CO2s enhance house churches

Pair relationships were the "basic building block" of Jesus' ministry. We see this in Mt. 10:2-4. We notice there that the 12 are listed but we also see that they are listed in pairs.

Simon and Peter.

James and John.

Philip and Bartholomew.

Thomas and Matthew.

James and Thaddaeus.

Simon and Judas. (must have been an interesting CO2!)

Pair relationships are also the "basic building block" of healthy house churches. Margee Ramsey (who happens to be my daughter!) began a CO2 (church of two) with Brittani Morris as a result of joining our Apprenticeship. Below, she shares below how her CO2 has enhanced her experience of house church.

John

CO2 - The Hyatt Family (4)

In response to the story about the Hyatt family doing CO2, Jared Looney, a church planter in NYC, posted this comment yesterday...

We recently did S.A.S.H.E.T. as a family. That is, my wife, my five year old daughter, and me. My wife and I had practiced this tool in various settings before, but doing it as a family with our 5 year old was pretty awesome.

Isn't that encouraging! Nothing excites me more than stories of children, even young children, responding to these simple ways of doing/being church.

Today, in the fourth and last part of this interview, Sean tells how his family has shared CO2 with other families and individuals. Notice again how natural and almost effortless this is. It creates a whole new picture for the term "church planting".

Also makes me think of the title of Roland Allen's famous book: The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church.

Your thoughts?

John

"Viral" Multiplication

This video shows the airplane traffic flow around the world in a 24-hour period. This is a good visual demonstration of how a virus, or breaking news or even the Gospel might spread virally and organically through relationships around the world. That which is simple is easier to reproduce and multiply, kind of like C02.

C02's in the Land of Enchantment

Peg Batcheller is a Church Planter in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In this Part 1 of a 2-part audio podcast, Peg shares the impact that C02 is having among many of the house churches in Albuquerque and among the variety of cultures that co-exist in New Mexico. C02 has helped to revitalize house churches that had become stale and churches have been planted that emerged out of two people practicing C02 together. Also, a regional network has begun to emerge, organically, as the groups that are practicing C02 have begun to meet and join together.

Click the Play button (the little arrow on the left) on the player below to listen to the podcast.

CO2: Ten Pairs

Noah Cremisino leads a house church of mostly young adults in Denver, CO. Here's how he introduced CO2s to his church. Notice how they used listening to find out who to pair with.

"This week, as a house church, I challenged everyone to "CO2" with someone for 2 weeks. We spent time in silence praying and asking God who we should pair with and each person got someone (not a single overlap either - amazing!!) that they are going to pray and share with daily. So far it looks like we have around 10 pairs.

After the two weeks we're going to talk about how it went and hopefully make it part of our daily experience in life.Pray for us as we go - that we'd really find deep fusion in the small clusters - that they would be transformational on the deepest level.

Also - as I was explaining it, we got into a discussion about the principle of pairs. Almost everything in the universe is built on pairs from sub-atomic structure to galactic bodies... if you dig into it you'll always find that a pair of something is essential for it's stability. You disassemble the pairs (split an atom for example) and often the entire unit destructs. Chromosomes - the body deconstructs. Protons/Neutrons - the atom becomes unstable. Male/Female - no procreation / families deconstruct. Etc. etc. -- Just some thoughts...

Anyway - I'll let you know how it all goes."

Thanks, Noah! Looking forward to hearing about the "experiment".

John