, the opposite is quite
true!

I am quite concerned that many will not see the problem until it is
too late. In my country, many are so busy looking at megachurches in
the USA that this message cannot be received enough to look honestly
at the fruit they are producing. Jesus said that we should judge a tree
by the quality of the fruit it produces and not only by the quantity.

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but

inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do
men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A
good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” (Matt.
7:15-18)
I believe there 1s a reason that seeker-friendly churches have been
such a success in the USA and Denmark. It is because we do
not experience the same opposition and persecution as Christians do in
other parts of the earth. Unfortunately, because of this, we have not
been able to see how things truly are. In the gospel of Mark, chapter
four, Jesus uses an important parable about the sower: And He said to
them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand
all the parables?” (Mark 4:13)

e parable of the sower is the key to understanding the other

parables. I am thinking 1n particular of the parables in the gospel of
Matthew, chapter 25, the parables of the ten virgins, the ten talents,
and the judgment of the world. ese parables all tell of God’s
coming judgment. ey warn that many will believe they had Jesus as
their Lord when, in reality, they had never truly been born again.

In the parable about the judgment of the world, we can read that

ChAPTeR 11: The SeekeR-fRIeNDLy ChURCh 77

Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats and not the sheep from
the wolves as one might expect (Matthew 10:16). e judgment of the
world deals with the people in the church who “confess” Jesus is
Lord.

e parable of the sower describes different types of soil on which

the seed falls. ere is this one:

“Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and
immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun
was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away.”
(Mark 4:5-6)

here we see something grow up a er the seed is sown. It looks

really good in the beginning, and you can not see that anything is
wrong with it. Someone hears the Word, comes to church, and is a

“Christian” who “lives” with God. It looks like the plant is growing
well, but something that you cannot see until the sun is high in the
sky is very wrong with that seedling. Later, Jesus explains what
the sun represents.
oe
ese likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the
word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in
themselves, and so endure only for atime. A erward, when tribulation or
persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.” (Mark
4:16-17)
e sun represents hardship and persecution that reveals the true
condition of the heart. 1s can be a big problem in Denmark and the
USA because we do not experience the same hardship and persecution
as Christians do in many other countries. We may think we are
growing as we should be, but much of the growth we see might not
last simply because the Word of God has not taken root.

What would happen if we suddenly began experiencing persecution in

Denmark, for example, the way Christians experience persecution in
China?

I believe that, in that moment, it would become quite clear that the
seeker-friendly church movement is only programs and procedures. I
believe that, in a short amount of time, there would be few seeker-

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friendly churches le because most church-goers in the seeker-friendly

churches would deny their faith as soon as being a Christian ceased
to be fun and entertaining.

When the seed was sown in the stony ground, the message was
heard and received with joy, just like we read in the parable.
e message sounded so good that they accepted it with joy. yet, we
do notread that there is any grief involved over sin, and neither
were they told about denying themselves and taking up their crosses.
ey heard and came to church faithfully, but the gospel never really
took root in them.
 e truth is that we will not see this happen until the day the sun is
atits highest point in the sky and everything gets revealed. erefore,
we should learn from the persecuted churches and listen to what they
have to say. When we look at them, we do not see the same seeker-
friendly ideas where the message is being nicely packaged and where
people are drawn in with entertainment. When we read of the
persecuted church, we find home fellowships that equip Christians to
become disciples of Jesus, just like we read in the Bible. Also, as a
matter of fact, these home fellowships grow many times faster
than the seeker-friendly megachurches. We just do not hear about it
because it is not being broadcasted on Christian TV channels.

Some argue that home fellowships exist because of persecution in

certain parts of the world, and, because of that, they simply cannot
havea “real” church. is is not true. e first church in the Bible
also had periods of peace. however, during this time, they did not
change the way they had fellowship. No, we only find home
fellowships.

Remember, the question 1s not whether what we build can survive

here and now but whether it can survive throughout eternity. I believe
it is only a matter of time before persecution comes, and when it
does, churches will be forced to change in order to survive. So why
not make the necessary changes right now and build on the Rock?
en the house can stand when the waves come crashing against it.
12

WHAT IS CHURCH?

The word “church” occurs several times in the Bible. one place is,
for example, 1 Corinthians.

And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets,
third teachers, a_ er that miracles ... (1 Cor. 12:28) In this chapter, we
will take a closer look at the meaning of the word

“church.” Sometimes things can become confusing when people have

different interpretations of the same word. As a result, I am o en
forced to use the word in a very clear way that leaves no room for
wrong interpre tation so that we do not misunderstand one another. I
have done this in the previous chapters where I have talked about the
church as a building to which we go. Now, however, I would like to
take a closer look at the true meaning of the word “church.”

e word we use for “church” that has been translated from the
original language of the New Testament is: ekklesia. When we hear
the word “church” today, the first thing that almost always comes to
mind isa building. But the word ekklesia actually has no connection
to a building or religion at all. e word simply means “an assembly
or gathering.”

In Acts, chapter 19, we read about the concerns of some people in

ephesus. Paul had preached the gospel and, as a result, some people
became angry and began yelling, “Great is Diana of the ephesians!”
In 79

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verse 32, we read the following:

Some therefore cried one thing and some another, for the assembly was
confused, and most of them did not know why they had come together.
(Acts 19:32)

We read in this passage that the assembly was confused, referring

back to the assembly of non-Christians who worshipped the Goddess
Diana. What is interesting is that the word used for “assembly” is the
word ekklesia. So we could, in actuality, translate it like this: “Some
therefore cried one thing and some another, for the church was con -

fused, and most of them did not know why they had come together.”

however, there is not really any point because we are reading abouta
group of Diana worshippers. When we hear the word “church,” we
geta picture in our head, and in the context we have just read, that
picture is totally wrong! however, it is not only in this context that
we have aproblem; it’s the fact that we have actually created a false
picture inregard to the word “church.” is passage proves that the
word in the New Testament that we translate as “church” is not
necessarily always referring to a Christian meeting or a building but
simply to a gathering.

So the word ekklesia (which is mostly translated “church” in the

Bible) really has nothing to do with a building or a religious meeting.

Ekklesia means simply “an assembly of people.” ese people may be

assembled on the street, in the home, or somewhere else. In the
Bible, these assemblies o en had to do with a gathering of
Christians, andthe word used for this gathering, ekklesia, was
translated “church.”

Unfortunately, however, this also distorts the true meaning because,

for us, “church” has come to mean much more than just a gathering
of Christians. you probably would not consider an evening with
Christian friends to eat and fellowship as having church, would you?
however, that is, in fact, closer to the true meaning of the
word “church” than if you were to say, “I’m just going down to the
church to get something,”

and then you drove down to an empty building where you normally
meet. is empty building has nothing at all to do with a gathering of
people (church) because it’s empty. e fact is that, today, we rather
think of a building when we hear the word “church,” even though
that is kind of like calling a group of people a house. e two things
have

ChAPTeR 12: WhAT IS ChURCh 81

nothing to do with each other.

however, when seen through the eyes of the New Testament, there is
actually no building that is holy! It is you and me—Christians—who
are holy! If we meet at a particular place, it is not the place that is
holy.

When we leave that place, we are still holy, and the building is still
only a building. God does not live in a building made of stone. No,
he livesin us who live with him. We are God’s temple here on
earth. erefore, it does not matter where we meet. A gathering at
McDonald’s can be as holy as a meeting at St. Peter’s Church.

further, it does not matter if we meet together with only two or with
two thousand. Jesus is in our midst in both occasions. Meeting ina
building that 1s called a “church” does not make that meeting more
significant than meeting on the street or in a house. Rather, the
opposite is true because meeting on the street and in homes 1s
actually what the first Christians did. e place where you gather has
very little significance because of the fact that the word “church”
merely means

“an assembly” of Christians. Wherever a group of Christians meets,

there we have, or are, the Church.

Around the year 300 A.D., the word “church” came into use, though
we are not completely sure why. It is said that the word “church”
comes from the Greek word kuriakos, which means “that which
belongs to the Lord,” or “the Lord’s.” is word, however, is only
found in two placesin the Bible, and neither of those places has
anything to do with the church/assembly. In both places kuriakos 1s
translated as “the Lord’s.”

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s [kuriakos] Day, and I heard behind me a
loud voice, as of a trumpet ... (Rev. 1:10)

erefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s
[kuriakos] Supper. (1 Cor. 11:20)

As you can see, we do not find the word “church” in the original
language of the Bible. We actually do not even find the
word “fellow -

ship.” Instead, we find the word “assembly” (ekklesia) over and over
again.

Why, then, did we begin to use the word “church” instead of

“assembly” if we do not find it in the Bible? e reason may be

found in emperor Constantine’s worship of the sun god. At a certain
point,

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he was even the high priest in the cult of the sun god (the Sol
Invictus cult). If you search online for the word “church,” you will
find that

“Church” (or Circe) 1s a sorceress from Greek mythology, the

daughter of the sun god helios and the moon goddess Perse.”

This might explain why, during this time in history, the word

“church” came into use. however, we do not know for sure. What we
do know is that when our Bible uses the word “church”
or “fellowship,”

it 1s translated from the word ekklesia, which simply

means “assembly.”

So, when the Bible speaks of a “church” or “fellowship,” it

actually means “a gathering,” and this gathering has nothing to do
with a church building, membership, rules, Sunday services, etc.

When we begin to understand this, many things in the Bible will

start to have a completely new meaning to us. So o en, we have our
own interpretation of things. Because of this, we o en give a totally
different interpretation of Scripture than what was originally written.

is very thing has happened to the words “church” and “fellowship.”

If we try to use the word “assembly” instead, it may help us break

away from the wrong associations we have with the word “church.”
Try itfor yourself!! forget everything about church buildings,
rules, member ships, services, and whatever else you associate
with the church. en read the New Testament and put in the
word “assembly”

every time it says “church” or “fellowship,” and you will understand

what I mean.

earlier, we read that God has given several gi s, or rather

ministries, to the church. When we read this, most people think that
God has put these ministries in a church building or a church network
consisting of several churches. however, it does not refer to any
particular church building, fellowship, or network. No, it refers to the
assembly of believers in general. firstly, the early Christians did not
have any particular church organization. Secondly, they did not havea
building that they called “church.” When we read that God has given
ministries to the church, it means he has given these to the assembly
of believers in general, regardless of where they meet.

Let’s read the passage again with a more accurate understanding:

[Among the assemblies of believers around and about in the home and on
the streets, God has appointed some to be] ... first apostles,

ChAPTeR 12: WhAT IS ChURCh 83

second prophets, third teachers ... (1 Cor. 12:28 [paraphrased]) When we

begin to understand what different words really mean, it will start to
give a whole new meaning to the Bible. you will start to understand
how those first Christians really lived. It will give you the freedom
to live with and serve God each day, no matter where you are.

God comes out of the box we have put him in, and Christianity
today will again be like it was in the New Testament.

e church was an assembly of believers that met in both small and

large groups. eir meetings had nothing to do with all the walls that
we have built up today. ere was no building or church organization
with a name like Pentecostal, Baptist, or Lutheran. ese are all walls
we have put up and that God is going to break down in the last
days.

is will not happen by all the large church organizations becoming

one and being put together in one big system. It will happen when
church walls are broken down, and people once again begin to meet
in homes and on the streets where there are no big names, programs,
or organi -

zations,. We will be led by the Spirit and what the Bible tells us we
should believe and consider. e first Christians were not members of
a church organization. ey were simply repre sentatives of Jesus
Christ.

e separation we see between churches and believers today is the

cause of many problems. one of these problems is_ that
individual churches or organizations o en miss out on what God
wants to reveal to us through “the others.” God gave me a vision of
this some time ago.

e Bible says that we know in part, but one day we shall know God
in full (1 Cor. 13). e idea of knowing in part is like all of us
having our own bits of Christ. I have some bits of him, and you
have some bits of him, etc., because God reveals different thing to
each of us.
Today, we each sit in our own churches and groups, each with our
own little bit of Jesus. But what would happen if we came together
with all our bits and met at home? yes, like a puzzle, we would be
able to see more if we gathered the bits together. We would suddenly
get amuch bigger picture of who Christ actually is. When people
today meet together for services, Christ is limited to what a single
pastor knows about him because the pastor is the only one who
shares anything inthese systems. e Bible, on the other hand, says
that when we come together, everyone has something to share. is
can only work in small

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assemblies. I have good friends in different church organizations,

friends who really love Jesus and are my brothers in the Lord. We
can meet freely and share the Word, even though there are still some
areas where we see things a little differently. We are adjusting to
each othera little every time we meet. is is a great blessing
because in such a gathering we see other parts of Jesus that we
would not see otherwise.

is gives a bigger revelation of the Bible and Who Jesus is.

is, however, could never happen in the same way in churches
where people are being warned against “the others” and where the
members are being imprisoned because of the church’s fear of losing
them. If we are to become one, it needs to happen on a personal
level. It is simple if we take away the walls that have been built by
our organizations. e individual first needs to be one with Christ,
and then we can easily be one with each other.

you are Christ’s church here on earth. 1s 1s who you are twenty-
four hours a day, seven days a week! If you meet someone from
another church, you should be allowed to share Christ with one
another because you are part of the same body/church. When you
come together, you are the church, and you can, therefore, share
Christ and be a blessing and an encouragement to each other.
This is how it should be.

Unfortunately, it is not always this way. Many feel today that we

should not “touch one another’s sheep.”

I truly believe in unity, but a unity that is built on Jesus Christ, not
on a church system or structure. ere was not any membership in the
first assemblies either. When one repented and was baptized, they
were baptized into the body of Christ. ey belonged to Christ and
not any particular church or organization. erefore, they could easily
have meetings with others who also belonged to Christ. you
were not amember of any one church and, thus, not a part of any
man’s vision.

ere was no fear or competition involved when believers came

together.

e first fellowships consisted of many small independent groups that

simply related to each other in love. ere was no church denomi -

nation, competition, or control. ese fellowships could be small,

consisting of only two or three people, or they could be bigger, with
twenty or thirty people. ere o en was an exchange between them.

New people would come in, and new groups were being started, or
they

ChAPTeR 12: WhAT IS ChURCh 85

would split up into different groups. ey were together o en, and it

was like a small family that grew. It was not about where they met,
membership, or how many there were. It was about meeting and
sharing Christ in such a way that everyone could put their “little bit”

into the fellowship. ey o en ate together, and communion was a

regular part of that Love feast.
“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the
midst of them.” (Matt. 18:20)

Because they met in smaller groups, they naturally became like a

family, coming together daily and sharing life. During my almost two
decades as a Christian, I have been in various churches, but I have to
say that only in these last few years have I truly experienced the
church as my family. I can say that I love the people with whom I
meet. It is love and Christ that hold us together, not a building or a
membership.

is is something I really want others to experience as well.

86

13
YOU ARE THE CHURCH

The church is not a building or a place where you can visit. you are
the church! you are Christ’s body here on earth. you are the church
wherever you are and wherever you go. e fact that we are Christ’s
body is something I believe most Christians have heard before, but
only a few are living that way.

one of the problems with having a church building is that we easily

start to see the church building as a more “holy” place than
other places. furthermore, a church building tends to have an effect
on our behavior and attitude, where we start to reduce the Christian
life to something “we do” at a specific time and at a specific place.
I’m not saying that this is always the case, but the risk is surely
there. It just so happens that there are people today who act, say,
and do things at home and at other places that they would never
think of doing at church. To them, their everyday life is different
compared to their life in church, especially on Sunday mornings.
Church is seen as the place where Godis and where we, therefore,
need to act correctly.

is, however, was never God’s intent, and it is exactly what Jesus
did away with in the New Covenant.

