Wild Goose Chase 4

Pastor David was reading his Facebook page.  Someone had posted the following message.
"I would like to come and visit your church but have heard many bad things about it on Youtube.  There was also a terrible article about it on Wikipedia."  2 days ago Pastor David had posted his reply.
"I have been a church pastor for 30 years, in several different churches.  I assure you, the things that happen at Piddledon Farm are no different to the problems that happen in most churches from time to time."  How would the enquirer have responded to this sensitive and helpful wisdom?
"Oh my God, no!  Please don't tell me that.  I never want to belong to another church as long as I live."

The kitchen at the farmhouse was full of people.  It was Saturday night tea and the huge table was covered in sandwiches made from beetroot and lettuce grown at the farm with occaisional cheese.  There were six different types of home made cakes.
"I'm thinking of leaving community," Tony said.
"You've only just got here," said Tom.
"We've only just got here and the house isn't sold yet.  Plenty of time to change our minds."
"You made a vow.  You can't leave now," said Brenda.
"What about Ananias and Sapphira?" asked Sarah.
"But Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead by God because they lied to the church," said Tony.  "You have not lied to men but to God."
"They were struck dead for keeping some of the money to themselves," said Sarah.  "All the believers were commanded to sell everything they had and to give all their money to the church.  Ananias and Sapphira wouldn't do this, so they were struck dead."
"If that was the case there'd be an awful lot of dead Christians in the world.  I never heard of any Christians in other churches having to sell their house and give the money to the church."
"But we're a different kind of church," said Sarah.  "The standards of the New Testament have been watered down completely.  The result?  Worldy Christians who love money.  Lukewarm Christians who are neither hot nor cold."
"So if Debbie and me move back to our house, we will be struck dead like Ananias and Sapphira?"
"No," said Sarah, "but you'll wish you had been."  Tom looked at Tony with an indignant glare.
"I saw an angel from Heaven take the car keys that you gave, carry them up into the sky, and all of Heaven's orb rang with angels singing, Hallelujah, another soul set free from the chains of materialism."
"It's just as well it was a tiny little second hand Chevrolet," said Tony.  "Goodness knows what the angels would have said if it had been a brand new SUV like the one you were driving the other day."  

Tony sat down in the dining room beside Debbie, his plate full of sandwiches and cakes.  Matthew sat nearby, anxious to use the counselling skills he had learnt at college.
"Hello Tony," he said.  "Why do you want to leave?"
"I just don't see any difference between people who live in community and people who don't."
"I can see a difference," said Barry.
"Can you?" asked Matthew.
"People who live in community have more money than people who don't.  I've never seen so many expensive new cars as they have in the car park here.  And they live on a farm, so they don't have to pull everything they eat out of a tin."
"There must be other differences between people who live in community and people who live in the world," said Matthew.  "What else do you notice about people on Piddledon Farm?"
"They don't work as hard as the people in the world," said Tony.  "None of these people have to leave home at six o' clock in the morning to get to work at 9 o' clock.  They just have to walk out into the fields for quarter of an hour."
"Surely people who live in community are different in character.  What differences can you see in the personality or character of the people here?"
"They're more controlling," said Tony.  "They tell you what to do all the time, and they make sure that you do it."
"That's good leadership," said Barry.  "That's called being accountable."
"Apart from making me account for everything I do," said Tony, "the people here are exactly the same as anybody else.  I can't see the point of being here."
"Once you've renounced the pursuit of Mammon, embraced the cross and dedicated yourself to the service of others," said Barry, "it's an easy life."

Matthew was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee.  The kitchen was very crowded and full of people.  Pastor David looked Matthew straight in the eye.
"You're coming to the leaders' meeting tomorrow."
"Am I a leader?"
"You're a trainee leader.  I have taught you to lead a small group, and you'll learn other things.  That makes you my Timothy."
"Why are two thirds of the men in this church leaders?" asked Matthew.
"It makes people easier to control," said Galina.  "The right ratio.  One person to be a leader, two people to be led.  The leader to go to all the leaders' meeting so that, when they want to lay down the law, they know what their senior leaders have told them to do."
"Why only men?"
"It's the Biblical pattern," said Galina.  "Pastor Boris likes his Biblical patterns.  This is a church where men lead and women follow."
"This is a church where men lead and women do as they're flaming well told," laughed Barry.

