New Trend: Church in the Home

[markomalley]

There's No Pulpit Like Home

Some Evangelicals are abandoning megachurches for minichurches--based in their own living rooms

By RITA HEALY, DAVID VAN BIEMA

On a Sunday at their modest, gray ranch house in the Denver suburb of Englewood, Tim and Jeanine Pynes gather with four other Christians for an evening of fellowship, food and faith. Jeanine's spicy rigatoni precedes a yogurt-and-wafer confection by Ann Moore, none of the food violating the group's solemn commitment to Weight Watchers. The participants, who have pooled resources for baby sitting, discuss a planned missionary trip and sing along with a CD by the Christian crossover group Sixpence None the Richer. One of the lyrics, presumably written in Jesus' voice, runs, "I'm here, I'm closer than your breath/ I've conquered even death." That leads to earnest discussion of a friend's suicide, which flows into an exercise in which each participant brings something to the table--a personal issue, a faith question--and the group offers talk and prayer. Its members read from the New Testament's Epistle to the Hebrews, observe a mindful silence and share a hymn.

The meeting could be a sidebar gathering of almost any church in the country but for a ceramic vessel of red wine on the dinner table--offered in communion. Because the dinner, it turns out, is no mere Bible study, 12-step meeting or other pendant to Sunday service at a Denver megachurch. It is the service. There is no pastor, choir or sermon--just six believers and Jesus among them, closer than their breath. Or so thinks Jeanine, who two years ago abandoned a large congregation for the burgeoning movement known in evangelical circles as "house churching," "home churching" or "simple church." The week she left, she says, "I cried every day." But the home service flourished, grew to 40 people and then divided into five smaller groups. One participant at the Pyneses' house, a retired pastor named John White, also attends a conventional church, where he gives classes on how to found, or plant, the house variety. "Church," he says, "is not just about a meeting." Jeanine is a passionate convert: "I'd never go back to a traditional church. I love what we're doing."

Since the 1990s, the ascendant mode of conservative American faith has been the megachurch. It gathers thousands, or even tens of thousands, for entertaining if sometimes undemanding services amid family-friendly amenities. It is made possible by hundreds of smaller "cell groups" that meet off-nights and provide a humanly scaled framework for scriptural exploration, spiritual mentoring and emotional support. Now, however, some experts look at groups like Jeanine Pynes'--spreading in parts of Colorado, Southern California, Texas and probably elsewhere--and muse, What if the cell groups decided to lose the mother church?

(snip)

House churches claim the oldest organizational pedigree in Christianity: the book of Acts records that after Jesus' death, his Apostles gathered not at the temple but in an "upper room." House churching has always prospered where resources were scarce or Christianity officially discouraged. In the U.S. its last previous bloom was rooted in the bohemian ethos of the California-bred Jesus People movement of the 1970s. Many of those groups were eventually reabsorbed by larger congregations, and the remnants tend to take a hard line. Frank Viola, a 20-year veteran Florida house churcher and author of Rethinking the Wineskin and other manuals, talks fondly of pilgrims who doctrinairely abjure pastors, sermons or a physical plant; feel that the "modern institutional church does not reflect the early church"; and "don't believe you are going to see the fullness of Jesus Christ expressed just sitting in a pew listening to one other member of the body of Christ talking for 45 minutes while everyone else is passive."

More recent arrangements can seem more ad hoc. Tim and Susie Grade moved to Denver a year ago. They had attended cell groups subsidiary to Sunday services but were delighted to learn that their new neighbors Tim and Michelle Fox longed for a house church like the ones they had seen overseas. Now they and seven other twenty- and thirtysomethings mix a fairly formal weekly communion with a laid-back laying on of hands, semiconfessional "sharing" and a guitar sing-along. Says Tim: "We have some people who come from regular churches, and were a little disenfranchised. And people who joined because of friendships, and people who are kind of hurting, kind of searching. My age group and younger are seeking spiritual things that they have not found elsewhere."