“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem
is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus said to her,

“Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on 87

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this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you
do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the
hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God
is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” e
woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who 1s called Christ).
“When He comes, He will tell us all things.” (John 4:20-24) Jesus came
to make a new and better covenant. he came to build himself
a “house” out of you and me. God wants to live in us, and this
means 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. ere is not anything
that happens at church on Sundays that cannot happen at home every
day.

When we understand this and seriously start to include God in our

everyday lives, our lives will never be the same again. however, many
are living an everyday life that 1s completely different from the one
they are living at church on a Sunday morning when they come
together to worship. Many of them are deceiving themselves by
believing that everything is okay as long as they come to church on
Sunday.

Life with God encompasses every day, every minute of a Christian’s

life, and every place we go. It is not something we do now and
then ata certain time and place. It does not necessarily belong to
one special place. ere are, of course, occasions when we give him
full attention above all else. even when the attention is on other
things God never disappears.

Is it possible to experience God as a part of everyday life in the

same way we do when we are going to church on Sundays?

yes, of course, it is possible! Life with God, however, o en gets

reduced to something that only takes place at a certain location
(church building), at a special time (church service on a Sunday
morning), when a particular person (the pastor) does certain things
that we are told only he can do (communion and sermon).

Research from the USA has shown that only ten percent of those
regularly going to church talk with each other and their children about
God daily. at might indicate that ninety percent of those attending
church are not living with God in their everyday lives. 1s should
bother us when we realize that, from the beginning of creation, God

ChAPTeR 13: yoU ARe The ChURCh 89

primarily meant for the Christian life to be part of the family and the
everyday life. Many people, however, seem to substitute this with their
weekly attendance of a church.

We see the same thing happen with the idea of Sunday school. e
first Sunday school came about at the end of the 18th century
in europe. When it came to the USA in the beginning of the 19th
century, many big churches were actually against it. ey did not
want to have it in their churches. 1s is hard to imagine for many
of us. Why in the world did they not want a Sunday school in their
churches? ere isnot anything wrong with Sunday schools, is there?
e reason for this was that they feared a Sunday school would start
to take the place of those to whom God had given the
responsibility to teach children about him, such as parents, and
especially fathers who are the priests in the home.

When we look at churches today, we have to conclude that the

American churches were right in their concern. Sunday schools have,
in many places, replaced the parents’ responsibility for teaching their
children. only ten percent of those who go to church talk with their
children about God daily. is means that only a very small portion of
Christians nowadays are teaching their children God’s Word!

e main reason for this is that many today think teaching their
children about God is something the Sunday school will take care of.

We have handed the responsibility over to a system that we do not

even find in the Bible. Sunday school in itself is not wrong, but it
should never lead us to hand over a responsibility that God has given
to parents.
In the same way, the church has 0 en become a replacement for
one’s own personal life with God. Many are thinking, “It’s the priest’s
job to hear from God and teach me,” and “It’s the responsibility of
the church to see that I grow in my walk with God,” etc. e
responsibility for one’s own personal life with God has been relegated
to a system where it does not belong. Again, I want to
underline that it is notnecessarily this way everywhere, but if we
are not careful, this is what easily may happen.

When we take another look at the idea of church, we will realize

that we are the only real church building that God has. We are God’s
temple (church) here on earth, according to his Word.

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Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God
dwells in you? (1 Cor. 3:16)

Or do you not know that your body 1s the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in
you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in
your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Cor. 6:19-20) We are God’s temple, and
it is the only temple he has. We should, therefore, honor God with
our bodies, which, as I said earlier, is something that applies
seven days a week. We are God’s temple, and we are all priests as
well.

... from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and
the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us
from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His
God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
(Rev. 1:5-6)
 is iS our position today under the New Covenant. Today, we are
God’s temple, and all of us are priests. or, to be more specific, you
are God’s church, and you are a priest with personal access to God.
e only thing holy about a church building and a church meeting is
you and others who are attending there. you have access to the holy
of holies because of Jesus’ precious blood, if you are born again and
are living with him. We do not need a high priest as a middleman
anymore, like we read about in the old Testament. We do not
necessarily need to goto a specific church building or have a “real”
priest in order to have achurch service. We are all priests and can
all hear from God, baptize people, hand out communion, pray for the
sick, etc. you are the church, and you are the priest. e service
actually has to do with you as well.

If you search for the word “service” in the Danish Bible, it comes
up inonly two places. one of them is the following: I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which 1s your reasonable service.
(Romans 12:1)

ChAPTeR 13: yoU ARe The ChURCh 91

A service is not only something physical with special rituals like we

see today. is verse explains very well what a service really is. It is
not necessarily a special meeting at a specific time and place.
Rather, itis a lifestyle in which we offer our bodies (as God’s
temple) to God, so that he can live in and through us. We are the
sacrifice, so he canmake his home in us and use us for his purpose.

We have reduced the church to a building or a place, but, in reality,

the church is a certain person; that is to say: you! e pastor has also
become a person with the responsibility to do things for you that you
should be doing yourself because, today, you yourself are a priest
before God. In the same way, our idea of service has become
something that only happens at a certain place and a certain time,
usually Sunday mornings. however, true service takes place when each
of us uses our own body to worship God, and that is something that
can happen whenever and wherever two or three are together. e
strong spiritual life that the first Christians lived is strongly related to
their under -

standing of these things. When you realize this, it will lead you into
even more freedom with God.

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14
CHURCH SERVICE
When we look at the different types of church services that exist
today, we find that, wherever we look, they almost all look the same.
In the Catholic Church, communion is put at the center of the
service. e Catholic Church believes that the bread and wine are not
just symbols but that they actually do become the physical body and
blood of Jesus during communion. 1s idea goes all the way back to
Gregory the Great (540-604 A.D.). Luther fought against this idea,
however, so that, today, we have the Lutheran service where the
preacher is placed in the center of the service. is actually laid the
foundation for the Protestant and the Lutheran church tradition. Today,
in most churches, communion, the pulpit, and the preacher are still
the most important elements in the church service. Another big
change that came with the Protestant and Lutheran tradition was the
idea of whole congregations singing together during the church
service, which didnot happen in the Catholic churches of those
days. Besides these elements, there is not any big difference between
that which Gregory the Great presented during the 6th century and
that which Luther presented during the 16th century.

If we look at the services in the average free churches today, we will

not find much difference in the way the services are conducted there
either. ere are, of course, small differences in the way things
are presented, but the structure is very much the same as it was back
then.

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In a typical free church, you start with a welcome, then prayer, and
a er that some worship songs. en there will be announcements and
a collection, a couple more songs, and then the preacher gets up to
preach. When the sermon, which is always a one way communication,
is finished, then it is time for prayer. In some places, communion is
performed right a er the sermon. finally, the morning is finished off
with church coffee. is structure reminds me very much of the
structure of church services in the more traditional churches. Such
church services are usually conducted by a worship leader and a
preacher. Most of the time, the pastor/preacher is also the person
leading the meeting. e rest of the fellowship can join in with the
songs, but, other than that, they have to be satisfied with what all of
the other “participants” are doing. If someone were to ask you
on Monday if it was a good service, you would mostly consider what
you thought of the preacher, the sermon, and perhaps the worship.
But let’s look at what the Bible says about “church service.”

How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a
psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation.
Let all things be done for edification. (1 Cor. 14:26)

e important thing to understand here is that Paul is saying “when

you come together, each of you has something to contribute for
edification.” e list shown here is not the most important part
because it could surely be longer. Paul is teaching that, when we
come together, each of us should bring something that can be used to
edify, build up, or encourage each other. But in a typical free-church
service today, only three or four people normally bring something. e
rest of the people just sit there with their “bit” of Christ. e bigger
the church, the more people are sitting there passively. yes, some will
argue that if everyone got to talk for any length of time, it would
become a horribly long service, and I agree. e only reason this
would not work today is that we simply have too many people in
our meetings. What we see in the Bible is that the first Christians
met in small house groups, and not in big church meetings. In these
smaller groups, 1t would not necessarily take a very long time for
everyone to share a word, testimony, or a song.

ChAPTeR 14: ChURCh SeRVICe 95

e Bible verse that we just read is actually the only reference to the
structure of church meetings that we find in the New Testament.

ere is no biblical evidence for a service with a specific order like

welcome, songs, collection, and preaching. We also do not find any
biblical reference to the idea that only a few should be sharing, with
the rest sitting and listening. We do read in the Bible about one event
where Paul talked the whole night (Acts 20), but I do not believe this
was a long, unbroken sermon by Paul. I believe he talked that long
because the other people were taking part in it, too.

If we look at the original text, we find in Acts, chapter 20

two different words that are both translated to the same word. one of
them means “speech” or to “talk.” e other word, however, does not
have to do with speaking but with leading a dialog or conversation.
So Paul probably talked for part of the time, and a er he spoke,
they had active dialog that lasted into the night. e whole group was
involved in asking questions that directed the conversation. 1s event
was nothing like we see today, where one person talks for 45
minutes without interruption, and then they give a thank you and
dismiss.

If we look at the way the early Christians met, it is completely

different from how we meet today. first of all, they did not have a
church building. Second, they did not have a church service every
Sunday. And third, they did not have the structure in their meetings
that we have today. Instead, they met in homes and shared Christ
with each other. ey ate together and shared communion as a part of
anormal mealtime. A er they ate, they all had the opportunity to
share something to edify the others. Some people might have come
with a vision or a song, and some others with a passage from God’s
Word or an experience that they had. is way of meeting has
different effects on the people. first, it means that everyone has a
bigger picture of who Christ is because this picture is no longer
limited to the revelation ofthe pastor and only a few others. It also
means that people are not soeasily frustrated anymore because they
have a chance to talk about what they have experienced. furthermore,
it means that people will grow in a totally different way.

When we look at free churches today we see different groups of

Christians. ere is a very small group of people who are
actively

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serving in the church and are satisfied; they have found a place in
the church where they can serve God. ey feel like they’re being
used and are growing because of it. ey are satisfied and feel no
need for change.

Unfortunately, this group is very small. e other group is very big.

first of all, there are many who are dissatisfied and frustrated because
they are not being used and are not growing in the things that God
has put in them. ese people have sat in church for many
years and listened, Sunday a er Sunday. Some begin to criticize
everyone and everything out of pure frustration. ese people have
chosen to put their dreams on the shelf and to accept the fact that
they can not growor be used any further. ey have been beaten
down; the fire inside has slowly gone out, and they have finally
become complacent, lukewarm, and possibly even backslidden. ey
continue to come to church, but in their hearts, they have already
le their first love and lost their fire.

We need to see a reformation in our church structure. If you

remember, we really wanted to do something different when we were
planning our first church service some years ago. But what happened?

It became exactly like the ones we had le . e truth is that church

tradition lies deep within all of us. It takes a long time for
this to change, but with God’s help it can happen.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2) Most
people who read this think of sin and wrong thoughts. But this
Scripture does not only refer to sin and wrong thoughts, it also has
to do with the determination not to adjust to the systems of this
world.

We should not follow the ideas that don’t exist in the Bible and that
aren’t connected to Christ. We should renew our minds so that we
can do what God wants us to do. Don’t follow the traditions and
systems that are built on the world’s philosophy and on religion. Let
your mind be renewed so that you can understand how God wants
his church to function and also what he wants you to do to make
disciples.

Be
oyFo
Soh

15

THE POWER OF EXAMPLE

Westated earlier that Jesus has called us to make people into his
disciples. I believe we are wrong when we think this will happen all
by itself or simply by people attending our church meetings
Sunday a er Sunday. Listening to teachings does not necessarily
make one into a disciple.

Jesus was a carpenter, but he did not build a single church! he never
started an organization, nor did he have church services at any
specific time. Neither did he start a Bible school to get the job done.

No, the way he made disciples was entirely different from the way in
which we do it today. In chapter four of the gospel of Matthew, we
read about Jesus calling his first disciples.

And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called
Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were
fishermen. en He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of
men.” 29
ey immediately le their nets and followed Him. (Matt. 4:18-20)

Jesus called his disciples with the words: “follow Me.” A disciple of
Jesus was, and still is, a follower of Jesus. We leave what we are
doing behind in order to follow him. yet, what did Jesus do to make
people into his disciples? Did he build a church where they could
meet every 97

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Sunday? Did he start a Bible school where he could meet the students
every morning and teach them?

In the Everyday Danish Bible there 1s an explanation of the verses that

we just read. It says this:

“In those days teaching o en involved following a master and

learning from his example. A disciple is rather an apprentice thana
student. at is why the disciples and other people o en called Jesus
master.”
 ere are many truths hidden in what we have just read. In the
culture in which Jesus and the first Christians lived, things were done
very differently than what we do in our various cultures today. Being
taught by someone, then, meant following a master. however,
following the master did not mean that you learned by sitting and
listening only, but by seeing and doing. It was both teaching
and learning by example.

Today, almost all learning in the church happens by listening to

someone teaching. What makes you a student is mostly sitting and
listening to the teachings. It is actually the way our whole
society functions. fortunately, more and more schools are
beginning to introduce new ways of learning. ey are beginning to
involve the kidsso that they are not just listening but are more
actively involved.

Research on how people learn most effectively reveals the following:

We remember:

10% of what we read,

20% of what we hear,

30% of what we see,

50% of what we hear and see,

70% of what we say ourselves,

90% of what we do ourselves.

As you can see, there is a big difference in what we learn between

simply sitting and listening, which is what we do most in churches,
and talking, seeing, and doing.

ChAPTeR 15: The PoWeR of exAMPLe 99

Jesus taught his disciples by having them follow him. In that way
they did not just experience what he taught, but they also saw how
he lived. A er they had watched how he did things, Jesus sent them
out to do what he had shown them. is is an important part of
learning that is, unfortunately, o en le out today.

e way teaching is done in churches nowadays easily creates a

distant relationship between the common church visitor and the pastor
or speaker, and that’s exactly what it felt like when I was a new
Christian.

Because of this distance, people o en do not grow in their faith.

Nowadays, when I am out in the country, I o en meet people who

have respect for me because of my ministry. It is one thing to have
respect for me based on what they see of me on my website or a
couple of times each year in a pulpit, but it 1s something completely
different when you talk to me and meet me in the different
situations of everyday life. ose who hear me teach only remember
twenty percent of what I say. e people who talk to me each day
grow in a completely different way, especially when I am taking
them out to practice what they have learned.

ey are not only taught through my words but also through my way
of life. ey are not only listening, but they are also learning by
seeing how I treat my wife and my children, how I think about
others, and how I spend my time with God, etc. ey learn by
following me and doing what I do. e church is supposed to be a
part of everyday life, not something that only takes place in a certain
place for a couple of hours each week.

When you consider that most of what we learn actually happens by

seeing how others do it, what is it then that we are learning in many
of our churches today? Do you learn how to give a testimony? Do
you learn how to be a good father or a good husband? No, this is
something that is learned in everyday life and not something that can
be taught in two hours sitting in a church on a Sunday morning. of
course, we can be taught by listening to a sermon, but it is still not
teaching by example. What we do learn in church is how people
teach, sing songs, welcome others, and many other things that belong
to church life.

God has not, however, called us to be “professional” Christians living

a “professional” church life. We are called to go out and make

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disciples of all nations every day, disciples who are living the life
each day. God has not called us to serve him only in some small
areas of our lives, leaving the rest alone. Being successful in a
speaker’s chair while the family is falling apart is not being
successful at all. No, it is about your entire life. at is why Jesus
called people to follow him, so that, through life’s challenges, they
would learn by example.

A good picture of the way Jesus and the first Christians lived is that
of an apprentice and his master. It is a practice that does not occur
as much today as it did some years ago. e thought behind this
practice is that the student (apprentice) learns from an experienced
teacher (master) by following his example until he becomes
experienced and competent himself. how did such an apprentice learn?
Well, first of all by seeing what his master did. In teaching this
way, the apprentice not only learned by seeing, but also by hearing
and doing.

