Sid: I have a tool that has come into my hands that I’m so excited about it I can’t wait to get it in your hands it’s called “Mega Shift” it’s by James Rutz. The book has just come out and is packed with 40 years of experience of how to run a house congregation. I am not talking about a home group from a large church; I’m talking about a house congregation and I’m telling you there is going to be such an outpouring of God’s Spirit on planet earth that the only vehicle that will be able to function and especially there is a big divide between light and dark, and even in this country they start cracking down on institutional religious churches etc. They won’t be able to stop it just like in China. Oh, I pray that the same miracles that are going on in the house churches in China the same presence of God that are going on in the house churches in China, the same love that the brethren have one for another would take place in the United States of America. And I have a couple here that supernaturally God has sent them here and they didn’t come to do an interview I said I want to interview them it’s Tim and Katie Mather. They are spokesman for “Mega Shift Ministries” James Rutz’s book that we are making available is called “Mega Shift.” There are so many questions I have to ask you but you have done it. You were a traditional pastor you came from 16 generations of traditional pastors. Now that you have a house congregation for starters Tim what do people call you Bishop, because you probably started a lot of them, Pastor, well what do your people call you?
Tim: They call me Tim.
Sid: Is there a reason?
Tim: They call me Tim because position has no place in the Body of Christ. We are just all God’s children and so my mother named me Tim and so that’s what they call me.
Sid: Now you told me of your personal frustration and that’s the right word of being a pastor in a traditional model church. How do you feel now with the house congregation, all those restraints you were telling me about, all those things you lived for giving your message on Sunday, that was your purpose; how’s it changed?
Tim: The change is that we moved from literally institutionalism that is it was a form it was a box it was a structure into family living in the Body of Christ the way it ought to be. And so everything as we learned how to do this in the process is we began to look at a family, not a dysfunctional family which we’ve all come from, but a good powerful Biblical family model and then began to develop that
Sid: Wait a second, Katie you’re the wife of the pastor when he was in a traditional model, and now you’re the wife of Tim not the Pastor who is still functioning as the facilitative maybe. What is the difference in the man from what you see?
Tim: The difference in the man is more peace in his heart because now he’s actually doing what he’s called to do and it is very much like being a coach. He’s very much a coach; he’s very much a delegator and a teacher to teach others to do. It’s very much like and that’s why we just love grand-parenting because we don’t have to parent the grand children we can teach our children now how to raise grandchildren. And that’s why I just love the example of the family and even your introduction gives me goose bumps because that’s the real revelation that we’ve had that we’re no longer part of an institution where he’s got an institutional job where we’re really part of a family.
Sid: So Tim give me an idea of when do you normally meet, what day of the week?
Tim: Well, what we…there’s a myriad of ways to do it…
Sid: Now I don’t want to know I don’t want to know the myriad way I want to know what you do.
Tim: What we do is we meet when we want to meet.
Sid: Oy vey come on now give me a break – well how do you pay the mortgage on the building?
Tim: I work and I pay the mortgage on my house.
Sid: So what do you do with the offering?
Tim: We do what the Bible instructs us to do we give it to the poor, the needy, the widows and the fatherless, and help those. We help those, go on mission trips we send people out the itinerants that come through and minister to us, and minister the word of God and go other places.
Sid: What percentage of the people that attend your house congregation are workers as opposed to the best show in town spectators?
Tim: As Jim says in Mega Shift the traditional church the average is about 5% participation, 5% of the people that come on a Sunday morning actually participate and do something. In the house church it is 100% because 1st Corinthians 14:26 says “If anyone has a song, a hymn, anyone has a revelation and the rest of 1st Corinthians 14 talks about everybody participating. So the expectation is that people who come need to bring something to do. People will start singing a song, say listen I have a song can I share it? If we don’t know it we listen, if we do know it we sing along. People prophesy people exercise gifts; people pray for other people.
Sid: Wait a second though I see a very serious problem and that is if you have a generation of people that were raised to be spectators how do you shift the people? I know God is shifting the church, but how do you shift people with a mindset of I’m here to be entertained, TV has taught us that alone.
Tim: We really have been allowed to be very lazy so what we do is go through a whole transition process to teach them how to actually participate, it’s excruciating because people frankly don’t want to, too many don’t want to. Many people don’t think they have anything to say, anything to give, and then there are other people on the other side…
Sid: But but but you see we have been taught that only the professional have something to give only the ones that have been to Bible College and seminary and cemetery, seminary…
Katie: (Laughing)
Sid: Had something to give.
Tim: Yeah and so the issue is that you have to mentor them, you have to coach them, you have to bring them along and teach them that it’s not only okay but it’s essential that they bring their piece of puzzle to the meeting.
Katie: Essentially it’s like family dysfunction, let’s say my grown children if they brought to me their children and I had to raise all of my 8 grandchildren that would be a dysfunctional family, I need to let my children raise their own children and learn how to run their own families and their own homes. I think that’s what’s been missing from structured churches that we’ve been taught that the pastor is the one that has to raise every one. And now they need to be equipped to raise their own families to go out and share the word and to bring people to the Lord and to not only evangelize but to also disciple those new babes in Christ themselves. And one important factor is that Christians now need to learn how to feed themselves rather than being completely spiritually dependent upon one person, a pastor, or the leadership of a church for their spiritual feeding. They actually need to grow themselves. Learn the Word, hear God’s for themselves and do the work of the ministry.
Sid: Where did we get the idea that it should be a professional one head of a church concept, where did this come from?
Tim: It began to develop right in the centuries just after the last apostles passed off the scene because people began to organize it, that’s the natural that’s the natural thinking pattern of men. Ignatius is culpable, he’s a historical figure, he’s culpable in this, but especially Constantine who organized the whole Roman Empire into Christianity he brought them all into Christianity all at one time. And at that point there were so many they simply used the pagan temples, the pagan worship, the pagan rituals, they just adopted that into the Christian form.
Sid: Is it true that every one of your meetings is different?
Tim: Yes and as a pastor that’s kind of frightening prospect sometimes.
Sid: Why?
Tim: Because we’re taught when we went to Bible college and seminary you’re taught to have it very organized and you’re not prepared if you’re doing it for the Lord you should be ready and prepared. But when I get my children and grandchildren together there is a level of chaos in our house when everybody’s running around and having relationship with one and other.
Sid: What do you do with the children in a house church by the way, do you ship them off to a room to watch something on TV with Muppets or something?
Tim: What we like to do is I like to have them right there, they participate. When we say open participation we mean open participation.
Sid: Do the children participate in your service?
Katie: Yes, we had many of our groups, some of our groups don’t have any children at all in them, but those that do they do allow them to participant. There are different ways for them to participant but some of them also have play groups where they do have just the children all by themselves and they do a teaching for them.
Sid: I remember when I first started in ministry I knew nothing, all I knew was Jesus was real, that’s all I knew. And we started a congregation I was one of a few Jewish believers myself got together and we started something called a Messianic Jewish Congregation. No one had ever even heard of such a concept but it just made sense to me and every week Jewish people were coming to the Lord and it was such excitement going on. Then we got organized and then we got… I was the quote pastor but I knew I didn’t know anything so I didn’t get in God’s way because I didn’t know what to do and God showed up. Is that what’s going on?
Tim: Absolutely.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth