James Duff June 22nd 2014 ~ 'Oikos'

‘Oikos’ is the ancient Greek word for household or family. When I think oikos, I think of my immediate family - Jane, Will, Gus and Hugh. It has dawned on me that this understanding of family is incredibly anaemic when compared with how most of civilization throughout history has understood oikos.In Jesus’ day (and this is still the case in much of the world today), the oikos was like an extended family. It was your immediate family joined with other families, other relatives and friends who lived together, worked together and played together. When households came to faith in the gospel of Jesus, it wasn’t just Mum, Dad and little Johnny, it was 20 – 70 people all living for Jesus. When this happened, as we see in examples in the book of Acts, these oikoses were able to have a large impact for the kingdom of God naturally. Although doing kingdom work as an individual is a great thing, the biblical pattern is for us to do it in teams of people, in community. It just makes sense that a larger group with a mission focus has a greater impact for the kingdom than doing it as an individual. Jesus gathered an oikos and trained them - discipled them - for three years until they were ready, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to fulfil his commission. Sounds like a good method to me.Oikoses are not something that just happen by gathering a group of people together and giving them a task. It takes time - time for relationships to be developed and trust to be gained, time to be discipled. Families are always messy: there are power struggles, conflict, rules to be followed, times of great love and engagement.These are all realities for extended households.You have heard the leadership of this church bang on many times about ‘missional communities’. One of the goals of a missional community is to develop into an oikos that lives the three–dimensional Christian relationship pattern that Jesus had of Up with the Father, IN with his close followers and OUT with the masses. I am not saying that we need to sell our houses and all live together but I am saying that when, in the next month we start to launch two missional communities, our mindset (the DNA if you like of an oikos) will be firmly in our minds. We want to see families on mission together, a more community feel that will enrich individual lives and have greater kingdom impact.I am looking forward to hearing from Malcolm this week as we see how Jesus was initially rejected from his own oikos when he began his ministry, so he had to build a new one. Please listen carefully for I think we will be greatly blessed to see how Jesus grew an oikos and how we can also do this, through His power. God blessJames