A er some time, the apprentice will start trying to do things on his

own. however, the master will stay by his side to see how he is
doing and to help when and where it’s needed. A er a while, the
apprentice will begin to do things on his own more and more until,
finally, he 1s fully educated and able to move on. With the Christian
life, it should actually be the same. We follow other mature
Christians and learn from their example. A er a short time, we will
be ready to perform tasks and teach others ourselves.

“A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who 1s perfectly trained
will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:40) In the gospel of Luke, chapter
nine, you can read another example of how Jesus taught his disciples.
here, he gives them an order along with some practical instructions.
It says, among other things: He sent them to preach the kingdom of God
and to heal the sick. And He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey,
neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money; and do not have two tunics
apiece. Whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart.” (Luke
9:2-4) everything Jesus is saying to his disciples here is meant for
them to learn something specific. Later, we read:

ChAPTeR 15: The PoWeR of exAMPLe 101

And He said to them, “When I sent you without money bag, knapsack, and
sandals, did you lack anything?” So they said, “Nothing.” en He said to
them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a
knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.
For I say to you that this which is written must still be accomplished in Me:
“And He was numbered with the trans -

gressors.’ For the things concerning Me have an end.” (Luke 22:35-37)

Jesus sent them out at this specific time so they would learn some -

thing specific: to trust God. Later when Jesus said, “As the father has
sent Me, I am also sending you” (John 20:21), his disciples knew
what this meant. ey had seen how he had been sent out by the
father.

Jesus was with his disciples for only three years, but it was enough
for them to then go out and change the world.

Today, we see Christians sitting in church pews for 15 or 20 years

without any big changes. Why? Could the reason be that we have
built up a church system that is not capable of training people
through example? Could the reason be that one remembers only
twenty percent of what one hears?

Imagine a young man who really wants to become an electrician.

of course, he begins by sitting on a school bench listening to a

teacher and reading books. But the funny thing is that, a er four
years, he still has not actually done anything himself. he has just
listened and read without applying his knowledge in any practical
way. he has read allthe books and heard all the teachings on
how this is a redundant statement: it should be done. he knows
everything about it. But nowthe time has come for him to show
what he has learned during those four years. What do you think is
going to happen? yes, he is probably going to be afraid, nervous,
insecure, and will have difficulty remem -

bering all that he has heard and read. he is going to think: “What
am Isupposed to do now? It’s not like what I heard and read.
What if something goes wrong?” he’s probably going to turn back
because he realizes the gap between the theory and real life is simply
too big.

fortunately, this is probably never going to happen to an electrician

today. In reality, as a student, he is going to be trying things all the
time, and a lot of the lessons will include practical training. A er a
short time in school, he will begin an internship where he will work
beside

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someone with more experience until he is finally ready to go and

work by himself.

e only place where we actually do not learn this way today is in

our churches. In our churches today, we simply listen and read,
without ever gaining the experience of practical application. 1s is
why we havea church that is filled with fear and that will never go
out into the real world and do what Jesus has commanded us to do.
We know all about how to do it, but we just can not seem to
actually do it ourselves.

Let’s look at an example: Someone comes to me who really wants to

hear about God, and I place him with a Christian who has
been attending church regularly for ten years. I charge the
Christian: “Will you explain the gospel to this person? If he repents,
baptize him in water and with the holy Spirit, and then disciple
him.” What do you think would happen? I think the Christian would
not know what to do. A true and trained disciple of Jesus, however,
would gladly make the other intoa disciple because this is part of
the mission Jesus has given us.

Today, there is a huge spirit of fear standing between the church and
the world. We can only take it away by beginning to make people
into disciples on a daily basis like Jesus taught us.

Look at Christians who have been sitting in the church for ten or
fi een years. Ask yourself whether they are able to do what I have
been talking about. If the answer is no, you know that they are not
going tobe able to do it in the future either; that 1s, if they continue
in the same way for another ten or fi een years. We are o en so
gullible and think that if we continue a little while longer in the
same way, things are going to change. I am convinced that, if change
does not happen now, it isnot going to happen in the future by
continuing to do the same things over and over again.

When we realize that we learn mostly by example, we will under -

stand that it 1s incredibly important who we hang out with. e truth

is, we do not learn most things from listening to the preachers in the
church. We are actually influenced more by others we meet in
the church and everyone else we relate to in everyday life. It is like
the story of a duckling that opens its eyes for the first time. It thinks
that the first thing it sees is its mother. In the same way, when you
are born again and your spiritual eyes are opened, the Christianity
you see around you

ChAPTeR 15: The PoWeR of exAMPLe 103

is going to be “real” and “normal.” of course, this can be changed,

but that is not so easy.

If you become part of a fellowship where many are living in sin,

there is a big risk that you will start to do the same. If, instead, you
become part of a fellowship where people are on fire for the Lord
and serve him in word and deed, then, in the same way, you will
probably be set on fire for him. e truth is that we learn through
what we see and experience around us, and we tend to adapt to our
surroundings.

It 1s so important to build relationships with people who are true,

burning disciples for Jesus. In the first fellowships, you could not just
walk in from the street and become a part of the fellowship. ere
had to be evidence that you had really repented and were living right
before the Lord. e Bible makes it clear that this should still be the
same today. We should remove evil from our midst because a little
leaven affects the whole lump (1 Cor. 5:6).

But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a
brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or
a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. For what
have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge
those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. erefore “put
away from yourselves the evil person.” (1 Cor. 5:11-13)

is 1s incredibly important. Again and again, I am astonished at how

new Christians grow when they are in a fellowship where people
love Jesus with all of their hearts. I have seen people going into the
streets evangelizing and praying for the sick, people from whom I
would never have expected this based on their personality. however,
a er they had come into a fellowship where many were doing just
that, it became natural for them to do the same. What we see
of “Christianity” in the beginning is what we’re going to see as
normal. So we have to begin creating fellowships where we really
serve Jesus 1n word and deed. is way, we will learn by what we
see around us and truly influence the people with whom we associate.

104

16

THE TWO MIRRORS

The Bible speaks of two mirrors, or actually, of two different ways

of looking into a mirror. We read about one way in the second letter
to the Corinthians:
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as
by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor. 3:18) In this example, the Word of
God is being compared to a mirror.

By reading God’s Word, we are transformed into the very image we

see in it, the very image of which it speaks. ere is, however, another
example in the Word of God concerning the way we look into a
mirror.

is example is found in the letter of James: But be doers of the word,

and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man
observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away,
and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the
perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a
doer of the Word, this one will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:22-25)

In the second example we again see the Word of God being likened
105

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to a mirror. however, unlike the first example where the person

looking into the mirror was being transformed from glory to glory,
we read here about someone who looks into a mirror, but as soon as
he turns away from it, he forgets what he saw. What is the
difference between these two people? Why is the one person being
changed into that which he has heard, while the other only hears the
Word and does not change.

e answer is found in verse 235:

But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is
not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the Word, this one will be blessed in what
he does. (James 1:25)

ese Scriptures clearly illustrate one of the main problems that the
church is facing today: our churches are built around the idea that
teaching in itself can change people! however, teaching in and of
itself is powerless if we do not act on what we’ve heard. We are not
blessed, or changed, through what we hear but through what we do
with what we hear! Many Christians are sitting in church Sunday
a er Sunday, year a er year, listening to teachings, but there is
no sign of any significant change in their lives. ey have come to
believe that if they just keep coming to church and keep listening to
the right teachings, something will begin to happen in their life.
however, that is a lie!

James wrote right here that we deceive ourselves if we do not act on

what we hear. We deceive ourselves when what we hear does not
really change us. We might come to church faithfully every Sunday,
but when we leave, we immediately forget what we have just heard.
When we are asked a week later whether it was a good service or
not, we say yes, but when asked what he talked about, we do not
remember.

In order for us to be blessed and for our lives to truly be changed,

it is not enough to just hear the Word. We are blessed only when we
become doers of the Word. If we believe teaching alone is going to
change us, then we are deceiving ourselves. When we listen to
ateaching without acting on it, we are like the one who looked at
himselfin a mirror but immediately forgot what he looked like. We
hear amessage, but as soon as we leave the service, we have
forgotten it.

If I had never le the church I was in, I most likely would not have
come to where I am today. I am not saying that I was not taught
well in
ChAPTeR 16: The TWo MIRRoRS

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that church because I was, but the whole system made it unbelievably
difficult for me to act on what I heard. Imagine that we are sitting
in achurch, and we hear something we know we should go out and
put into practice. however, the moment you step through those church
doors into the big wide world, you find that you are totally alone in
this, and suddenly, it is difficult. We are like the apprentice who only
spent time in school and never practiced what he learned. at is why
we must go back to the way Jesus did things, to say, “Come and
follow Me.” “Come and see what I’m doing, and start to do the
same while I am standing by your side.”

I have thought for many years that people in the church should pull
themselves together and begin living out the Christian life on a daily
basis. I have realized, however, that this 1s actually very difficult to
do as long as we continue doing church the way many do today.
Since we began working with small house groups, we have seen
people grow like never before. New converts quickly grow to the
level of people who have gone to church for many years. I have
seen new converts, having been saved for only a few weeks, lead
people to Christ, baptize them in water, and pray with them for the
baptism of the Spirit. I have seen Christians, a er just a few months
of being saved, sharing the Word with both Christians and non-
Christians as if they had been going tochurch for many years. ey
have grown so fast because of the example of others. I will ask
again: “how many people do we know who have gone to church for
ten or fi een years who still can not share the Word, baptize in
water, and pray for the baptism of the Spirit? how many do we
know who, a er ten or fi een years, still need milk (hebrews 5:11-
14) from others because they cannot feed themselves?”

We can continue having services the same way for the next ten or
fi een years without seeing any change, but if we want to grow and
see others grow as well, we must change the way we run the church.
We want to build our lives on the Rock. We cannot just hear the
Word, but we need to act on it like Jesus was saying in the parable
of the wise and foolish builders. Notice that, in this parable, the
difference is not in what they hear but in what they do.
oe
erefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken
him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain

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descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and
it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these
sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built
his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the
winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
(Matt. 7:24-27)
e Bible supports what the research shows. We change and learn
best through what we do. e following is worth repeating.

We remember:

10% of what we read

20% of what we hear

30% of what we see

50% of what we hear and see

70% of what we say ourselves

90% of what we ourselves do.

When I teach, I hope the listener will get something out of what ’m
sharing. I hope you will get something out of reading this book. It is
doubtful, however, that you will get as much out of this book as I
do.

According to the researchers, when I teach, those listening to me will

remember twenty percent of what I have said. But for me, as
the teacher, it 1s entirely different. I go and pray about what I am
going to share. I meditate on it, study about it, and when it has
really become apart of me, I go and speak about it. 1s means that
I get so much more out of it than those who are listening. everyone
who has tried to teach knows what I’m talking about. It takes a
lot more to speak about something yourself than to just listen to
someone else speak.

erefore, we need to create a “platform” where everyone has the

opportunity to share something, not just for the “listeners” sake, but
for the sake of those speaking.

When I want to encourage a Christian to read more in the Bible and

learn more this week than he did last week, I will ask him to share
something in the next gathering. Because of this, he will seek God,
dig deep in the Word, read and study, in order to have something to
share.

When he has found a topic, he will start thinking and meditating on

it

ChAPTeR 16: The TWo MIRRoRS

109

until the time comes for him to share it. e next day, if I were to
ask those who were listening what they remember, they are bound to
have remembered something. however, if I were to ask him, he
would be able to tell the entire message all over again. is is one of
the reasons why I believe in small gatherings and fellowships where
everyone has the opportunity to share something—just like in the first
fellowships.
110

17

EQUIPPED FOR MINISTRY

A er Jesus was taken up into heaven, the Christians continued with

Jesus’ method of teaching. e gi s that Jesus had were divided
among the fellowship so that even today we can function as
Christ’s body here on earth.

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,

and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be
children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by
the trickery of men, in the cunning cra_iness of deceitful plotting ... (eph.
4:11-14) here we read about the offices that Jesus passed down to us.
We call these offices (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and
teachers) the five-fold ministry. e purpose of the five-fold ministry
is to equip the holy ones to serve, just like we read.

An evangelist’s purpose is not just to go out on the street and

proclaim the gospel. No, his primary task is to equip the believers to
evangelize and to serve. e same goes for the teacher. A teacher’s
task is not only to teach believers, but also to train up believers to
break 111

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down and share the Word themselves. It is so important for us to get

this straight; otherwise, the fellowship is not going to grow as it
should.

Many people today have the wrong belief that the purpose of an
evangelist 1s to go out and proclaim the gospel so that other
Christians do not need to do so. Many believe that teachers should
teach so that we do not need to read God’s Word for ourselves, and
prophets should prophesy so that we do not need to listen to God
ourselves. is is notat all what the New Testament teaches us.

It 1s true that not everyone is called to be an evangelist, a teacher, a

prophet, etc., but every Christian should learn how to share Christ,
teach others, prophesy, etc. is is part of the ministry that everyone
has received. ee five-fold ministry has been placed in the church to
equip the saints so that they can do the work of the ministry. To
serve means, first and foremost, that we are sent out into the
earth asrepresentatives of Christ (2 Cor. 5:20). When we are Jesus’
disciples, we live with him every day.
And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets,
third teachers, a er that miracles, then gi s of healings, helps,
administrations, varieties of tongues. (1 Cor. 12:28) here it is again, a
list of some of the services that God has put inthe church. Let me
give an example of how this can work today.

¢ Are all evangelists? No.

¢ Can all evangelize and share Jesus with each other? yes!

¢ Has everyone the gi of healing? No.

¢ Can everyone, according to the Bible, pray for the sick, and they can be
healed? yes!

¢« How then does this function?

for anexample, I work as an evangelist and have the gi of healing

the sick, but the reason why God has given me this gi 1s
not so everyone can see me on a platform proclaiming the gospel
and healing the sick. is might be part of what it means to be an
evangelist, but it

ChAPTeR 17: eqUIPPeD foR MINISTRy 113

is not my primary role. I have been given to the fellowship to equip

the saints with the gi s that God has given me. In the house
fellowships of which we have been a part, about ninety percent of
the people share Jesus on a daily basis. e same goes for the gi
of healing; around ninety percent of the people in these fellowships
have prayed for a sick person and have seen them healed.

ese numbers are much higher than what we see in other places.

e only difference is that, in house fellowships, we tend to make use

of the gi s that God has given us much more o en than those
sitting in a traditional church setting. ose in house fellowships are
using their gi s to make disciples through the authority of example,
just like Jesus did. ey are using the gi s God gave them to equip
the saints to be able to serve, which, among other things, involves
sharing Jesus and healing the sick. I have done a teaching
called “healing the sick —an hour 1s all it takes.” It is a short lesson
on what the Bible says about healing the sick, with a very practical
side to it.

Many years ago, I was asked to teach a workshop at a Bible camp.

I decided that my teaching would be called “healing the sick — an

hour is all it takes.” It was a short lesson on what the Bible says
about healing the sick, with a very practical side to it. I really
wanted a fresh testimony and not just empty words when I said it
only takes an hour to “learn”

how to heal the sick. So the day before I was to teach, I contacted
a new Christian who had been saved only one month. I asked him if
he would be willing to pray for the sick, see them healed, and if I
could have an hour of his time? he agreed. I looked at the clock and
saw that it was 3:36 PM. I told him that we would stand in the
same place, and by the time it was 4:36 PM, he would have shared
the gospel of Jesus, prayed for a sick person, and seen that person
healed.

We jumped into the car and drove to town. on the way, I gave him
a short lesson on praying for the sick. When we arrived, I
said: “Come, follow me.” We walked around a bit, and, at some
point, I started talking to some people on the street. e guy
followed me and saw whatI said and did. one woman had pain in
her back, and I prayed for her.

