How have we missed this?
Ever since Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and began to use the techniques of Roman paganism (temples, priests, pagan holidays etc.) to institutionalize Christianity most people have completely ignored the methods of the first churches or the way Paul went about church planting.
Recent movements have begun to try and recapture this ancient way of doing church, believing the Constaninian transition was not an improvement, but that it was ultimately destructive to church life and practice. Many involved in church restoration see Paul’s methods as extremely simple and essentially free of structure; just encourage people to meet in homes, release gifts and live life in community. Each of these elements have been very helpful but they’ve neglected a necessary piece of Paul’s strategy which has thus far, rendered much of the house church / simple church practices virtually ineffective.
I call this missing element the Tyrannus Effect. It describes the impact of Paul’s primary church planting activity. How do you begin to plant a church? What do you actually do week in and week out from month to month, year to year? From what I’ve seen, if you don’t believe it involves the planting of a weekly worship service you believe it primary involves weekly meetings in homes. Neither was Paul’s primary activity.
In a little known passage in Acts 19 we get the clearest glimpse of what Paul spent his days doing when he wanted to plant churches in a city. Luke records that after Paul abandoned his original method of working through the local Synagogue he rented space in the School of Tyrannus and held daily discussions there for about a two year period. This is most likely what he was doing in Synagogues before this time and we know this was what he did during his house arrest in Rome (Acts 28). This discipleship center was the public and constant activity and he supplemented this by also training in individual house church meetings (Acts 20:20).
What this strategy results in is the Tyrannus Effect.
So what is the Tyrannus Effect? It is what happens when your primary focus in a city is NOT the churches themselves but is on discipleship training through discussion. And this is what happens through this shift in focus:
- Churches form naturally around those who are being trained
- Complacent converts are quickly changed to committed disciples
- The level of discipleship city-wide is continually increasing
- Unity among the churches is developed through a common discipleship process
- New believers are immediately immersed in the essential “renewal of their mind”
- Teaching and training gifts are released for the benefit of the whole city
- Disciples have a city-wide Kingdom vision vs. a preoccupation on an individual church
- Individual churches are deeply interconnected with one another and equipped simultaneously
- Discussion-based training replaces sermonizing as a means to a long-lasting, faith-building group discovery experience.
- A central base of operations (city-church) exists for recognizing elders, releasing the five-fold ministry and dispatching trainers to other localities
For the past year we’ve been experimenting with the Tyrannus strategy and have experienced the beginnings of this effect first hand. I can’t imagine what would happen tomorrow if the biblical teachers and trainers in a city came together to disciple the city. This unifying of willing disciplers is the next phase in our strategy to bring our activity in line with Paul’s method.
What should you do if you want to experience the Tyrannus Effect in your city?
- Create a clear, repeatable discipleship process
- Transition each lesson from lecture format to discussion-based training
- Hold regular gatherings in an appropriate location where people commit to the discipleship process
- Open up the training to the whole city especially to other churches
- Keep expanding bringing on more trainers and more training modules until training discussions are happening daily
- Dispatch trainers to other cities to begin discipleship training centers in other regions
- Encourage discipled believers use their gifts to build up their church bodies.
- Send 5-fold ministers (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers) into the churches to stir them up
- Recognize city elders who can help shepherd churches (this will apply mostly to home-based churches).
- Continually communicate and network with all the churches and ministries in your region offering this training as a means to build up the churches and expand the Kingdom
There are many unique challenges to doing this in areas that are very churched with many dis-unified denominations (this may be why Paul preferred to go to areas that were unreached). But we desperately need to create a way for the church to return to our central mission and the final command of Lord – “to go and make disciples of all nations” one city at a time.
It’s wonderful that you’ve picked up a “how to” idea from the life of Paul. And the one you’ve noted is admittedly little-used. I’m so happy you are beginning to see the fruit from trying this method.
However, I don’t think it’s safe to assume that this is how Paul did things in every place. He seems to have been a person who did what each sitaution warranted, not a cookie-cutter sort of approach. Having said that, I don’t doubt that a discipleship-based approach as you are attempting would be much more effective than most of what is typically called church planting. Especially in light of the aversion modern people seem to have to organized, typical church. I’m curious to see how things shake out for your group.
Hi Carey,
Excellent point. I agree there is no way to prove from Acts that this was always Paul’s method. I would say that everywhere Paul went with the express purpose to plant a church (this does not include Athens since that was NOT why he was there) the method he used mostly likely did include this type of intentional training. The reason for this is Ephesus is the most detailed account getting almost 2 chapters of Acts and since he did this EVERYDAY in Ephesus do we think he would have not done this at all in other cities?
