Essential to creating any “Storehouse” is starting with Christian community. If we don’t have the essence of a Christian life of discipleship as part of a broader community, we can’t much consider how to create, store, or steward financial and other resources apart from the people.
White Paper on Storehouse Communities (PDF 1-2 page)
Why? Because God is a God of covenant. He never invests in something financial without first investing in people. And the people he longs to invest in are those who have been set apart from the ways of the world, or a spirit of this world, or the cares of this world. In other words, those Christians who have collectively decided to Come out of Babylon and form union with one another.
Where two or three are gathered, there I am – Jesus
Matthew 18:20
This is different than “Church on Sunday” Christianity.
The first step is assembling a “Storehouse Community” – this is simply a fellowship of believers committed to help one other economically in unity as needs and opportunities arise. A spiritual family, like Jesus talked about (Matt 12:49). (Hopefully some of this is already happening in one form or another in your city/region through John 17 unity of churches and ministries, as well as prayer movements and houses of prayer which tend to reach across denominational lines and people groups.)
A quick way of understanding this is how the “Barn Raising” approach of yesteryear was used to help one family in need by mustering up the voluntary collective action of a whole community.
Part of any “Storehouse” community should promote “in-sourcing” – i.e. local production of goods and services (e.g. agriculture, family businesses) as well as exchange (e.g. farmers market). That coupled with forming a type of “savings club” with the idea of lending to people in need and resourcing the Kingdom of God (like micro-finance – more on that in step 2 below).
The Storehouse community should facilitate coming together to exchange goods and services with one another (purchase, barter), keeping it ‘in the family’ rather than depending so much on big-box corporate stores with questionable values and far flung supply chains. This would also be like a local marketplace. Here is a diagrammatic example of how such a Storehouse community can be structured…
This is entering into a “Kingdom” dimension of God in the earth realm. Kingdom is a lifestyle. It’s 24/7. Its a unity of churches across denominations. Its working with the 5-fold leadership of Ephesians 4 across ministries and businesses. It is the Whole Church.
Part of this is understanding the roles of the leadership gifts Jesus gave the Whole Church when he ascended to heaven…
He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers…
Ephesians 4:11
This is where the community comes together in a unity expression and works together in business creation, supplying services, goods, adding value together, making jobs. Where Christians work together with other Christians, Monday – Friday.
Storehouse Community Podcasts
Jordon Baker and the Mansfield, OH Community