A er this, I said to the new Christian: “Come with me. It is now

your turn.” We walked around while I assured him that he just had
to do what he had seen me do. I caught sight of a young man and
sensed that

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we should go to him. I told the new Christian what he should say. he

put his hands on the young man and prayed. e man’s knee
was instantly healed, and both young men were very excited about
what had happened.

Within that hour, four people had been healed, and we had shared
the gospel with even more. e new Christian had prayed for two
people, and I had prayed for two. he was extremely enthusiastic and
went all around the Bible camp telling people what had just
happened, even though I told him that he should not tell everyone.
is reminds me of Jesus’ disciples; they could not keep quiet about
what they had experienced either.

And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in
the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether
it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.
For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts
4:18-20)
is young Christian learned a lesson he will never forget. ere is
nothing as exciting as experiencing God working through you! Again:
we remember much more of what we do than of what we only hear.

is iS just one example of how we should teach today. If we start

using these teaching methods again in our fellowships, people will
grow like never before. Now, imagine for just a moment that we
could see the whole five-fold ministry functioning in the same way.
ere would be no limit to what could happen. e fellowship would
grow like never before, in a balanced way, where all gi s work
together.

What that new Christian learned in just an hour many Christians

cannot do a er ten years in the church. ey have heard that they
should tell people about Jesus, and they know that they can pray for
the sick, but do they do it? No! o en, they are not doing it because
the step from sitting in the church pew to going out and doing it all
by themselves in the world is simply too big. ey are full of fear,
and Icannot blame them. ey actually need someone to equip them.
ey are missing the element of discipleship. you do not become a
disciple by sitting, year in and year out, just listening to teachings.
you becomea disciple when someone takes you by the hand
and says, “Come,

ChAPTeR 17: eqUIPPeD foR MINISTRy 115

follow me.” It is about being together and sharing life. It 1s about

being taught by more mature disciples with whom you spend time. A
disciple is someone who makes others into disciples. As disciples, we
should learn from those who are more mature how to live out the
Christian life on a daily basis. Learn how to be a husband or wife,
raise children, look a er the house and home, give and reach out to
each other, etc.

is principle actually applies to all areas of life, not just to sharing

Jesus and praying for the sick. We have to begin to build
biblical fellowships, fellowships that make people into disciples,
because that is what Jesus has commanded us to do.

Several things happened at the Bible camp that day. In addition to

four people getting healed, the new Christian had a day to remember.

ere is nothing as wonderful as being used by God. It is something

we need to experience over and over again in order to keep us
burning and feeling alive. When the young man prayed for the last
person who was healed in that hour, I let him do it all by himself. I
went far away, for his sake, so that he would know the healing had
nothing to do with me and that he was “trained” and could continue
on his own without me being there. And so he did, even a er I had
driven away.

Some readers are bound to think this practice sounds robotic, and
many will not like it that I say I teach people to heal because only
God can heal. I agree. only God can heal! ee truth 1s that he has
giventhis gi to the fellowship in order to guarantee that we
Christians continue his work on the earth. It may seem weird to
some that I didthis only to have an illustration for what I was
going to talk about the next day. e truth is that, even though it
might seem that way, God was in on it. he has made his will clear
once and for all:

“And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘ e kingdom of God has come
near to you.’ ” (Luke 10:9)

e proof of how much God had been involved in all of this came
the very same evening. I went to a meeting where the worship leader
suddenly asked if we could pray with her for her son, who was not
living for God. his name was Jeppe. e whole fellowship began
praying for him. When I heard his name, I thought: “Jeppe. We
prayed for someone named Jeppe today.” When the worship leader
got down

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from the stage, I asked her if her son had a problem with his big
toe.

She looked at me, completely shocked, and said, “yes!” I then said:

“Well, he does not anymore!” I then told her how we had met him,
how the newly saved Christian had prayed for him, and that her son
had been healed. is all confirmed that my little “experiment” was
actually an answer to the prayers of other people.

If we desire to see people grow and serve the Lord in their everyday
lives, we have to use the gi s that God has given to the fellowship.
 rough the authority of example, Christians can learn in just an hour
what many still do not dare to do a er 10 or 15 years of sitting in
the church. Do we want to use these gi s and return to
working and training by example so that fear will disappear?

If we dare to put our culture behind us, forget what we usually do,
and begin doing what Jesus and the first Christians did, we will see a
fellowship rise where people are freely living as disciples of Jesus
Christ in their everyday lives.

ere are many different ministries and gi s in the fellowship. ’'m

not saying that everyone should do the same things I am doing. I am
saying that I, like many others, have been given to the fellowship to
equip other believers.

It 1s sobering to see a newly-saved young man experience more in

one hour than many Christians who have sat in church for years. e
way forward is for these gi s to be used in the right way again. e
church is not being equipped by sitting and seeing an evangelist
holding one campaign a er another, or a prophet giving one prophecy
a er another. No, the five-fold ministry must equip believers so that
everyone can get started, not only with using their gi s, but
also teaching others to do the same. further, we cannot help each other
grow as Jesus’ disciples by only meeting each other a couple of hours
on a Sunday morning. If people are to learn to live a life of
commit -

ment to God and his Word, then we must spend time with them and
train them through example.

May God raise up role models in our land so that the fellowship can
grow as it should grow.
18

THE FIVE-FOLD MINISTRY

What would happen if a new Christian belonged to a fellow -

ship where he followed other disciples on a daily basis and learned

from their lives, as well as the five-fold ministry that God has placed
in the church? he would grow at record speed, as it was in the first
churches that were small, self-sufficient house fellow -

ships. ese self-sufficient house fellowships, though not independent,

were connected to each other by the five-fold ministry. ose in the
five-fold ministry are actually meant to be traveling ministries. New
Christians mostly learned from the other disciples in the fellowship,
but sometimes they were visited by traveling ministers who also
contributed to their equipping.
 is is what Paul said to the fellowship in Rome: For I long to see you,
that I may impart to you some spiritual gi, so that you may be established,
that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both
of you and me. (Romans 1:11-12)

Paul visited different fellowships to give them gi s of the Spirit in

order to strengthen them. e five-fold ministry was primarily made
up of traveling ministries. e office of “pastor” did not mean a
pastor of one particular fellowship, such as we have today. A
pastor was 117

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someone who visited and traveled between different, self-sufficient

fellowships, who came with a specific concern for the fellowship. he
would pass this on to the believers there so they, in turn, would be
better at showing concern for each other.

e small fellowships we see in the Bible were led by those the Bible
calls “elders,” or “overseers.” ese were also called “bishops.”
e problem is that, today, we come up with our own definitions for
these words. If I say “pastor,” you automatically think of a person
who leads a church, meets in a building, and has church services
every Sunday.

is definition does not exist in the Bible.

ere is no clear description in the Bible of the different ministries

within the five-fold ministry. We only find more information about
them in the history books. A lot of what we connect with these
ministries today comes from our church culture.

I remember someone who came to me a few years ago saying thatI

definitely should not start a fellowship. e reason for it was that I
was not a pastor but an evangelist, and evangelists were not meant to
do that. Since I believed what he said, I struggled with it for a long
time.

one day I was in Copenhagen with seven people from seven different
countries who worked with a ministry called “DAWN,” which stands
for “Disciple A Whole Nation.” e main goal of DAWN is to
mobilize the whole body of Christ and to equip 20,000 co-
workers to train 2,000,000 churches so that together they can plant
20,000,000 other churches before 2020. When I met them, someone
asked what my ministry was. At that point, I looked down to the
ground and answered that I probably was an evangelist. Much to my
surprise, he answered,

“fantastic! We have a great need for evangelists to start fellowships,

since pastors are not really called for this.”

his answer was a shock to me. At that point in time, I was feeling
pretty down because people had just told me that I was rebellious for
wanting to start a fellowship. e truth is that, in Denmark, we are
living in a little bubble. We are doing things without questioning why
and without questioning whether what we are doing is right. further, if
anyone is doing it differently, they are probably rebellious and should
be put back in place; even though people outside our little bubble are
actually doing things the very same way. house fellowships are
actually

ChAPTeR 18: The flVe-foLD MINISTRy 119

the fastest growing church movement in the whole world. But many
churches in Denmark do not realize this yet and do not see that they
are fighting against the trend. What I am trying to say is that we
should not focus so much on what ministry each person has. We
should just do what is given to us and forget all about titles.

When I got saved more than fi een years ago, I had just one thing
on my heart, and that was to reach out to non-Christians. e
Christians around me did not say anything at the time, but as my
ministry grew, my focus and my heart changed. Today, I no longer
see myself primarily as an evangelist but rather as an apostle,
something which has been confirmed by many.

e whole issue of calling and ministry is something we grow into,

and things change over time. you might have one ministry at a
certain point in time and another a few years later. We too o en
stereotype each other too quickly. As I said before, we define
the different ministries based on our church culture and not on what
we read in the Bible. I will explain this to you with an example.

If I use the word “apostle,” what would you think of? I believe that
most of us would think of someone important, perhaps the highest
position in the church today. If this is the case with you, you
probably have a hard time with the fact that I see myself as an
apostle. you might have thought: “how can he say such a thing?
Who does he think heis?” is just shows you how we think. I
wrote this to demonstrate that we define terms based mostly on our
culture and not on what the Bible says. further, it shows that we all
suffer from peer pressure, and by doing so, we keep each other from
excelling. But that subject is for another time.

When we read about the five-fold ministry in ephesians, are they

listed in order of importance, or do they indicate a certain hierarchy?

If so, then the most important ministry is that of an apostle, then the
prophet, then the evangelist, then the pastor, and finally, the teacher.

But if they are in order of hierarchy why then is the ministry of the
teacher number three in the list in the letter to the Corinthians? And
what about the other ministries mentioned here? Where are they in
the hierarchy?

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And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets,
third teachers, a er that miracles, then gi s of healings, helps,
administrations, varieties of tongues. (1 Cor. 12:28) Where did the
evangelists and pastors go? Why have teachers suddenly been
pushed up two places? e truth is that we should not get too
caught up with the issue of importance or hierarchy. e bottom
line is that we all are simply brothers and sisters.

What does Paul really have to say about apostles?

For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned
to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and
to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are
weak, but you are strong! You are distin -

guished, but we are dishonored! To the present hour we both hunger and
thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. And we labor,
working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we
endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the
world, the offscouring of all things until now.

(1 Cor. 4:9-13)

This is the picture Paul gives of what it really means to be an

apostle, a picture that does not exactly agree with the picture we
have today.

An apostle today 1s not one who is despised. quite the opposite, he

o en is the cherry on the cake. e apostle is the one who 1s
picked up in a big car and arrives in the middle of worship. At
least, that is the way it is in some places. e word “apostle”
actually means “sent out,”

but do you know where it comes from?

In Paul’s time, a large part of the population consisted of slaves. one

third of the population had slaves, and another third were slaves
themselves. And many of the others were former slaves. A lord used
his slaves for many different tasks, one of which was to deliver
messages.

Today, we use the post office and computers to send messages, but in
those days it was the task of a slave to go out with a message from
his master. In those days, going out with a message was not a safe
task.

for this reason, a lord o en sent soldiers with the slave messenger in
order to ensure that the slave arrived with the message and got back

ChAPTeR 18: The flVe-foLD MINISTRy 121

safely. Sometimes there was no escort available, or it was simply too

costly. In that case, the lord would send out the slave who was the
least important, the one who would be missed the least if anything
happened to him. ee lord chose the most despised slave, and the
word for this slave is “apostle.”

I do realize that this is not what we think of when we hear the word

“apostle,” but it very much supports what Paul wrote about being an
apostle. What I am not saying, however, is that an apostle has a
lesser responsibility than the other ministers because they do not!!

... having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. (eph. 2:20) here we read that
it 1s primarily the apostles and the prophets who lay the foundation
of the fellowship. ey give direction to what God has planned to do,
which naturally gives them a bigger responsibility.

Also, teachers will be judged more strictly because of the

responsibility they have—to lead no one astray.

My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall
receive a stricter judgment. (James 3:1)
 e different ministry offices have been given different responsi -

bilities, and we need to recognize this, but having a bigger

responsibility does not necessarily mean that we are above others.
Remember that we are all brothers and sisters, and none of these
ministries should rule over the rest of the Body. furthermore, there is
no hierarchy in the five-fold ministries; they are standing side by
side. ey are not to rule over people like we so o en see today.
ese ministries are to serve and equip believers. ey are there to
lay a founda tion so that those who believe have something on which
to build.

When arriving at someone’s house for a visit, one does not say,

“oh, what a lovely founda tion this house has.” e foun da tion 1s
not even noticed. e only thing that is noticed is the house itself. It
is the same with these ministries. ey are there as a foun da tion,
not to take all the honor.

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According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master
builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it.

But let each one take heed how he builds on it. (1 Cor. 3:10)

e purpose of these ministries is to serve and equip believers, so

they, too, can serve. e goal is for all believers to be equipped for
ministry, and this should be the focus of each fellowship. e five-fold
ministries should not be doing the job for the saints but should be
equipping the saints to do it themselves, for the Lord.

erefore, be free and do what the Lord has called you to do!
19

LEADERSHIP

Abig obstacle for fellowships today is how to function like the early
church in the structure of leadership. In most places, this structure
looks like a pyramid, with one leader at the top of the organization.
If you look at the way the church was structured in the New
Testament, you will see that it had a very flat structure.

is flat structure was something I had a hard time seeing in the

beginning. I came from a fellowship with a pyramid structure, and I
believed it was the only way to do things. Today, I can see that the
Bible only talks about a flat structure, in both leadership and in the
whole fellowship as well. e pyramid structure we find in most
fellowships today is actually based on the old Testament. We do not
find it in the New Testament anymore because it is exactly what
Jesus did away with.

Let’s look at a few things Jesus said and did that go directly against
much of what we see practiced today. In the gospel of John, we can
read about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. he does this to teach
them a lesson they will never forget—a lesson on leadership. We read:
So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again,
He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me
Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and
Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
For I have given you an example, that you 123

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should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is

not greater than his master; nor is he who 1s sent greater than he who sent
him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” (John
13:12-17)
Why did Jesus wash the disciples’ feet? e answer is, because they
were dirty! In those days, people would lie down to eat in such a
way that their neighbor’s feet would be next to their head. _ erefore,
the feet were always washed before eating. In those days, one usually
had slaves to do this job. ey would wash the feet of their masters
before their meal. Jesus washed the disciples’ feet to demonstrate a
point. he took the slaves’ job and said that they were obliged to do
the same.

Later, he even came with this warning:

“But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and
you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your
Father, He who is 1n heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your
Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.
And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself
will be exalted.” (Matt. 23:8-12)

Should we wash each other’s feet, as some are doing today? No.
Jesus did not wash his disciples’ feet to start a new religious
tradition. Instead, we should understand that Jesus is saying we
should serve one another.

We are all brothers and sisters, just like he says here. e same goes
for leaders. We should not start washing people’s feet today because
it is nota part of our culture. We do not recline at the table, and
we do not have dusty, dirty feet. however, we should find ways to
serve one another.

for example, we could wash each other’s cars if they are dirty.

Jesus came to serve, and he presented a structure that is different

from what we see today. Jesus did not present a pyramid structure
where he put a “man of God” at the top whom everyone
else “serves.”

is method will surely fail because pride goes before a fall. No

human is called to sit alone at the top of a pyramid.

e idea of a “man of God,” as we see practiced in many places

today, does not follow New Testament thinking either. If you want to

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find support for this idea in the Bible, you must, again, go back to
the old Testament. I am not saying that there should not be someone
who leads. I am also not saying that there are not certain ministries
in the fellowship that we should recognize and honor, but there needs
to bea sound balance.

