The OIKOS Western Australia Team

Peter Fowler

God's call on my life occurred when I was 16, I was on the family farm at Wongan Hills (WA) sitting on a tractor taking off the harvest when God‘s Spirit placed an inescapable calling on my life to train for Christian ministry. This was a decision which a the time received a lot of opposition from my extended family. In the years which have followed I have worked in rural Victoria, Melbourne, Sydney and now Perth fulfilling various roles as a church pastor, boys dean in a boarding school, teacher, missionary in Vanuatu, high school chaplain and youth worker. All of these places and appointments have been a valuable training ground for God's present calling on my life.

In August 1995 I was in hospital fighting for my life having caught a virulent form of malaria in Vanuatu. When my situation was desperate God gave me a dream and showed me a new church which He said He would build and then told me I would live to see it happen. Since that time my wife (Cheryl) and I have been deconstructing the model of church which previously enveloped us and have been supernaturally led to embrace the house church movement as a very simple and authentic expression of the church which is called to represent the Kingdom of God for our times. Presently I am involved in networking men's groups using the house church model. This has been aimed at men who have disconnected from church but still desire to be spiritually connected with other men. I have also been running training events and coaching other house church groups in WA.

I am available to visit, I connect people to groups who are looking for a house church, I also value the opportunity to provide coaching and resources to any whom God is calling to begin a house church of their own.

I am contactable on prfowler@bigpond.net.au

Phone 92918858  Mobile 0416244882

Andrew and Sharon Beel

Andrew writes - On my ordination retreat God gave me the words of Romans 15:20-21 It has always been my ambition topreach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation.  Rather, as it is written: 'Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand'.

At the time it didn't make much sense at all as I firmly believed that my ministry was mainly to be directed towards Christians.  After ten years of ministry within a denomination, God again specifically spoke to me and told me that it was time to go back to the bars.  My wife and I had already decided that God was calling us out of the denomination, but now he was speaking to me regarding my next step.  Hesitantly we, including our four children, left behind our house, inocme, and congregation to walk a new walk of faith trusting in God's provision alone.  Slowly but surely God has opened up a ministry to people in the gay scene.  The word God gave me all those years before now makes sense.  We have also joined together with a small group of similarly minded Christians to form a house fellowship in which we seek to support the varying callings of one another.  Already another fellowship has formed out of the initial fellowship and this seems to have attracted a number of new Christians along with their seeking non-Christian friends.  My own vision is to see organic churches started within the gay scene and in various clubs and pubs throughout Australia.  I have a heart to see Christians equipped and released to take Jesus to communities where he is not known and with God's help to incarnate the Gospel rather than seeking to bring people out of their communities into our churches.

I hope that through OIKOS I might continue to be able to enthuse Christians with a new vision for the spreading of the Gospel in this nation particularly to those who have never heard.

And Sharon writes - When I was 8 years old I had a conversion experience and soon after that I clearly heard the Lord call me to ministry.  Even as a child i knew enough to think that He had gotten it wrong because He seemed to overlook the fact that I was a girl.  Even I knew girls and women were not acceptable ministers.  This began me on a journey of exploration of what that calling meant.

I made all the typical mistakes of trying to find acceptance within the denominational churches in which I was involved at various times in my life.  I explored feminist theology but could not get past Jesus' clear teaching that those who want to be great in God's kingdom must learn to be the servant.  This made both the need for recognition from human institutions and much feminist theology redundant.

I was given the book "Rethinking the Wineskin' by Frank Viola. I decided to give simple/missional/house church a go.  I visited a new Christian friend and found she had a house full of non-Christian friends and enough children running around to equal a Sunday school full.  So I asked her if she'd like to do church in her home.  And so began the most fulfilling experience I've ever had in ministry.  This has led me, Andrew and others God has brought us into relatonship with, to also approach mission in non-institutional/organic ways.  It has certainly been a challenge to keep mission simple, real, relational, and not institutional. 

The things we have learned and are continuing to learn throughout these experiences are what I hope to share with others through OIKOS.