At the leaders' meeting, Pastor Todd was in a large hall that was full of Christians holding big Bibles.
"People ask me if I believe there will be hundreds of community houses one day," he said into the microphone.  "They think I am a wild dreamer.  People ask me if I believe there will be thousands of community houses in our lifetime.  Absolute fantasy, they say.  I don't believe there will be hundreds of community houses in our lifetime, I don't believe there will be a few thousand.  Brethren, I believe there will be millions.  Get ready for Christian community, it's coming to your town.  Get ready for Christian community, it's coming to your school catchment area.  Get ready for Christian community, it's coming to your street.  The Christians who belong to other churches will soon realise how useless and powerless their churches are.  They will soon realise how incapable they are of living the Christian life on their own.  Your non-Christian family and friends will soon realise how pointless and awful their lives are without Jesus.  They are on a path that leads to drug addiction, prostitution and suicide.  Go and tell your family and friends the gospel.  Don't pray for them anymore, the time for praying has passed.  The harvest is ripe, the harvest is ripe.  The next decade will mark the first wave of church planting.  200 churches will be planted in 200 major towns and cities.  The decade after that, each of those 200 churches will plant another 200 churches.  That's 40,000 churches, approximately one in each school catchment area.  And from there, thirty years from now, we'll have a community house in every street."
"Who will lead all those churches?" shouted a man at the back.  
"You must find your Timothy.  You must find someone that you can teach and train as a leader and, in the next year, train him in everything that you know.  God will do something powerful in the lives of these new Christians you bring to the Lord.  Within a year, they will be effective evangelists and effective pastors.  Men are equipped not by what they know but by whom they know."
Pastor Boris stood at the microphone to speak to the church leaders.  He was holding a book.
"A very interesting book.  William Law wrote it three hundred years ago.  It's copyright exempt.  Who needs the latest American church leadership manual?  This is a very cheap church leadership manual.  It cost us absolutely nothing at all.  This copy was printed in 1906.  I don't like electronic books.  I like the feeling of holding something a hundred years old in my hand.  How economical.  How good for the environment.  We have many books on this farm that are over a hundred years old.  William Law understands the importance of austerity.  He asks, 'Do fasting and self deprivation count for nothing on the day of judgement?'  How do you subdue the flesh?  How do you stop your stomach behaving like a child in a sweet shop?  I fast for a week every year.  If you can't manage a week, try a day."  Pastor Boris laughed.  "That would be torture enough for some of you.  I don't take sugar in my tea.  I don't put sugar on my cornflakes.  I haven't listened to the radio for six months.  Because if you don't deprive yourself of these things, how can you deprive yourself of other things?  I keep all my possessions in a little tea chest in my bedroom, except the car, of course, which is a rather expensive car, but then, I only use it for the Lord's work and never make any pleasure trips in it.  What I'm talking about today is the value of austerity.  How to lose your attachment to material things.  The average personal expenditure in this community is £3 a week.  Somebody asked for £1 so they could buy a drink.  They had none of their money left, as they had been swimming with a friend.  The answer was no, you can always come home to make a cup of tea or, if you haven't got time to do that, go into the toilets and stick your head under a tap."

It was Sunday afternoon.  Angie had a big metal box full of money and was giving everyone their weekly allowance.  Debbie handed her the little forms she had filled in, showing what she had spent that week.
"You want a £5 note," said Angie, handing her the money, "four £1 coins, one 50p, two 20ps, and a 10p."
"That's exactly right, " said Debbie.  "Thank you."
"And don't forget this."  Angie handed Debbie a big bag of 10ps.
"What's this?"
"Three pounds in 10p pieces," said Angie.  "Thirty pieces of silver.  Because you have betrayed me."
"How come?"
"We're both women, Debbie, we both live in the 21st century, we both know."
"Know what?"
"That wives don't submit to their husbands anymore, husbands submit to their wives."
"What's this all about, Angie?"
"Tony wouldn't have wanted to leave the farm unless you told him you wanted to."
"Tony wants to leave the farm?"
"Don't play the innocent with me, Debbie.  Every man who's ever left this farm, it's been his wife who told him to do it."
"No I did not!"  Debbie started crying.