I got to attend a shepherds’ conference in Houston last week. It was from Thursday through Saturday. Even though none of our shepherds were able to attend, I wanted to go there and serve the shepherds from other churches. Pastors from other church were there also to serve as well. We welcomed them as they came into the main entrance, waited tables, helped in the kitchen, prayed for them, performed a entertaining skit, and a serious skit. There were about 200 shepherds from all over the United States and the space was filled laughter, many tears, encouragements, and Spirit of God was so present to bring conviction as well.
The fellowship amongest the pastors were phenomenal. It was great to serve alongside of these pastors. Most of the pastors arrived little early to practice the skits and shared with each other of their ministries. One thing I can say is that these pastors are humble and obedient to the Lord. No one was donimeering or controlling. They were harmonious and united to serve the shepherds there.
Pastor Chai who wrote the house church book and started the House Church Movement in Houston was our main speaker. He taught the fact that we should do church “according to the Bible”. Starting from the mission of the church, division of ministry, modeling, and serving the church ought to be functioning what we see in the Bible not according to our tradition. He also shared with us that 3 axes and 4 pillars were derived from how they wanted to explain what they were doing according the bible. He didn’t come up with these principles and followed them, but they were tools to explain what they were doing. It was great to hear from pastor Chai in the beginning stages of House Church movement.
I also got to hear from many shepherds that they wanted to other examples than New Life Fellowship. New Life Fellowship have over 80 house churches and there are 3 other churches where their number of house churches vary from 13 to 18 (we are one of them). We (3 churches who had more than 10 house churches) were challenged to have lay leader seminar so other shepherds can come and see how we do our house churches. We have much to grow and I think this can catipult us to grow as we strive to do the church according to the Bible and follow the examples set by New Life Fellowship. I would like to offer lay leader seminar in 2025 and I have shared with our church in one of my pastor’s report. I would continue to pray about this and challenge our people to be a church who is all about making disciples (helping non-Christians to become Christians and leading them to grow to become disciple making disciples of Jesus Christ).
I am so encouraged to continue to run the race of leading our church. I am committed to praying for our church to grow with non-Christians becoming Christians and leading them to be a disciples of Jesus Christ. I thank God for the opportunity to attend the conference and leading our church. May God work in us powerfully for Jesus to build His church where gates of Hades would be defeated and decreased.