In Revelation 2, we read of a fellowship in Pergamum. Not every -

thing that 1s said is very positive:

us you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which
thing I hate. ‘Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight
against them with the sword of my mouth.’ ” (Rev. 2:15-16) At another
place, we read that Jesus hates the teachings and deeds of the
Nicolaitans. What is the teaching of the Nicolaitans? e word
Nicolaitans comes from two words: “Nikos” and “Laos.” It
means

“victory over the people” or “reign over the people.” It is from the
word

“Laos” that we get the word “layman.” So Jesus hates the teaching
that certain people rule over laymen. e fact that we have leaders and
pastors today who are reigning and making decisions over people is
contrary to what we find in the Bible. is is a teaching that Jesus
clearly hates. e idea that only priests, pastors, and leaders can
baptize, share communion, share God’s Word, etc., 1s something we
do not findin the New Testament. According to Jesus, there is no
such thing as a

“layman” or a “professional.” We are all brothers and sisters and have

the same access to God because of Jesus’ sacrifice. In other words,
everyone has the same permission to hear from him, baptize others,
and so on. even today, we need to do away with the teachings of the
Nicolaitans, the idea that priests rank higher up in the hierarchy than
laymen. is is plainly unbiblical, and Jesus hates it. Like I said, there
clearly are ministries and leaders in the fellowship, but they have
been put there to build the foundation and not to be the top of the
man-made hierarchy. ey are there to show the way and to go
before, not to steer and decide.

I have experienced many times how church leaders put themselves in

elevated positions over the people in the fellowship. ese leaders
may teach that you have to “obey your leader” in order to keep
people in their places. yet, they forget that, even though they are
leaders, they

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are still first and foremost brothers and sisters. e people in these
fellowships have access to God and can hear from him in the same
way as do the leaders.

Recently, a young woman came to me and asked me for advice. She

had been involved in short term missions before and had a wonderful
time. Now, once again, she began to sense Jesus calling her to pursue
cross-cultural ministry. e leader of the fellowship she attended told
her that she was not ready and that, “God would always talk to the
leaders about something like that,” so she should listen to them. I
knew the girl well and knew that she was mature. erefore, I could
say that if God had said “go,” she should go. e idea that God
should always verify things through a leader is a lie. Some will
surely see this asrebellion, but I strongly believe in this principle.

you might ask, “how can you say that when her leader had said
something else?” I can say that because she is the one who will be
held accountable for her own life and for what God has spoken to
her. A leader can give advice and guidance but cannot decide over
another person’s life.

I can see that, in some churches, the leaders use fear to control their
members. ey come again and again with scary examples of people
who have not obeyed their leaders and what happened as a result.
ey are saying indirectly, “ is can happen to you, too, if you go
against your leader.” In response to this, I would like to say that I
have only gotten to where I am today because I have not
always obeyed my leaders. If I had obeyed my leaders, my ministry
would have ended likeI said in the beginning of the book. e
question was whether I would obey my leader or God.
Many times, I have seen this Bible text being misused in order to
control people:

Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for
your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not
with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. (heb.

13:17)
If you dig into the original text, this verse read something like this:

“Listen to those who guide you and be convinced by them ...” It is

about listening and being convinced by the Word, not about blindly
following

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every command of a leader, despite what God has spoken to you.

When I see a Christian who is living in conscious sin, however, and

he is not listening to his leader, I am also going to read this verse
from the Bible to him. I would say that he should listen to his
leader and be convinced by the Word of God. But if the leader is
saying to a mature Christian: “you should not go away as a
missionary,’ or “I believe that you should sell your car and give the
money to me,” I would say, “Don’t listen to him because what
they’re saying is not biblical!”

Can you see how things can be misused when they are taken out of
context? Imagine if I was a leader and went to visit some people
from the fellowship. Do I then have the right to decide where their
piano should be placed? And, if they do not listen, do I have the
right to say:

“IT am your leader, and you must obey me?” No way! When I go
before them and guide them from the Word, then I am surely their
leader, but I do not have the right or the authority to decide over
their lives. I can only guide them based on the truth of the Word,
but they have the mght to allow themselves to be convinced.

In the book, Paul’s Idea of Community, Robert Banks shows how Paul
used his authority. Paul never used his authority to dominate people
or decide over them. he did not even decide over the fellow -

ships that he had started himself. he guided them like a father and
challenged them, but he never dominated over them or decided for
them like we see people doing today. his relationship with the other
apostles also shows that he was not placed under them in any way.
for example, he was not afraid to correct the Apostle Peter when he
madea mistake, although Peter had walked with Jesus. But he
always challenged from the Word, which is the highest authority. As
a leader, you are not to lord over people; we are co-workers like
Paul says here: Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellow
workers for your joy; for by faith you stand. (2 Cor. 1:24)

e author of hebrews clearly describes what leadership is about:

Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to
you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (heb. 13:7-8)

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Peter has this to say to the leaders in the fellowship: Shepherd the
flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion
but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over
those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief
Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade
away. (1 Peter 5:2-4) Leadership is not about making yourself the
ruler over another person’s life. Leadership is about being an
example. Being a leader is not about standing over others; it 1s about
going before others. A leader goes ahead and lets the others decide
for themselves whether they want to follow or not. When those
whom God has placed as leaders in the fellowship understand
this, they will experience a greater freedom as well.

It 1s freeing to realize that we are not responsible for other people’s

lives. As a leader, one only needs to go first and show the way.
A erthat, it is up to the others to follow.

I have seen an almost demonic teaching in some free churches today

that I have come to call “spiritual covering.” It starts by saying that
you need to have a spiritual leader over you. otherwise, you are not
protected. is teaching also points out that having a spiritual leader
is necessary to experiencing God’s anointing on your life. e leaders
teaching these things also have someone they call their leader or
spiritual authority, but those people are usually abroad, or at least
very far away. It is much easier to “obey” someone very far away
than to obey your brothers nearby.

for a long time, this issue was a great challenge for me. I came from
a free church where this way of thinking had been deeply rooted in
me.

It was difficult for me because, so many times, I had been in

situations where a choice was put in front of me: Should I obey my
leaders, or should I follow what I experienced God saying? It was at
one of these precise moments that I received a visit from Steve hill
for the first time, and he just happened to teach precisely on this
point. his teaching really helped to set me free in this area.

Not everyone can understand what I’m talking about here, but many
unfortunately do. Steve hill showed me what a true Christian leader
and father in the faith actually is. for the first time, with all of

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my heart, I could recognize a true leader. I suddenly realized that the
reason I had such a problem with this was not because of me or
becauseI was rebellious. Rather, it was because I was in a system
full of control that did not build upon the structure we read
about in the New Testament. further, this is the type of control that
results in only a fewcoming out into the calling and ministry the
Lord has given them. 1s incorrect teaching on “spiritual covering”
keeps people imprisoned ina system where they can not go any
further.

obedience is important. e Bible talks a lot about obedience and

submission. It even talks about submitting to one another:

. submitting to one another in the fear of God. (eph. 5:21) So we really

should submit to each other, not to a leader who lives very far away
and does not even know how we live day by day. We have need for
a flat structure that can set people free, free to hear God for
themselves and take responsibility for their own lives. e structure
that many churches have today limits the growth and functionality of
too many members of the body.

We are all brothers and sisters, and the head of the fellowship is not
the pastor nor the leader; it’s Jesus Christ. he wants to talk to us all.
When the first fellowships gathered together, they all sought Jesus
and let him talk through them. We are not talking about
creating anarchy or chaos, which is what many fear. ere is a Lord
who leads the church, and he is Jesus Christ.

I know very well that, in many fellowships, we are not going to be

able to have this flat structure without it going completely crazy. e
reason for this 1s that many members in the fellowship have not
really

“come through.” ey are still living with themselves as lord and

following their own lusts instead of God’s will. But if you have given
yourself totally to Christ, and you only have God’s will and his eyes,
then this idea of a flat structure is not a problem—quite the opposite!
 ere are, of course, leaders in God’s fellowship, but they are not
called to dominate people and make decisions for them. When you
stand as a leader, you are still brother to the others in the fellowship.

you stand side by side and not over anyone. you go before so that
others can follow.

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I believe it is so important that we start to see and function accord -

ing to a godly structure again. I am convinced that God is going to

raise up good, sound leaders who, as spiritual fathers, can lay down
a good foundation for the fellowship to grow in Christ.

20
THE HOLY SPIRIT

Iclearly remember a time in my life when I was unbelievably

pressured. I was in a fellowship, and I had responsibility for people
in that fellowship. I believed that the responsibility for their lives
rested on me because I was their pastor. If they were having a
difficult time, it was probably because I was a bad leader. If they
were having good times, then 1t was because I was a good leader.

Luckily, God showed me how wrong this idea was. he set me free
and taught me a couple of lessons that I will never forget. Before I
received these lessons, I could not even manage leading our
little fellowship with only a few new believers. A er the lessons, it
would not have been a problem if I had a million new believers to
lead. edifference is that God taught me two very important points.

e first is in regard to how we see leadership. I am clearly a leader,

but I cannot and will not steer or control people’s lives. I can only
lay afoundation, and then it is up to each person to build on it.

Jesus was the best Leader in history, despite Judas’ choosing to

betray him. is means that we probably will not escape experiencing
this either. I have learned that being a leader is not so important and
that I should learn to let go. even though Jesus was the best Leader
who ever existed, he still said to his disciples that it was better for
them if he le them.

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“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for
if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will
send Him to you.” (John 16:7) If it was better for them that Jesus, the
best Leader ever, le them, how can we then believe that we are
irreplaceable? Maybe it is because we do not have enough trust in
the holy Spirit. is leads to another important point I learned.

one day, my friend, Steve hill, asked me a question: “What is the

holy Spirit’s job?” I answered that it was to remind us what Jesus
had said, as well as convict us of our sin, of righteousness, and of
judgment.

he then asked me how good the holy Spirit was at doing this. I did
not know what I was supposed to answer other than that he was
really good at it. he then asked me how I thought we should divide
the work between us, whether I was responsible for forty percent and
the holy Spirit for sixty percent, or the opposite.

is really got me thinking. ere is no one better at doing all of

these things than the holy Spirit. It was for this reason exactly that
Jesus could say it was better that he le . at day, I learned a little
bit more about the holy Spirit, and it really set me free in my role
as a leader.

I do understand why many leaders and pastors suffer from stress in

the church system we have today. everything depends on them! Ifthe
church grows, the pastor 1s good. If it does not grow and if people
have problems, then it is also the pastor’s fault. It is impossible to
live that way long term, and it was never God’s plan in the first
place. We need to go back to the flat structure where Jesus is the
head of the fellowship and the holy Spirit is allowed to work in all
of us.

I can bear witness to many great things that happened when I let go.
People were saved and grew like never before. All of us understood
that I did not have responsibility for them, which made them take
responsibility for themselves. ey understood that it was the holy
Spirit’s task to teach them and remind them about sin, etc., which
made them listen to the holy Spirit more. As a result, they were
changed.
Now, the number of people is not a problem anymore because the
holy Spirit 1s big enough for all people and all of their needs.

Let’s read something from the book of 1 John that is unbelievably

radical, something I know many today have a hard time
understanding:

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But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you
do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you
concerning all things, and 1s true, and 1s not a lie, and just as it has taught
you, you will abide in Him. (1 John 2:27)I am not saying that all
teaching is unnecessary. When we read this verse, we need to realize
there is something we have forgotten. ink!

It actually says that we do not need anyone else to teach us because

we now have the holy Spirit! e same thing is explained in a
different way in the letter to the hebrews when it talks about the
new covenant:

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel a_ er those
days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their
hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them
shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,’ for
all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will
be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I
will remember no more.” (heb.

8:10-12)
We are reading here about a whole new covenant. Today, we all have
access to God through Jesus Christ. We can all know God and be
led by him. Like we read here, he sent his holy Spirit to guide us
and to show us Who he is.
Why do we not have more confidence in this? Why do we still
believe that people need a middleman—a pastor—to know God’s will
and to live the life to which God has called us? Maybe it ts
because we have churches where many are not even saved. Many
have gotten atouch from God and prayed to him and are now
coming to church faithfully, but they have never really “come
through” to salvation, and now we are trying to organize “babysitters”
for them.

Since they have not really “come through,” we are not going to see
the holy Spirit doing the same in them as we see him doing in others
who really are saved. Instead, we pretend to be the holy Spirit
ourselves. We try to raise them to live like true disciples of Jesus,
but we are not doing them any favors. Rather, the opposite. We
should be showing them that they have not really come through yet.
When they

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turn completely and experience the new birth like Jesus talks about,
then the holy Spirit will take over and will work in them. ey will
then be led by the Spirit instead of the flesh, like the letter
to the Romans talks about. is is a sign of a true Christian.

Again, it is about preaching the gospel as radically and as straight -

forward as we can without candy coating it. en we will see people

turning around and being saved. e holy Spirit will then come and
work in them exactly like we read in the Bible.

It 1s not God who has changed, but we have changed the gospel in
such a way that the church is o en full of people who are not really
saved. Nowadays, I see pastors spend hours, weeks, and even months
giving advice and helping people within their churches. yet, many of
these issues would be resolved automatically if people would simply
repent and get saved. We should use the time to lead them to
salvation instead of being their advisors on all kinds of issues and
trying to dothe holy Spirit’s work.

“And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment: ... He will guide you into all truth ...”

(John 16:8, 13)

When I was saved on April 5, 1995, I came from a world totally

outside the church. I had experienced sin just like many young people
in the world have today. however, from the day I was saved, the holy
Spirit began a work in my life, just as we read about in the Bible.
e holy Spirit taught me through the Word, and I began turning
away from my old life. In all of my years as a Christian, I still
have not experienced the need for someone to check up on me. No
one has ever reminded me that I do not get to live in sin anymore.
No one has told me that I should remember to read my Bible, or
that I should remember to come to meetings. No, none of that was
necessary because I had really been saved. e holy Spirit would
show me what needed to change and howI should live. e holy
Spirit was the one teaching me, just like we readearlier. at is why
he is here.

I see the same thing happening today when others turn to him
completely. When this happens, we do not need someone to tell them
all these things because this 1s something the holy Spirit does. In the

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beginning, when I was first saved, there were times when sin or my
old friends would draw me in, but I simply could not let go of God.
I was like one of the disciples when he answered Jesus a er many
had le him:
 en Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon
Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ,
the Son of the living God.” (John 6:67-69) In Acts, chapter eight, we
read about Philip baptizing the ethiopian eunuch. A er the eunuch
was baptized, God took Philip to another place, and the eunuch was
le alone. he was completely new in the faith, and the only thing he
had was the text from the old Testament.

however, he was not all alone. he had the holy Spirit! God
had complete control over the eunuch and took Philip away. God had
given the eunuch a helper for life, the holy Spirit.

If we begin preaching the gospel as it was intended by Jesus and let

the holy Spirit come, then he is going to convince people of their sin
so they truly repent. he is going to teach them and continue the good
work in them that he has begun (Philippians 1:6).

e first fellowships saw how the holy Spirit was present among
people. e holy Spirit was a big part of their lives, and they could
say:

“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us ...” (Acts 15:28). It was
not just the people in the fellowship who made decisions. No, they let
the holy Spirit take his rightful place in the fellowship.

is is another reason the fellowship at that time is so very different

from what we see in many places today. e fellowship could function
as a flat structure, without any chaos and without people causing
uproar, because Jesus’ presence was so powerfully represented through
the holy Spirit. No one but Jesus was the head of the fellowship, and
it was clear to everyone.

Today, the church 1s filled with “fleshly” people, and this is the main
reason why the current New Testament church structure that we see
in many places simply will not work. As a result of this fleshliness,
we have been led to develop the structures that we have today. It 1s
simply a replacement for the real thing. e same goes for the style
in which we conduct our meetings today. Just think about all of the
energy we

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spend creating the feeling that the holy Spirit 1s close. We do not
needa dark room with candlelight or emotional music or anything
else ifthe holy Spirit is truly there. Instead, this 1s an indication that
he isnot present the way we see it in the Bible.

