Monday, March 15, 2010

An Excellent Description of a Multi-Church Gathering

Chadd Schroeder recently wrote up an excellent description of a
multi-church gathering among house churches in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Here's an excerpt:
I think our shift to small house churches in the last few years has been important because it has helped many to envision themselves as a group who fleshes out Christ in their neighborhood. The focus on simplicity and smallness has allowed the groups to “do church” simply and focus much of their limited time and resources on family spiritual formation and connecting to God, on discipleship and on reflecting Christ to others in their own colonias. However, the regular practices of gathering monthly as a larger grouping of house churches—and of regularly gathering for retreats, special studies, and youth activities reminds the house churches that they are not alone—that there are other groups like them who are similarly trying to follow Jesus—that we are looking out for one another.

Check out the rest of the story at Chadd and Nancy Schroeder's blog.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

A Conversation with Chadd Schroeder - Guadalajara, Mexico - Part 2


In this Part 2 of a conversation with Chadd Schroeder, he continues to share about the transition he and his wife Nancy underwent as they shifted from focusing on planting a Traditional Church in Guadalajara, Mexico to planting House Churches.

Chadd also tells several remarkable stories of people God raised up to be leaders of the Church in Mexico, in particular the story of a "couple of Peace" (Luke 10:6), Gerardo and Carola (pictured), whom God has used to impact hundreds of people throughout Mexico.



Friday, March 5, 2010

Chadd & Nancy Schroeder - Guadalajara, Mexico - Part 1


Chadd and Nancy Schroeder are missionaries in Guadalajara, Mexico. Along with their three daughters, they are involved in helping to plant simple churches and helping to identify and support & encourage men and women whom God has prepared for leadership in the Church in Mexico. In this Part 1 of a conversation, Chadd shares about the work he and Nancy have been involved with in Mexico and how they underwent a major shift from planting and leading a traditional, attractional model of church to helping identify and equip men and women of peace whom God had preveniently called to lead and oversee simple/house churches.

You can follow the Schroeder's and their story by visiting their blog at this link.

Here's the conversation...

Monday, March 1, 2010

C02 spreads to England (3)


Chris Jefferies attended the House2House Conference in Dallas last September. At the conference, Chris became "infected" with the CO2 (church of two) virus. When Chris returned home to Cambridgeshire, England he began to share C02 with others. As a result, other people in his part of England are starting to get "infected" with the same virus. Observation: The CO2 virus seems to be "sneezeable."

Here's an excerpt from his post:

As far as I'm aware nobody was doing CO2 in the UK until I brought it here from Dallas in September 2009. I'd like to outline the history of it since then.

Infections follow a pattern that is true for viruses, bacteria, trees, rabbits, and even us humans. The stages of this pattern are...

Infection > Latency > Spread > Symptoms > Impact > Dieback

Lets look at these one by one.

Infection - In this stage an active form spreads to a new home. With a cold virus, you might breathe in virus laden particles after someone with a cold sneezed. Or you might touch a contaminated object and then transfer the virus to your mouth or eyes.

The active form of CO2 is the knowledge of what it is, how to do it, and the value it brings. By the time I returned from Dallas I was already infected.

Latency - This is the time during which nothing much seems to happen. The cold virus has to enter a living cell, a seed takes time to absorb water and germinate. During the latent period something essential has to happen but there is no sign of it yet.

In the case of CO2 I needed to find someone who wanted to hear about it and do it with me. Until I found that person, the CO2 virus was present in the UK - but latent.


Continue reading Chris' post on the early stages of the spread of C02 in his part of England from his blog.