“There are two tensions in a church, outreach and nurture. Without intentionality, nurture always wins.”
Dave Browning—Deliberate Simplicity
Leverage the same ministry principle that Jesus taught and modeled for us! The principle that will activate your congregation to embrace the Great Commission like never before!
Learn how a little perspective makes all the difference.
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Are you burdened by:
Regularly challenging your congregation to share the Gospel but seeing little response?
Seeing members of your church feel overwhelmed by the call of the Great Commission?
The lack of confidence Christians have in sharing the Gospel with the people they know?
The inactivity of so many people in your church family?
Are you tired of “Sorry, but I just can’t change the world” stopping people from trying to change THEIR world?
You must be a pastor.
And you’ve probably asked yourself this question after every weekend...
How can I get my congregation to DO something?
Ugh...
I remember staring at a room half-full of people.
They had come to hear from the Bible.
They wanted to worship.
They were eager to learn.
They weren’t a particularly challenging congregation to lead.
But taking the message of the Gospel outside the walls of the church just wasn’t happening.
The problem was that sharing the Gospel felt REALLY complicated.
Maybe you can relate.
So what was I supposed to do as their pastor?
People were afraid they couldn’t answer the questions people asked about Jesus.
I couldn’t teach them everything. I’m still learning too!
I wasn’t even sure what resources the church could afford to provide. We’ve never had much of a budget.
I was worried that maybe I’m just not charismatic enough to be an effective leader.
Obviously, the Gospel has been spreading since Jesus rose from the grave.
But how?
That’s when I looked at my Christian bookmark and read “What Would Jesus Do.”
Just kidding.
But seriously, what DID Jesus do?
Years earlier, as a pastor to students, I had discovered the oikos principle at a seminar led by Win Arn.
I know that every bad idea starts out as a good idea, so I wondered, “Maybe oikos just sounds like a good idea.”
But, with the permission of my Senior Pastor, I put it to the test.
Over the course of that first year, our small youth group soon began to grow exponentially and within a few years the group had outgrown the ability of the church to sustain it (high school students don’t generally tithe).
The idea was pretty simple. And it is actually what Jesus modeled for us in His ministry. But was it too simple for adults?
There was only one way to find out. I started testing it in my ministry as a lead pastor.
I could see the light bulbs going on with them, just like the students.
But more than just “getting it”, I started seeing people LIVING it.
Now I was hooked.
I wanted to understand why it was working.
Why were people all of a sudden willing to do what I thought I had been telling them to do all this time?
I started asking people what changed.
That’s when I learned, once and for all, how powerful the oikos principle really is.
It was shattering myths that were keeping the congregation from doing something with their faith.
MYTH 1
I am responsible for reaching everyone I meet who doesn’t know Jesus.
MYTH 2
I need to know more about the Bible before I can start talking about Jesus.
MYTH 3
To share the Gospel, you have to be an extrovert and share Jesus with strangers.
MYTH 4
The Great Commission is something I’m supposed to do by myself.
Does this sound familiar?
INTRODUCING…
The ministry principle that activates your congregation to embrace the Great Commission like never before.
Learn how a little perspective makes all the difference.
Want help inspiring your congregation? Bring one of our OM trainers to speak at your church.
Want one-on-one help implementing the oikos principle into your ministry?
Let’s talk coaching!
What it is...
Picture your life as taking place in a theater, one that’s filled with all of the people in your life. Some are sitting in the balcony. Others in the mezzanine. Still others are sitting down in the orchestra section.
To some degree, they may all be able to see the way you behave or listen to what you say, but it’s those eight to fifteen people in the front row who have the best seats in the house to do both. The Greeks called that inner circle of “extended family” our oikos.
When you ask someone, “What is the primary reason you decided to give your life to Christ?” the answer is typically not a what, but a who. Their answer will revolve around someone in their oikos 95% of the time.
That’s the oikos principle!
What it is not…
It’s not an evangelism program. Oikos is like a worldview, a set of lenses through which we can more simply and efficiently align our lives with the Great Commission.
It’s not an event. The oikos principle is the daily practice of being aware of those whom God has already place in your tight circle of relationships, not a one-time gathering of people you don’t know.
It’s not a church emphasis. The oikos principle is a natural bridge between evangelism and discipleship, objectives that were never intended to be separated.
It’s not a new idea! The oikos principle is what Jesus both taught and modeled in Scripture.
Common Questions
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Absolutely. The oikos principle applies to every Christian regardless of the size of the church they attend.
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Nope! The oikos principle is how God designed the message of the Gospel to spread, so it knows no denomination. We’ve actually presented the principle to almost every Evangelical Christian denomination and association of churches. Additionally, the Oikos Principle won’t interfere with any existing models of ministry you have running in your church. It will just energize them!
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You sure can! We created the cohorts to make it easier for pastors to learn from other pastors that are currently implementing the oikos principle in their ministry. But, if you prefer to learn differently, check out our other resources to find various ways you can learn and apply the oikos principle.
About Pastor Tom
Tom has been in pastoral ministry for almost 50 years. For 38 of those years, he served as the Senior Pastor and primary teacher at the High Desert Church in Southern California. During that time, the church grew from 125 to multiple campuses and thousands of people..
For the past decade, Tom has also been an ambassador for the oikos principle around the world, frequently speaking at conferences, churches, university classrooms, and denominational gatherings, challenging church leaders to become more efficient through simplification.
Tom received his formal education at Biola University and Talbot Seminary. He is the author of three books, 8 to 15—The World is Smaller Than You Think, Not My Church, and Diary of a World Changer. Tom and his wife, Sheryl, have been married for 42 years. They have three married children and eleven grandchildren.