We can not allow ourselves to be tricked into believing this new

structure and style (the pretty packaging) is the right way to do
things.

If we build churches with “fleshly” people, they are only going to

hold out until the day we truly stand face to face with God.

“But if we take all of this away, everyone will stop coming!” many
will say. yes, but maybe this is an even bigger reason to lay aside
these things because then we will see what has truly been built
by God.

Remember, it is Jesus who will build his church, not us! We are but

“living stones,” and Jesus will build his church the way he wants it!

Today, we see what many are calling the twenty-eighty rule. It

comes from the idea that, in a normal traditional fellowship, twenty
percent of the people do all the work, while the other eighty percent
only come and enjoy the meetings. It was like this in China, too,
right before the communists came and took power in 1949. When
they cameto power, it brought great persecution to the saints,
and all the missionaries were thrown out of the country. is meant
that all of the churches closed, and the eighty percent of those who
had earlier gone to church “fell away.” A er the persecution, only
about twenty percent were le —the twenty percent who had been
doing all the work. etruth is, the eighty percent had not
really “fallen away” because they had never really been a part. If
they had truly “come through” to salvation, they would never
have fallen away but would have been willing to pay the price. It
so happened that because the fellowship now only consisted of a few
true disciples who were willing to pay the price, they could give
themselves totally to the Lord. is was the start of the great revival
that we are still seeing in China today, where millions are turning to
God. however, all of this is taking place through small house groups,
so no one really knows exactly how many millions of new believers
we are talking about.

e holy Spirit 1s the same today! Today, unfortunately, he has been

replaced by a system that keeps people trapped in a false faith. A
system and hierarchy can never take the place of the holy Spirit in a

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person’s life. A system only creates a false picture of what the truth
actually looks like. hierarchy gives a false idea of everything being in
order. e reality is that many are living in rebellion against
God.

Systems can get us to believe that people have “come through” when
they really have not. A hierarchy can be a secret comfort zone for
proud people who actually love to rule over people.

other tasks of the holy Spirit are to remind us of Jesus’ words and
to guide us into the truth.

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He
will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said
to you.” (John 14:26)
“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all
truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He
will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”

(John 16:13)

I could continue with a long list of all the tasks and functions of the
holy Spirit, such as being a helper, Comforter, Witness, and one who
gives us power, etc. We have heard that it is very important to
follow up on people. e truth is that, in the Bible, we do not see
any following up the way we do it today. Today, we hear that
following up is a necessity because newly saved people are like
newborn babies. We all know that newborn babies cannot survive
without their parents!

Babies need their parents! And this logic is applied to newly

born Christians as well—without spiritual parents, they will die.

It 1s true that newborn babies need their parents. It is also true that
spiritually newborn people need parents, too. however, we forget that
we are not the ones who gave birth to them. God has given birth to
them, and he will certainly take care of them! he is their father and
has not le them fatherless. he has given them the holy Spirit.

I’m not saying that we should just let people go or that I’m against
all forms of checking up on people. We should be making people into
disciples, as you have already read. ere is a big difference, however,
between letting people follow us and using our time to follow up on
them. Jesus said, “Come, follow me,” while he continued onward. If

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people have received the “inner witness,” that they are truly born
again, then they are automatically going to have “outer signs” as
well. for example, these people will look for Christian fellowship.
 ese are the people to whom we can say, “Come and follow me.”
We can go on before them without needing to look back all the time
to check whether they are still with us. We need to remember how
important it is that there is someone going before them. It 1s
impossible to follow a car thatis standing still. A car needs to be
moving before anyone can follow it.

We should, of course, help and support one another, but it is not

Jesus’ task to follow up on us. It is our task to keep following him.

So, yes, I do think that we can easily take all the outer things away
and have a flat structure without people falling away, as long as they
have really “come through” and have the holy Spirit living inside
them.

ose who come to a fellowship with a flat structure, for the right
reason, will grow and blossom in faith. ere will be freedom and
space for each individual to follow God and to do exactly what he
has placed in the heart of each individual.
21

LOTS OF NEW CHURCHES

We have looked at the early church and compared it to the church of

today. We have looked at how important it is to have the right
structure. We have looked at the call that was given to all of us
to make disciples and that this primarily happens through
example. We have looked a little at the five-fold ministry and the
importance of the work of the holy Spirit. Now, we will look at
another reason small house groups are important.

Small house fellowships are much easier and quicker to start than
traditional free churches. When you start a traditional fellowship, you
o en need a facility and many hands helping you. All you need to
starta house fellowship is an open home.
DAWN (Disciple A Whole Nation) works with the strategy of
planting new fellowships. DAWN says that the optimal way to
accomplish the Great Commission is to start one new fellowship for
every 500 to 1,000 inhabitants because this 1s the best way to
effectively reach people. DAWN came up with these numbers by
looking at how big the sphere of influence of a medium to large
fellowship is and then projecting this number on an entire population
in order to determine how many fellowships are needed to reach an
entire nation, which 1s what Jesus tells us to do in the Great
Commission.

Based on this vision, Denmark, for example, needs many new

fellowships. According to DAWN, a Danish city with 30,000
inhabitants 139

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should have 30 to 45 fellowships. Today, a city of this size has

maybe one Pentecostal Church, one free Church, maybe a Missionary
Church, a Baptist Church, and some State Churches. We could say
that, on average,a city of this size has a maximum of 5 to 6 living
fellowships. According to the DAWN vision, there are still
between 25 and 40 fellowships missing in order to accomplish the
mission Jesus has given us.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to
Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you;
and lo, Iam with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. (Matt.
28:18-20) Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations. he
did not command us to only make disciples of a few people from
every nation but entire nations. When we truly understand what Jesus
has com -
manded us to do, we will start to have an entirely different idea
about the true mission of the church than what most of us have today.

If Jesus had said that the goal is to make a few people from every
nation into his disciples, then it would be logical for a church to
havea vision to grow to 300 members. It would also be okay for
the church to start a new fellowship every ten years. however, a
church with 300

members that starts a new fellowship every ten years will never be
able to accomplish the mission that Jesus has actually given us.

When we truly understand what Jesus is saying here, we will begin

to realize that many today are actually aiming in the wrong direction
and are missing the target. When we understand that Jesus was
actually talking about discipling the entire nation, we are going to be
forced to work very differently than how we are working today. for
example, our goal will be to send people out who can start new
fellowships as “soon”

as possible. e “war” between fellowships for members will end, and

we will be able to work together in order to reach our common goal.

Denmark needs a lot of new fellowships if that is the best way to

make the Danish nation into disciples of Jesus. 1s applies to all
nations.

All the numbers show that a fellowship grows the most within the
first two years a er it is planted. A erward, growth decreases and
o en

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141

even stops a er the fellowship reaches a certain size. 1s corresponds

with my own experience. When we started a new fellowship,
other pastors in the city said the reason we were growing so much,
compared to them, was because we were new, and that we should
expect it to change a er a few years. e logical question to ask,
then, is this: If this is true, why don’t we start sending out people to start
more new fellowships instead of trying to gather more people into the same
place for many years?

e truth is that new fellowships do tend to grow much more than

old ones. ere may be many reasons for this, but one of the reasons
is surely that new fellowships are on God’s heart.

I recently heard about a church in Australia that had not grown for
many years. one day, a division took place that split the church into
four smaller fellowships. At first, it seemed like something terrible had
happened, but, in the end, it was only Satan who lost. What happened
is that, suddenly, all four “new” fellowships started to grow again.
A ertwo years, all four fellowships were just as big as the original
fellowship before the division. is is really interesting, and the same
thing has happened in many other places.

Many of those who work with church statistics say that division can
sometimes actually be God’s way to move forward. ey refer to the
fact that the first Christians’ mission was to go out and preach the
gospel, but they did not do it. So God raised up a man called Saul.
he persecuted the church so that it spread out, and wherever they
went, there was great growth. I neither suggest nor hope that this
would be necessary because division is always painful, and it o en
comes with much hardship.

According to operation World (www.operationworld.org), there are a

total of 200,000 cities in europe without a single living fellowship;
200,000 cities, all of which need fellowships. is is on God’s heart.
e problem is simply that the laborers are 0 en few, especially
because they are so busy with church activities and the maintenance
of their church buildings.
If a fellowship has not grown in many years, is it not about time to
make some changes? one of the things that we could do is send
people out to start new gatherings. Something is sure to happen.

We went through a transition in a fellowship that had fi y adult

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members. My wife and I le the fellowship to start our own.

Suddenly, there were two fellowships, with forty-eight adults in one
and two adults in the other. A er some time, we had grown with
about ten new Christians, which was more than the bigger fellowship
had grown, but let’s say, for example, that our old fellowship had
also grown with ten new Christians. What would that tell us? exactly
what all the statistics show, that bigger fellowships do not necessarily
mean bigger growth.

Imagine a fellowship with forty-eight members who are all doing the
same things we are doing. ey go out and start their own fellow -

ship. We are not talking about making a big fellowship with a

building, hundreds of members, worship groups, membership, rules,
and services every Sunday. We are talking about a small home
gathering with the goal of reaching at least ten people with the
gospel within the first two years. Remember, this is surely possible,
since new fellowships grow the most in the beginning.

I realize this might seem unrealistic for most Christians. ey have

been going to church for many years without seeing any growth.
Now, they are supposed to think they can suddenly reach ten people
in only two years. We need to understand, however, that when we go
out on God’s Word, he 1s going to bless it. In the book of Acts, we
read that the growth came because God was adding to the fellowship
daily. he is going to do the same today, if we are obedient. is type
of growth is not impossible if you get the right teaching and the
right practical help. In other countries, we see this happening again
and again.

Let’s say that these forty-eight members went out four by four so
that they would not have to start alone. Instead of starting twenty-four
new small house groups, they start twelve. Let’s say that these twelve
small house groups were able to grow by only half of what we had
hoped. is would still mean that these twelve new fellowships would
reach sixty new people for Jesus in the first two years.

Where do we find such growth? We do not find it anywhere that I

know of. Imagine that each one of these twelve small groups decides
to organize one event per year with an outward focus. is 1s
not impossible since we are talking about only one a year. 1s would
mean that the city 1s going to experience a total of twelve events
each year.

What fellowship has the potential to organize twelve such events

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each year? e truth is that small fellowships are a really good idea
because it means that we can reach out to many more non-Christians.

Many small fellowships together have a bigger potential for growth

than a few big fellowships.

What can we learn from this? We can learn that instead of gathering
people in a church Sunday a er Sunday without doing anything, we
should use that time to make them into disciples so that they can
quickly

“leave home” and start their own fellowship. ey do the same as a

natural family: the children leave home and start their own families.
A er Jesus trained his disciples for a short time, he sent them out
with these words:

“But whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house.’ And if a son
of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. And
remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for
the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whatever
city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you.
And heal the sick there, and say to them, “ e kingdom of God has come
near to you.’ ” (Luke 10:5-9) Jesus laid the foundation for disciple
making for the first Christians when they were sent out. It is about
finding a “son/man of peace” and beginning a fellowship in that
person’s home. is is how they started!

A man of peace is a person whom God has already called. he or

she 1s someone who is ready to repent so that he and his household
may be blessed. In Acts 16, we read what Paul and Silas
experienced. eprison guard and his whole household were
saved, and one more fellowship was born. is is how Peter started
the new fellowship in Cornelius’ home, too.

It can take many years to start a traditional fellowship today, but it

can take just one day to start a house fellowship. e only thing that
is needed is a man of peace. you begin to meet in his or her home,
start inviting friends, and see how it grows. It is in this way that
thousands of fellowships around the world are being started today. It
does not need to be so hard, not even where you are.

Today, it seems like many people are stuck in the system, and
pastors have a hard time sending people out. We do not see many
new

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fellowships starting in Denmark. Instead, we see more and more
fellowships joining together and getting bigger and bigger, but this,
unfortunately, only results in more and more passive Christians who
are not being made into disciples. All of the statistics show that when
two fellowships join together, they will still be the same size a era
few years as they were before they joined together. Joining two
churches does not necessarily produce growth, only bigger numbers.

I personally know of several fellowships that have joined together,

and the result was the same. A er a few years, there were just as
many gathering together as there were before they joined together. e
only difference was that they had one less fellowship in town
reaching outto people. at is why this is a bad idea. of course,
there are some exceptions, and it is these few success stories that we
hear about. My advice is, however: listen to the statistics and learn
from them!

When we started various fellowships, we experienced growth,

mostly in the beginning. A er a time, the growth came to a halt, just
like the other pastors and the statistics said. ere is something that
happens in a fellowship when it grows to between 30 to 50 people.

When the pastors told us that this would happen, we thought: “No, it
will not go that way for us. We are going to continue in growth until
we are many.” But they were right. We did not know why it was
like that or how we could have avoided it back then, but we do now.

over the last few years, we have learned what we can do in order to
continue to grow. What we must do is keep starting new fellow ships
all the time, everywhere. If it does not work, just close it down
again.

A fellowship closing is not necessarily a bad thing. It 1s not a defeat

when people simply start meeting someplace else. We have started
fellowships that have closed down again. is has made people spread
to other places where they have seen growth. We should not be so
afraid of this. It is not about gathering people in a certain place or
fellowship. It 1s about sending people out. Instead of being one big
fellowship, we can start fellowships ourselves, or help others start one
of many small parts of the one fellowship of Christ.

People who work with this concept o en split up into small

fellowships when they become “too many.” We also tried this, but it
did not work for us. Splitting a fellowship can be difficult because
good 144

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145

relationships are o en split up. Instead of splitting, it is easier to

avoid having too many in one place by building up new fellowships.
In the other fellowship we had, for example, we saw a family in a
neighboring town who got saved. When the family started coming to
us in our living room, we had too many people. Instead of them
coming to us, we should have sent out some people to help them
start up in their own home. Unfortunately, we did not realize this
back then because we were too busy trying to grow as much as
possible. If we had done so, there would have been two fellowships
instead of one, and we still could have met together every other
week or once a month to praise God.

I am convinced that this is exactly what God wants to see happen.

We are going to see many more self-sufficient fellowships around in

different towns. ese fellowships can come together every other week
or once a month and be together to have a party and praise God. In
this way, we can be small, self-sufficient fellowships and, at the same
time, have big gatherings, which are also important.

is is, without a doubt, the way forward for the church in Denmark,
as well as in other countries. In the last few years, we have actually
baptized over one hundred people in different groups that we have
helped to start up or through the relationships that we have built. I
do not know of any other fellowship that has seen the same growth
through so few people. e reason for this growth is that “church”
and missions are not restricted to a specific place or a few people. It
spreads like ripples in the water. New believers start fellowships in
their homes and lead other families and friends to faith in Jesus
Christ. It is those new believers who are baptizing the newer
believers because they have led them to salvation. is can truly turn
into a revolution that cannot be stopped, a revolution that spreads
every where. We must start making disciples again as Jesus has
commanded us.

I do not want to call the growth that we have experienced in the

new fellowships “an awakening.” however, even the small things we
experience God doing today can become something really big if they
continue to grow.

e last few times we have started up a new fellowship, around ten

new people have been saved within two years, which in itself does
not sound like a lot. In terms of growth, this means a growth of
several

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hundred percentage points. Imagine a fellowship of fi y people that

grows with only 100 percent per year! A er one year, it would have
100

people, the year a er 200, then 400, 800, 1600, 3200, etc. In fi een
years, this fellowship alone would have 1.6 million members and
would be the world’s biggest fellowship. e biggest church growth in
the world right now is probably in China where the fellowship
consists of small, self-sufficient gatherings. is probably explains why
the growth is so significant. ese new Christians were also discipled
to follow Jesus and are growing fast because these small groups are
the optimal environment for discipleship and personal growth.
Most of the churches in Denmark with 200 to 300 members actually
have a very small percentage of growth. It could be that they are
actually growing, but the percentage of growth is very low compared
to their total size. e road forward must be to start many new small
fellowships.