Thanks for your encouraging words and I’ll be updating continually what happens with our approach.
hey jeremy
i’m already missing being able to ask you these kinds of questions in person…
it’s very easy to see some of these elements and “how to’s” after having been around your community this year through training, pt, and regular hanging out with the koine folks. i’ve been thinking a lot about different models in the last couple of years including the typical church, the ministry model (what i’m calling YL), the normal house church model, and your model. a couple of things that you wrote about though that i have not been able to witness or figure out on my own are how the eldership and the sending out of ministers works.
timothy makes eldership seem like an appointing process but that only seems like it would work with a relatively large body. but by the time you get to the size of having official deacons and elders you are now too big to be intimate with everyone. secondly, and this is an issue i am dealing with in the YL model is the issue of the sending out. in YL, after you have been around long enough, been faithful and committed enough, developed roots and become effective at what you do, it seems like you get asked to consider staff and moving to some distant city away from all of the community that you are so integrally involved in and necessary to. i can’t see how these two elements function in a small community. what do they look like at koine?
Hey Josh, great to see you here. Here’s my thoughts to your questions –
Josh wrote – “timothy makes eldership seem like an appointing process but that only seems like it would work with a relatively large body. but by the time you get to the size of having official deacons and elders you are now too big to be intimate with everyone.”
Great question. This is where many house churches stumble. Paul didn’t only plant house churches; he spent most of his time planting a city church. He created two layers in every city – the city church and the smaller house churches (interdependent bodies). The Elders are appointed at the city church layer NOT the body church layer. When he wrote to elders he addressed the elders of that city. Likewise when he addressed the churches he often addressed a specific church in a home (Rm 16, 1 Cor. 16, Col. 4) thus two distinct layers both with the title “church”. House churches that are not building a “city church” structure only experienced a fraction of what the N.T. describes and I believe have equally as unbiblical a model as the institutional church.
As far as sending this is an issue for the city-church (what we call Koine) as well. It happened at Antioch city-church – “2While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”
I fully expect we’ll be sending teams of trained disciples on apostolic missions on a fairly regular basis. We’ll probably do this at least once in 2008 but as the city church gets stronger it will happen constantly. These will be more in the Pauline fashion, usually in teams and specific to what gifts a particular city-church is needing as well as to plant new city-churches (starting with a training center).
I find that leading discussions is not an easily acquired skill for some. I’ve linked to a page that discusses two issues…
1. Orality… learning to tell a bible story instead of just reading and
2. How to conduct an “oral bible study” discussion
I’ve found it very helpful for small groups and even family devotions.
Also, while many people cannot envision themselves giving a “Gospel Presentation”, we all tell stories on some level every day and so helping people tell bible stories can have a “viral” effect as some quotes on the page show.
[...] Jeremy Pryor on “The Tyranus Effect: Paul’s neglected strategy for city-wide discipleship.“ [...]
[...] The Tyranus Effect – Paul’s Neglected Strategy for City-wide Discipleship. Read it. [...]
[...] would create a city-church structure over the house church complete with a School of Tyrannus to organize constant discipleship training, host visiting apostles, city elders to shepherd the [...]
Chuck – excellent point and thanks for the link. We desperately need to train teachers how to use dialog as the primary method NOT because everyone has their own truth and should be equally heard but because people learn far more when they are involved in the discovery process, have the ability to challenge what is being said and allow the tension developed through the midrash to push deeper their faith.
[...] does not exist today). 5-fold ministers need to establish the city church (like Paul did with the School of Tyrannus) and then equip the whole church in an entire region from there. Not only does this better [...]
[...] The Tyrannus Effect – Paul’s Neglected Strategy for City-wide Discipleship. [...]
This is great stuff Jeremy. I feel like I’ve been trying to put a puzzle together to determine what the Church really should look like, and I think this is an important piece. Good work. Thanks
Ford Seeuws
Panama City, FL
2 Cor. 11:3
[...] working? Why not do what Paul did in Acts 19 which was NOT to plant a new church but to start a city-wide disciple-making movement. Disciple-making movements make more disciples than churches. I wonder why? “But in my [...]
Dear Jeremy, Looks like I’m a Johnny-come-1.5 years-lately on this conversation — pray tell your idea has flourished. — below is a “prospectus” on something I’ve been working on for the past 5 years… that’s finally getting some traction. I was thrilled to read this blog post of yours! -dc
http://5000movements.blogspot.com/2005/07/apostolic-movement-launching-schools.html
Let me know if you are still hip on the “Tyrannus Effect” and what fruit it’s bearing in your city (reply via your blog comment or my email — I’ve subscribed to be notified if you reply via your blog.