Critics fret that small, pastorless groups can become doctrinally or even socially unmoored. Thom Rainer, a Southern Baptist who has written extensively on church growth, says, "I have no problem with where a church meets, [but] I do think that there are some house churches that, in their desire to move in different directions, have perhaps moved from biblical accountability." In extreme circumstances home churches dominated by magnetic but unorthodox leaders can shade over the line into cults.

Yet the flexibility of simple churches is a huge plus. They can accommodate the demands of a multi-job worker, convene around the bedside of an ailing member and undertake big initiatives with dispatch, as in the case of a group in the Northwest that reportedly yearned to do social outreach but found that every member had heavy credit-card debt. An austerity campaign yielded a balance with which to help the true poor.

(snip)

Evangelical boosters find revival everywhere. Barna says he sees house churching and practices like home schooling and workplace ministries as part of a "seminal transition that may be akin to a third spiritual awakening in the U.S." Jeffrey Mahan, academic vice president of Denver's liberal and institutionally oriented Iliff School of Theology, doesn't go that far, but he does think the trend is significant. American participation in formal church has risen and fallen throughout history, he notes, and after a prolonged post--World War II upswell, big-building Christianity may be exhaling again in favor of informal arrangements.

If so, he suggests, "I don't think the denominations need be anxious. They don't have a franchise on religion. The challenge is for people to talk about what constitutes a full and adequate religious life, to be the church together, not in a denominational sense, but in the broadest sense." Or as Jesus put it, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I."

This reminds me of the small-church-group movement that we're seeing in my church, but without the anchor back to the Church. It also reminds me on the surface of TWI, but not when one looks at it: as there does not appear to be the classes, the money-grubbing, or the hierarchy.

But it might be something for folk who can't find a home elsewhere...

[George Aar]

I'm going to start a new trend too -" Debauchery in the Home",

Oh, it's been done already? My bad...

[GeorgeStGeorge]

This reminds me of the small-church-group movement that we're seeing in my church, but without the anchor back to the Church. It also reminds me on the surface of TWI, but not when one looks at it: as there does not appear to be the classes, the money-grubbing, or the hierarchy.

Yet.

George

[diazbro]

Oh great. Next people will be wanting to have sex in their homes......

[ex70sHouston]

Cell groups are an up and coming thing.

We went to on church who had it but did not supervise. This lead a group of people leaving because they went on a tangant like TWI.

Our current church has them in lieu of a sunday evening service. particication is running about 35% of sunday morning attendance. The lessions are all provided and the cells are supervised.

This is a growing trend. A Missionary in Mexico visited us to see how we worked it. He is using it in a city of 80,000. Three years ago they could count a total of less than 500 evangelical christians. The total has almost quadrupeled in 3 years. This is showing in church attendance is growing. The cell groups work well because the catholic priests dont get wind of it and frieck(Please note that the catholic church in Mexico is not christian. I have and do know many christian catholics in the states).

It did contribute to a church split in Mexico. In the long run its the best thing that could have happened to that church.

[moony3424]

Oh great. Next people will be wanting to have sex in their homes......

:o

[topoftheworld]

[Cynic]

House churching has always prospered where resources were scarce or Christianity officially discouraged. In the U.S. its last previous bloom was rooted in the bohemian ethos of the California-bred Jesus People movement of the 1970s.

The church I attend started as a house-based group, which is a scenario used by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church to plant churches. From the church's outset as a house-based group, it was served with some frequency, I am confident, by a "home missionary” who is a fully licensed minister in the denomination.

The church presently meets in a small rented facility, and is served by a “pastoral intern”-- a seminary grad with pastoral and teaching functions who is overseen by the session of a larger, out-of-area church, while he pursues licensure in the denomination. The licensure process involves submitting a number of papers to and passing a series of examinations (oral, or predominately oral, I think) conducted by the presbytery.

This isn’t some structureless group populated by form-fleeing pietists and freewheeling paleo-hippies. There is a traditional order to church services, and until the pastoral intern completes licensure requirements, no one but a visiting licensed minister – typically the “home missionary” – will be administering the Lord’s Supper.

Edited March 1, 2006 by Cynic

[TheEvan]

I've been watching this movement with some interest. As decentralized as this thing is there is sure to be a big variety of what's going on out there. But the part identifiable as the 'rising house church movement' has some distinctives that are at least very common if not universal.

1. Church government by elders. Government by concensus, not by vote. Unanimity, or likemindedness is the aim.

2. No identifiable "pastor " in the meetings.

3. No set order of service. The service unfolds organically. (I'll bet with lots of gentle nudging, though).

4. Communion as a meal taken together each time the church meets.

5. A strict view of women's roles...no teaching, etc.

And a number of other distinctives. Those are from the top of my head. I've read several books on the movement. I've spoken at a few. And I have an employee active in the movement. I also went to a mini-conference by one of the chief progenitors of the movement. (I was not impressed).

I believe in the general concept, but the specifics are up for grabs.

[oilfieldmedic]

H'mmm...Believers meeting in homes and in small groups?

What a concept!

[markomalley]

Well, if done right (not that TWI with the good-old Way Tree did it right), in fact, that would be a tremendous strength.

If you go to church with a group of 1,000 to 15,000 other folks (think about how big some of these mega-churches are getting), there is no way that individual needs can be fully met. Small groups would, imho, be an important part of a pastoral ministry in those circumstances.

While I agree that people participating in those groups would need to be very careful to avoid heterodoxy, I would think that the good would far outweigh the bad, particularly when those groups are part of a larger church organization.

Just because TWI blew it with this concept doesn't mean that the concept was bad...it means that TWI was bad.

(For those who read my posts, you'll note that I have pretty well consistently criticized the TWI theology more so than the practice: the reason for this is that I believe that the TWI theology was what enabled the abuses, not the way in which the group was organized. I still hold to that)

[Linda Z]

I was involved in two home fellowships before I ever heard of twi in 1972. The growing number of these might be seen as a trend, but they're nothing new. But then we knew that, from the Book of Acts.

When I was a child (so we're talking 1950s here), a neighbor lady used to have Bible fellowships for the neighborhood kids. Very informal, and I don't recall a lot of "doctrine" beyond "Jesus loves you." I enjoyed going there.

In the late 60s, my ex and I lived two doors from an odd assortment of people who had fellowship in their home, which was a commune of sorts. The people living there included a millionaire, two or three hippie types, a probation officer, and a young Presbyterian assistant pastor (who ultimately got canned from his church for teaching about SIT) and his wife. There was no hierarchy, they never took a collection, and there was no set order of service.

This little group was loving and giving and trusted God for their every need. My husband and I declined their invitations to come to fellowship for months, but when we needed them, they were there, loving and supporting us. Unfortunately, what ultimately killed it was their obsession with "personal prophecy," not corruption and hierarchy.

[oldiesman]

Just because TWI blew it with this concept doesn't mean that the concept was bad...it means that TWI was bad.

Whether one likes twi or not, they never blew the concept.

They've been doing it successfully for over 40 years, to this day.

Even as thousands of folks left, they never abandoned the concept.

[Linda Z]

I beg to differ, Oldies. Twi blew it by twi's own definition of their home fellowships: self-propagating, self-governing, and self-supporting (if I'm remembering the wording of all those correctly).

Self-propagating: Let's send Lightbearers, threaten them with being booted from the Corps if they don't "get a class together," and dump people into the host believers' fellowship even though it's the Lightbearers who were "undershepherding" them and whom they have begun to know and trust.

Self-governing: "You will teach this week's fellowship from the Blue Book." "You must attend every class and every fellowship or be considered a cop-out."

Self-supporting: All tithes and offerings will be sent to HQ. You will not use any of them to help out someone in the fellowship who has a need.

I could go on, but do I really need to?

[oldiesman]

Hi Linda,

Not sure what your point is, but twi abandoned that concept, if it ever had it, very early on.

I can't remember that twig was ever "self supporting", "self governing", "self propagating".

The Way Tree syllabus, where I think I saw that concept in print, wasn't applied, as far as I know.

[markomalley]

Whether one likes twi or not, they never blew the concept.

They've been doing it successfully for over 40 years, to this day.

Even as thousands of folks left, they never abandoned the concept.

I beg to differ. They blew the concept completely, totally, and undeniably.

How?

• Twig was supposed to be a place where you were nourished...it became a place to endure boredom
  
• Twig was supposed to be a place where you were loved...it became a place to endure persecution
  
• Twig was supposed to be a place that fostered personal growth...it became a stifling place of micro - life - management
  
• Twig was supposed to be a place of healing...instead it became the den of wolves (no offense WW) waiting to prey on the weak of mind, will, or spirit
  

At least according to the numbers and according to 95% of the people who have ever posted here. And, I dare say, according to your own witness. If it is so great, why aren't you an "innie"?

[Linda Z]

Oldies, that "self-governing, self-propagating, self-supporting" stuff was still being pushed hard in the mid-80s. It wasn't just an artifact of a syllabus. It was a selling point for twi. I was in Way Pub. I recall those terms being tossed about a LOT.

[oldiesman]

It wasn't implemented as far as I saw, whether or not it was verbalized.

Self propagating? hmm ... ok I will concede that one.

[oldiesman]

I beg to differ. They blew the concept completely, totally, and undeniably.

How?

<ul><li>Twig was supposed to be a place where you were nourished...it became a place to endure boredom

<li>Twig was supposed to be a place where you were loved...it became a place to endure persecution

<li>Twig was supposed to be a place that fostered personal growth...it became a stifling place of micro - life - management

<li>Twig was supposed to be a place of healing...instead it became the den of wolves (no offense WW) waiting to prey on the weak of mind, will, or spirit</ul>

At least according to the numbers and according to 95% of the people who have ever posted here. And, I dare say, according to your own witness. If it is so great, why aren't you an "innie"?

Mark, the twigs I attended were all those good things you mentioned, but I was spared the anal micromanagement of the 1990's and beyond.

Why am I not involved today? I've said before, if someone invited me, I would check it out to see what's happening. Wouldn't contribute any money for hq, but I may enjoy the fellowship & fig newtons. Don't think there are any places to go close by me tho'.

twi still has church in the home, so whether you like them or not, they haven't abandoned the concept.

[coolchef1248 @adelphia.net]

Hi Linda,

Not sure what your point is, but twi abandoned that concept, if it ever had it, very early on.

I can't remember that twig was ever "self supporting", "self governing", "self propagating".

The Way Tree syllabus, where I think I saw that concept in print, wasn't applied, as far as I know.

hi oldies

you can't be that old if you never heard the concepts linda cited

peace

[oldiesman]

Most everything came from the top down.

Or from the root up, however you look at it.

What does "self governing" mean anyway?

It means we at twig governed everything ourselves.

Well, did you govern things? Of course not.

You followed the rules and regs. established from Intl Hq.

[markomalley]

Mark, the twigs I attended were all those good things you mentioned, but I was spared the anal micromanagement of the 1990's and beyond.

Exactly my point. What started off as being something that was to be desired ended up as a perversion!

twi still has church in the home, so whether you like them or not, they haven't abandoned the concept.

Didn't say they did. I said they blew it. There is a difference.

[oldiesman]

Who knows that their local fellowships in the home are perverted?

I'm gonna say "I don't know" because I haven't been there in 15 years.

For all I know, maybe a local fellowship of theirs is quite good.

[diazbro]

It wasn't implemented as far as I saw, whether or not it was verbalized.

Ah once again that "logic" ! If YOU didn't see it., hear it, or read it then IT MUST NOT HAVE HAPPENED !

[oldiesman]

Diazbro, did you have self-governing authority in your fellowship?

Or were the rules & regs. decided by hq?