When we talk about fellowships today, we have a tendency to listen

to some of the pastors in the United States who have started churches
that grew to 10,000 members in only fi een to twenty years.

is is excellent, of course, but the fact is that their growth in

percentage points is actually not that big, especially when you count
only new Christians. A big part of the growth of these churches is
due to new members coming from other fellowships. e growth they
have is still excellent but actually cannot come close to what we see
in many other places around the world. In China, for example, we
are seeing acompletely different kind of growth. ere, we are
talking about small fellowships that are growing with several hundred
thousand in the same fi een to twenty years and where the growth
rate increases over time. of necessity, we just do not hear so much
about it.

Imagine that we had 1,000 Christians in Denmark who would start

500 small fellowships all around Denmark. If they had the growth
that we had, these 500 new fellowships would make 5,000 new
Christians in just two years. Wow, that would be big.

ink what would happen if they made these 5,000 new believers into
disciples so that they could do the same. In a few years, there would
be 50,000 new Christians. If this would continue, then in fi een to
twenty years there would be 5,000,000 new Christians in Denmark.

e only appropriate term for this is an awakening! ( e population is

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147
approximately 5.6 million in Denmark at this writing.) But what if
our hypothetical experiment was not entirely realistic?

Let’s say we only see ten percent of the estimated growth. A tenth
would still mean many hundreds of thousands of new Christians in a
few years. Instead of waiting for something really big to happen, we
can start with doing the small, simple things like so many others are
doing.

Start by doing what the Bible asks us to do!

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22

SIMPLE GATHERINGS
Throughout this book, I have purposely used the term “house
fellowship,” but these words do not really express what I mean.
e reason for this is that we see many house fellow -

ships today that resemble traditional churches. ey have a leader who

is almost always the one who speaks, and they have a set program.

Baptism is something the leader is responsible for. In other words,

they are a small version of a traditional fellowship, and their church
building is a home instead of a public building.

I know that many people have the same idea of house fellowships
because they look like this in many places. Personally, if I had to
choose between such a house fellowship and a traditional free church,
I would probably choose the traditional (free) church. It is not
just about meeting in a home instead of in a church building. It is
about every -

thing else we have read about in this book. It is about making people
into disciples of Jesus and, thus, obeying his commandment; for that,
you do not even need to meet in a house. you could meet in a café
on the beach, or any other place—yes, even in a church building. is
sometimes requires a little extra effort, however, because many have
the tendency to become so remarkably religious when they step into a
church building. for this reason, I would like to try to avoid the word

“fellowship,” if I can, because, like the word “church,” it tends to

create a lot of expectations related to church culture. It is hard to
avoid this 149

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word completely, however, since you would have a hard time knowing
what it is we are talking about otherwise. Personally, I think the term
“simple gatherings” better describes what God wants to initiate. It 1s
about gathering with one other and with God. It is about the fact that
we are disciples of Jesus, and we are to make others into disciples of
Jesus, disciples who obey our Lord in word and in deed. It is about
doing that as simply as possible, so that it is easy to multiply
and expand. We must lay aside the church culture that is stopping us
from building the church God wants us to be. Laying aside the
church culture might be easier if we did not use the
terms “church,” “fellow ship,” or even “gatherings” at all.

If I were to ask someone from a traditional church whether they

have the desire to start a fellowship or not, most of them would
say, “No, thanks. [ll pass.” eir idea of what planting a fellowship
involves scares them. ey have seen some of the problems that come
with being the leader of a traditional fellowship. ink about all the
money that is needed, the rules, the planning, the church politics, etc.
It takes a lot of effort to start a traditional fellowship, and it is
probably for this reason that we seldom see new fellowships being
planted today. at is also the reason why more and more fellowships
are actually missing a pastor.

I did not want to be pastor in a fellowship anywhere. Today,

however, it would not be a problem if I were to start a new
fellowship everyday, if God let it happen. It does not need to be as
complicated as we tend to make it. you do not need rules, a website,
a program, etc.

you do not need to carry all of the responsibility alone. When in a

simple gathering with a flat structure, everyone works together to feed
the flock, and everyone helps out. In that case, the only thing that 1s
really needed is for you to begin meeting up with some people and,
together, focus on how we can all be disciples who obey what Jesus
has com manded us. you can, for example, start with eating together
and sharing Jesus with each other.

When you have friends visiting and are talking about Jesus, does one
of you lead the evening? have you set up a program for what
should happen? No, not at all! Why make such a huge deal out of it
when it is just as much church as a regular church meeting on
Sunday?

Jesus explains the only criteria that 1s necessary:

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151

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the
midst of them.” (Matt. 18:20)

Invite people to your home to eat! eat together and remember Jesus
in sharing communion together! A er you have eaten, everyone can
share a bit about what they have experienced during the last few
days.

A er that, you can pray together and seek God to hear what he
wants to say to you. one or more can share something from the
Bible, and you can talk about it. at is just an example of how
things could be done. Just make sure that these things do not occur
in the same way every time you meet because it can easily become
a ritual again.

e truth is that most people have already done this with their friends
and relatives, but they just have not thought of it as church.

ey simply had a nice, enjoyable evening, and everyone got a lot out
of it. yes, o en, even more than they would get out of a
“normal”

church service. however, we do not think of it as “real church.”

Because of that, we do not practice it on a regular basis and do not
give it much priority either.

But why is it this way? Why not continue meeting like this and
sometimes invite non-Christians to your home instead of to church?
If we do so, we will see growth! Why make it so complicated?

“yeah, well, we need a pastor, of course, in order to start a fellow -

ship.” No, you do not! Where does it say so in the Bible? In the
first fellowships, you found a man of peace and stayed with him.
you met athis home and did the things we read about. you ate
together, shared communion and life together. you prayed together
and shared the Word. you were together with Christ. you listened to
what Jesus wanted to say to you and then did it. e new disciples
asked questions and learned from those who were more mature. you
did not concentrate on who should be an elder or pastor because you
were all together as afamily. A er some time, it would naturally
become apparent to all who was an elder or host in the gathering—
the one who went forward and held everything together. But that
person did not control everything.

you would lay hands on that person and appoint him an elder.

To appoint an elder was not like today where one delegates

authority to a certain person. In the first fellowships it was rather a
confirmation of the gi and calling that was already clear to everyone

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in the fellowship. 1s was not something they did on the first day of
meeting together. It would happen a er a while, when it became clear
to everyone who the elder was. We read about what Paul said to
Titus: For this reasonI le you in Crete, that you should set in order the
things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I com -

manded you. (Titus 1:5)

ese “appointed elders” were well known by the others in the

fellowships, and, in this way, they could start serving the independent
fellowships. It 1s about keeping things as simple as we see it in the
Bible.

you do not need membership, rules, programs, buildings, websites, and

all that. Concerning finances, you simply give what you feel you
should give. you can give to help each other, to spread the gospel,
and to the traveling ministries that come to visit.

e first fellowships did not have any name either. is is what Paul
wrote when he was thinking about a certain fellowship:

“Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea, and Nymphas and the church that
is in her house.” (Col. 4:15)

(Notice that women could serve in the first fellowships, too, and I
am not talking about serving food.)

So “fellowship in x’s house or apartment” or “gathering in x’s home”

is good enough. of course, it comes naturally to have a name, but

again, keep it simple!

e first fellowships were small, self-sufficient fellowships/gatherings

that had a very simple structure. ey were connected to a network of
traveling ministries that came by at certain times to share their gi s
and equip the saints.

In hans P. Pedersen’s book, 2000 years with the Holy Spirit, he writes:
oe
e fellowships were self-sufficient, but made an ideal spiritual
gathering. ey related to each other, helped each other, and a range
of common goals bound them together. e fellowships were
especially tied together through traveling preachers who were
equipped with charismatic gi s and who mourned over the

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153
fellowship’s spiritual nutrition and growth. other leaderships were
apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors, and evangelists that continued in
the fellowships in shorter or longer periods. No real organization
existed between the fellowships. e first Christians were not
paralyzed by institutions or imprisoned in organization but let
themselves be lead primarily by the holy Spirit. rough the holy
Spirit, the fellowships were taught and edified, and upcoming
happenings were told beforehand.” (hans P Pedersen, Proskri , 1999,
pg 21)
When Paul wrote his letters, he intended them to be read in the
other gatherings as well.

Now when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the
church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle from
Laodicea.” (Col. 4:16)

So keep it simple! Start to meet, and things will start to take form
a erward as the Spirit directs.

When we talk about church, we quickly forget what the purpose of

the church actually is. We tend to focus more on how to do church
than on how to make disciples as Jesus has commanded us. So let us
focus on making disciples, and let Jesus build his church.

When people ask me what I think is the best way to do church, I

usually say:

“Take the next six months to make disciples. your only focus and
goal must be to make disciples of Jesus. Do whatever you can to see
Christians grow in their life with God and to see new people come
to faith and grow in their faith When this is your goal, it
will automatically direct you in what you need to do next. When you
then have done this for half a year, I believe you will look back and
say to yourself: What we have done these last six months is church.
even though it might not look like what you normally associate with
the church.”

is is a good way to start. In the West, we tend to put too much

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emphasis on details, and, in that, we forget the actual purpose for

what we are doing. en all the details and doing things perfectly
become goals in and of themselves. In the next chapters, we will
look a bit into how to begin and how early Christians met. But keep
focused; it is all about making disciples!

23

FOOD, FELLOWSHIP, AND PRAYER

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in
the breaking of bread, and in prayers. (Acts 2:42) Here we read in the
book of Acts four things that the first Christians held onto tightly.

In this chapter of this book, we will look at the apostles’

teachings. We read that the gatherings were something they held onto
steadfastly. ey were not just members who, for some time, belonged
to the same congregation. No, they were a family. ey gathered
together daily, and they would sell their possessions in order to help
each other when needed.

... and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as
anyone had need. (Acts 2:45)

fellowship is important. We all have need of friends and people who

are close. A bigger church does not necessarily mean that you have
more friends. Actually, it 1s usually harder to find close friends in a
large fellowship. We greet each other in the meetings, and we know
each other’s names, but the relationship o en stays at that level. 1s
is another reason why we need small gatherings where you can really
getto know each other. Small gatherings are like small families.

155

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ey not only met in their homes in those first fellowships, they also
met in the city, specifically in the area around the temple, which was
like a marketplace for them. In doing so, they would meet other
brothers and sisters, and together they would share Jesus Christ with
the people who came by, people who did not know him yet. ey set
examples there to new Christians and encouraged each other in
practical ways.
Just like we have a need for small gatherings, it is important that we
also meet in larger gatherings so that we realize we are part of
something bigger. It is a really good idea to have relationships with
other fellowships, so you can sometimes meet together as well.

We read that God added daily those who were being saved. ese
new converts were primarily won in the temple place and then
became part of the small gatherings.

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from
house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,
praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

(Acts 2:46-47)

Another thing that was a big part of the practice of the first
fellowships was the breaking of bread. is breaking of bread was a
part of the common meal time where they ate together and had fun.

In the Everyday Danish Bible, the term “breaking of bread” has been
translated with “common meal time,” which is explained as follows:
oe
e text here is talking about the ‘breaking of bread.’ It was partly a
course of the common meal time amongst Christians in the home and
partly a celebration of communion.” (Everyday Danish Bible, pg. 177)

e idea of eating together is an important part of every culture.

When we eat together, we get to know each other better. We relax,

and the conversation can be more natural. Nothing helps a friendship
grow like a good meal time.

finally, we read that the apostles held fast to prayer. Prayer 1s what

ChAPTeR 23: fooD, felLLoWShIP, AND PRAyeR

157

gets things going. Without prayer, nothing happens. Prayer is an

important part of our gatherings with others and with God. e reason
for this is that prayer is so intimate. When we are praying out loud,
we are showing others what is on our hearts. rough this, we get to
know each other well.

Some years ago, Lene and I went to a training school. ere were
several Russians at the school. All the Russians could speak english,
but there were very few who prayed in english. When three months
had gone by and the training school was over, I had experi enced the
importance of prayer when it comes to getting to know each other. I
had developed a real relationship only with the Russians who
had prayed in english. It was as if they had uncovered their hearts
and their deepest desires through their prayers, desires that I could
understand and relate to. is is why prayer is such an
important part of a gathering. Common prayer helps us get to know
each other. We get tosee what is inside people, what people have on
their hearts.

Prayer is also an important part of meeting with God. Prayer is not

only us talking to God but God talking to us. Prayer is always
supposed to be a two-way communication. In prayer, we are talking
with God, seeking him, being still before him, and he 1s talking to
us. Prayer changes things. There will not be any awakening without
prayer.

Nothing changes without prayer.

ese three things, combined with the apostles’ teaching (which we

shall look at in the next chapter), were a big part of the first
fellow -

ships’ practice. e fellowship was like a family. ey ate together and

shared com munion, sought God together, and held fast to the
teachings that the apostles came with. ere was not any building,
membership, or an organization that held them together.

In this chapter, I have talked about the basic building blocks for
small fellowships. of course, there are more aspects involved and each
gathering will have its own identity and focus.

In some gatherings, the focus might be more on evangelism, where

others focus more on fellowship and seeking God. for this reason, the
traveling munistries are very important to help the gatherings to
develop all different aspects in order to be strong and balanced. every
single gathering should have a focus “upward,” “inward,”
and “outward.”

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Up to God, into each other, and out to other people. for this reason,
God has given the five-fold ministry to travel around and equip the
fellowships in these different aspects.
24

THE APOSTLES’ TEACHING

Throughout this book, I have put a strong emphasis on the

importance of having the right structure for our fellow ships.

having the right structure allows us to effectively make people

into disciples of Jesus. however, the right structure alone is not
enough to accomplish this.

I am convinced that we are standing before a third and possibly the

last reformation before Jesus comes again. is reformation is mainly
going to be about the structure within the fellowship. I also know that
if Satan cannot stop it in one way, he is going to try in another. If
he cannot stop something new from breaking through, then he will
try to falsify it. he will try to create something that looks like the
new thing that God is doing in order to confuse us and to
create a negative attitude toward the things that are actually coming
from God.

Another one of Satan’s tactics is to sow confusion and doubt about

what God is really saying. he does so because he knows that, without
the Word of God, we will be led astray. When Satan tempted eve in
the Garden of eden, it was with these words: “has God really said
A?

(Gen. 3:1). And when he later comes to tempt Jesus in the desert, the
tactic 1s exactly the same. is time, however, he takes the Word out
of the context in which it was written in order to make it appear
that God said something that he actually has not said.

159

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en he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,

and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from
here. For it is written: “He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep
you,’ and, “In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot
against a stone.’ ” And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said,
“You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ” (Luke 4:9-12)

Satan is working in the same way today. he says: “has God really
said...?” he is sowing doubt and confusion about what God has said.

or, he is saying, “It is written...” while taking the Word out

of its context and, in doing so, distorting the Word of God. 1s 1s
exactly what we see happening around us today.

Paul writes to the fellowship in Corinth:

For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest
somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cra_ iness, so your minds may
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes
preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a
different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you
have not accepted—you may well put up with it! For I consider that I am not
at all inferior to the most eminent apostles. (2 Cor. 11:2-5) A. erward,
Paul continues to talk about the false apostles. he is talking about
how we must not turn away from the pure and simple devotion to
Christ. It is about Jesus and about how we as his fellowship, should
be a holy and pure bride. We must be on our guard for every
teaching that distracts us from Jesus and our pure devotion to him.

e Bible clearly says that, in the last days, many are going to fall
away from the faith because they listen to seductive teachings (1 Tim.

4:1). is Scripture is speaking of the time in which we are now

living.

erefore, it is important that we hold fast to the apostles’ teaching,

just like the first fellowships did. Today, we do not have the first
apostles with us anymore, but what they said is written down in the
Bible. efour gospels of Jesus Christ and the rest of the New
Testament are what we call the apostles’ teaching.

ChAPTeR 24: The APoSTLeS’ TeAChING

161

I think that Paul describes the time we are living in today really well
here:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the
faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies
in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. (1 Tim.
4:1-2)
Later, he comes with this warning to Timothy: I charge you therefore
before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead
at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the Word! Be ready in season and
out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but
according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap
up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth,
and be turned aside to fables. (2 Tim. 4:1-4) We are truly living in a
time when many are heaping up teachers, the ones they like to listen
to, while they close their ears to the truth and to sound teaching.

Paul says later that sound teaching is the teaching that leads to the
fear of God. In which churches do we hear this sound teaching that
leads to the fear of God? To tell the truth, respect for a holy
and righteous God is o en missing in our fellowships today.
Worldly thinking has slowly sneaked into many churches, even though
God says that we should separate ourselves from the world so that
he can receive us (2 Corinthians 6:17).

Today, we are allowing things in our lives and fellowships that God’s
Word says we should not accept. Many Christians are living like “the
people of the world.” e only difference is that they go to church on
Sundays. is is not Christianity! 1s only shows that many who are
going to churches today are not yet saved. ey have yet to begin the
Christian life and still need to turn away from their old life by being
baptized into Christ.

Jesus came to acquire for himself a pure and obedient people,

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zealous in doing good deeds (Titus 2:14). Today, we see how young
people in the church are sleeping with each other before marriage and
are living in fornication. We see divorce and remarriage as if it were
the most normal thing in the world. All these things are, however,
symptoms of an inner problem. ey show that we have fallen away
from true life in the power of the holy Spirit and from the
sound teaching that leads to the fear of God.

e new thing that God is doing must go together with us building

on the Word of God, and us having God’s Word as the highest
authority in our fellowships. We can easily create a good vessel, but
if what we put in it is wrong, no one should drink of it, regardless
of how good the vessel 1s.

Notice Jesus’ words about the end times:

“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”
(Matt. 24:12)
Did you notice that it is lawlessness, not legalism, that is going to
take over? Today, some are talking so much against being legalistic
that they have fallen into the ditch on the opposite side of the road
into lawlessness, even when Jesus is making it clear that our biggest
problem is not legalism but lawlessness. Today, an entire generation
in church is living in lawlessness. ey are living in sin and in
rebellion against God’s law, the moral law, the Ten Commandments.

God’s law should be in their inner being if they have truly been
born again.

“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you
who practice lawlessness!’ ” (Matt. 7:23)

“you who practice lawlessness.” you who are lawless and living in
sin as the world does. 1s 1s what is meant by the
word “lawlessness.”

It is so important that we are holding fast to the apostles’ teaching

that we find in the Bible.
here are some examples of what one can hear today: “has God really
said that he wants to condemn someone to hell? has Jesus really said
that the door that leads to life is small and the road narrow? has

ChAPTeR 24: The APoSTLeS’ TeAChING

163

Jesus really said that fornicators, liars, thieves, and greedy people will
not inherit God’s kingdom? has Jesus really said that we should
believe in him? Is it not about believing in yourself?”

erefore, we must be on our guard so that we do not turn away

from the simple and pure devotion to Jesus Christ and his Word. We
must hold fast to the apostles’ teaching. We must live in the power of
the holy Spirit as true disciples of Jesus Christ, which is what my
book, Christian, Disciple, or Slave, is about.

If the content is not right, then the structure is totally irrelevant.

God’s Word should be the highest authority in our gatherings. When

we are together, everything we do is based on God’s Word and the
apostles’ teaching. Whenever we have questions, it is God’s Word we
must go to. A fellowship will grow in a healthy way when we take
God’s Word as the highest authority and give place to the work of
the holy Spirit. But whenever one of these two is missing, it will
fail, regardless of how the structure looks.

164
 |
re

25

LET THE REFORMATION BEGIN

Eight years ago, I received a prophecy from an acknowl edged

prophet from Sweden who has now passed away. his name is John
Brandstrom. When I received this prophecy, I believed I knew what
it was about, but I really did not at all. It is only now that Iam
beginning to understand it. is is the prophecy I received, and it also
has to do with you:

“A new day is coming when it will no longer be about programs or

systems. I want to move My church beyond that and let it be led by
my holy Spirit. Let Me build My church by the holy Spirit, and
there will be revelations, and you are going to be one of the first
who will live this.”
yes, it 1s becoming a new day for us all. God is truly on a journey
to build his own church. Do you want to be included? Do you dare
to let go of the programs and systems and let the holy Spirit come
in? Do you dare to go out with God’s Word as the highest authority?

It will be the same with this book as with other books. Some are
going to accept the message, and others are not going to accept it. In
the gospel of Mark, chapter four, we can read about the different
types of soil. ere are different kinds of responses when God’s
Word is preached. It is going to be the same with this book. If I
were to make a 165

166

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brief account of the message from Mark’s gospel so that it reflects

the message in this book, then it would look like this:

at which falls on the road are those who read this book but do
oe

not understand it and, therefore, cannot accept it. at which falls on

the rocky ground are those who immediately accept the message in
this book, but it does not take root in them, and, because of that,
they fall back into the old system, forgetting what they have read.

at which falls among the weeds are those who understand the
message but cannot handle the consequences of leaving what is
already established to go out into the new. eir environment and fear
of opposition suffocate the Word so that it does not change anything
in their lives. en there are those who understand the word and
accept it. ey begin to take it in and to walk with greater and
greater freedom as God shows them what it is all about.

A erward, they start going to a simple gathering, and they start to

build simple gatherings themselves. It means that they are going to
bear fruit: some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred fold.”
“What 1f everyone leaves the traditional church and begins simple
gatherings?” you might ask. yes, that is a good question that I really
havea hard time answering. on one hand, we must respect the
traditional church and the way it does things. A er all, it has gotten
the majority of us where we are today. on the other hand, we are in
need of this radical reformation of our system. We must remember
that it 1s the system that we are against, and not our brothers and
sisters who exist inside the system. So, yes, we must respect people
in the choice they make, but, at the same time, we must be bold and
speak out. e churchneeds to know what God is saying in his Word
and what fellowship is really meant to be. We are called to make
people into disciples and not just visitors of a church.

“How is the message going to be accepted?” I am convinced that several

traditional fellowships are going to accept what I have to say and
are going to learn something good from it, especially if the
leadership is involved. It is, a er all, difficult to change such a
system from the bottom up. Some will be forced to leave the system,
while

ChAPTeR 25: LeT The RefoRMATIoN BeGIN

167

others will try to make a mix of it. But that is not going to work
because it will be like keeping new wine in old wineskins. hopefully,
there will also be some in the traditional fellowships who will go all
the way and change the whole system. Perhaps they will split up into
simple, small gatherings and begin meeting regularly as a network of
gatherings.

So, the truth be told, these are hard questions to answer. ere is one
thing I know, however, and that is that God wants to do something
new. Jesus is currently building his fellowship: A pure, radiant, and
holy bride ready for his return.
As Jesus is saying here, the old and new do not work together. New
wine must be held in new wineskins. en, neither the wine nor the
wineskin get ruined.

en He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment
on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was
taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into
old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled,
and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new
wineskins, and both are preserved.

(Luke 5:36-38)

erefore, we need to remember to respect the “old” as well as

giving place to the “new” that God wants to do. I am writing “old”
and

“new” within quotation marks because what I am writing about in this

book actually belongs to “the old.” We have simply looked at how
the first fellowships were functioning. ey did not have most of the
things that we have associated with the church today. everything
we see around us today is something new that has come a er that.
however, as we can also read in the following verse, it is the “old,”
the original, that is the best, and when you have first tasted that, you
cannot go back to the second best.

“And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says,
* eold is better.” ” (Luke 5:39) When you first taste what fellowship
really is and experience the freedom that comes when we do things
in a simple way, you will never

168

The LAST RefoRMATIoN

want to go back to the “system” again. yes, it can be hard, and it

has its price, but no matter what it costs, you will not want to go
back because this is the real thing. As we read, both the old and the
new will be preserved, at least until the day when persecution puts a
stop to it. our traditional churches cannot run when there 1s
persecution. So when persecution comes to us, like we see in many
other countries, it will mean the end of the traditional church. When
this happens, God has already built up a fellowship that can stand
firm and help those people who must then come in.

Do I believe it is going to go smoothly when people begin with this

reformation? No, not at all. at is what I explained in the beginning
of the book. I hope, of course, that it will take place as smoothly as
it can, but when people start to understand this and want to take this
road, it is going to create conflicts. It is unavoidable.

I received this prophetic word some months ago:

“IT see a map of Denmark, and I see that Denmark is going to be

separated and torn. you must give up yourself if you are willing to
pay the price.”

yes, it is something we all must do: give up ourselves because it has

a cost, and it will divide us.

Where do you stand in all of this? Well, that is what time will tell.

Maybe you are going to take in some of this, and maybe you are
going to be one of those whom God is calling, one of those who
will help inthe building of his fellowship and who will pave the
way for others so that even more can come into the green and
fruitful land. If so, you must be willing to lay down your life in
order to be able to do whatneeds to be done. Maybe you will
begin to investigate this idea of fellowship a little more. Maybe
you will start something. or maybe you will share this with others in
your fellowship. Regardless of where you stand, it is important that
you seek God for yourself. If you seek God with all your heart, he
is going to lead you.
I hope that this book is going to be a blessing to your life. I hope
that, in one way or another, it can be part of a reformation that starts
in your life.

ChAPTeR 25: LeT The RefoRMATIoN BeGIN

169

Jesus wants to build his church with his holy Spirit, and he wants to
use you as a living stone. So, give him permission to do it, and let
the third reformation begin.

God bless you.

Torben Sondergaard

A disciple of Jesus Christ

www. eLastReformation.com

OTHER BOOKS BY

TORBEN S@NDERGAARD

Sound Doctrine

Teaching that leads to true fear of the Lord

Sound Doctrine is both different and prophetic. It was written out of

a call from God Who gave the author the message one chapter at a
time each day over a two-week period following 40 days of fasting
and seeking God. It is a testimony of how the true Word of God
changed the author’s life and how it can also change the lives of
others.

A er the 40-day fast, Sendergaard was filled with new revelations

from God. he felt he had to express some of the things God had
given him, so he began to write. each day over the next two weeks,
God gave him another chapter. e book you are holding is the fruit
of that time.

ere is much misunderstanding about the “fear of the Lord.” Some

call it a reverent awe. others call it a deep respect. Some believe God
is just waiting for the opportunity to punish them. Some do not even
consider it at all. But what is it really? What is true fear of the
Lord?

Torben Sondergaard’s teaching on “sound doctrine” answers that

question in a way that will cause Christians to honestly desire to
live amore holy and pure life free from sin.

is book may be purchased in paperback from

www. eLaurusCompany.com

and other retailers around the world. Also available in eBook format
for electronic readers from their respective stores.

170

OTHER BOOKS BY

TORBEN SONDERGAARD

Christian, Disciple, or Slave

What is a Christian? e answer to this essential question today

unfortunately depends on who you ask. In this book, you get
the biblical answer to what a Christian really is, and how you can
become a Christian. you will also be taken on a journey through the
Bible as we look at various words people use for those who follow
Jesus, words such as “Christian,” “disciple,” and “slave.”

Many of us have heard the expression: “I am a Christian, but in my

own way,” or “I am a Christian, but am not so much into it.” But
is iteven possible to be a Christian in one’s own personal way? e
author argues that, according to the Bible, the answer is no, just as it
is not possible to be a disciple or a slave in one’s own personal way.

e book is written for both Christian and non-Christian. A radical

book, it takes a hard look at what Jesus himself said about being a
Christian. Jesus’ words are extremely radical, but it is the place where
we get the true answer to the question: “What is a real Christian?"

is book may be purchased in paperback from

www. eLaurusCompany.com

and other retailers around the world. Also available in eBook format
for electronic readers from their respective stores.

171

OTHER PUBLICATIONS BY

TORBEN SONDERGAARD

“Life as a Christian”

“Complete the Race”

“Deceived?” (Booklet)

“The Twisted Race” (Booklet

ese Publications can be found on the author’s website at:

www. eLastReformation.com

172
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Torben Sendergaard

Torben Sendergaard lives in Denmark in the city of herning with his

wife, Lene, and their three children.

Torben grew up in a non-Christian family. on April 5, 1995, a er

attending a church service with a friend, he turned to God and had a
strong, personal encounter with Jesus that totally changed his life. five
years later, from a Scripture in the Bible and in a sort of desperation
a er more of God, Torben started on a 40-day fast that transformed
many things in his life. his eyes were more open to God’s Word and
what the gospel is about. he began to understand how lukewarm and
far away from the truth Christians had become. he saw that God had
called him to speak his Word without compromise.

Torben has seen many people saved, healed, and set free from
demons. he has written seven books and is the founder of the mission
organization, e Last Reformation. he is known for having a direct
approach to the Bible and for his personal life with God. Many know
him from national Danish TV, where he has appeared many times, or
they know him from his videos on youTube.com. you can read more
on his website: www. eLastReformation.com

173
Document Outline

° Copyright
e ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
e BEFORE YOU BEGIN
e TABLE OF CONTENTS
e INTRODUCTION
e PREFACE
_A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Fk

_YOU WILL MAKE DISCIPLES

fo

_CHURCH CULTURE
Jb

_~OUR TRIP TO THE GREEN FIELDS

JB

_A NEW PLACE AND ONE MORE CHURCH

e

COMI IC In

_WANDERING IN THE DESERT

_VISITED BY ANGELS
_FINANCES
_TITHING
KO
e

e 10. A TOOL FOR MISSIONS

e ll _ THE SEEKER-FRIENDLY CHURCH
e 12 _WHAT IS CHURCH?
e 13. YOU ARE THE CHURCH
e 14. CHURCH SERVICE
e 15 _THE POWER OF EXAMPLE
e 16. THE TWO MIRRORS
e 17. EQUIPPED FOR MINISTRY
e 18. THE FIVE-FOLD MINISTRY
e 19 _LEADERSHIP
e 20 _THE HOLY SPIRIT
® 2) _LOTS OF NEW CHURCHES
e 22 _SIMPLE GATHERINGS
e 23 _FOOD, FELLOWSHIP, AND PRAYER
e 24 _THE APOSTLES’ TEACHING
@ 25 _LET THE REFORMATION BEGIN

e OTHER BOOKS BYTORBEN SONDERGAARD

¢ ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Table of Contents

Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE
. A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
. YOU WILL MAKE DISCIPLES
BWNHN

. CHURCH CULTURE
. OUR TRIP TO THE GREEN FIELDS
. A NEW PLACE AND ONE MORE CHURCH
Nn

. WANDERING IN THE DESERT

TIA

. VISITED BY ANGELS
O~

. FINANCES
. TITHING
\O

10. A TOOL FOR MISSIONS

11 . THE SEEKER-FRIENDLY CHURCH
12. WHAT IS CHURCH?
13. YOU ARE THE CHURCH
14. CHURCH SERVICE
15. THE POWER OF EXAMPLE
16. THE TWO MIRRORS
17. EQUIPPED FOR MINISTRY
18. THE FIVE-FOLD MINISTRY
19. LEADERSHIP
20. THE HOLY SPIRIT
21. LOTS OF NEW CHURCHES
22. SIMPLE GATHERINGS
23. FOOD, FELLOWSHIP, AND PRAYER
24. THE APOSTLES’ TEACHING
25. LET THE REFORMATION BEGIN
OTHER BOOKS BYTORBEN S@NDERGAARD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR