To get to church on a recent Sunday, the Yeldell family just walked to their own living room to greet fellow worshippers.
Members of this “house church” are part of what experts say is a fundamental shift in the way U.S. Christians think about church. Skip the sermons, costly church buildings and large, faceless crowds, they say. House church is about relationships forged in small faith communities.
In general, house churches consist of 12 to 15 people who share what’s going on in their lives, often turning to Scriptures for guidance. They rely on the Holy Spirit or spontaneity to lead the direction of their weekly gatherings.
“I think part of the appeal for some in the house church movement is the desire to return to a simpler expression of church,” said Ed Stetzer, a seminary professor and president of Lifeway Research, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. “For many, church has become too much (like a) business while they just want to live like the Bible.”
I can understand this. Previously, I belonged to a small Episcopal parish that was incredibly welcoming and felt like family. I miss it terribly! Where I live now, the Episcopal parish is large, cold, and cliquish. Being disabled, it requires a lot of effort for me to get to church and it’s incredibly disheartening to go through that effort and feel alone and unwanted. However, the liturgy is beautiful and does promote good and proper worship. That’s why I bother at all!
There’s a need for both, I think. The problem with the home churches is one of quality control — how to prevent them from becoming self-serving cliques and teaching error. But if large parishes like mine started small home groups, I think it would improve the “large church experience,” not diminish it.
there’s a 3-campus mega-church down in Palm Beach County, FL that started out as a home bible study group — you just never know what fruit the Spirit will yield.
This is very tempting to me right now. Our national leadership has embraced partnering with pro-abortion groups to promote contraceptives to find a “practical means to reduce the overall number of abortions”. [As if the local, state, and federal governments haven’t been doing that for 30+ years with labmentible consequences. Seriously, are they that stupid that they don’t see that encouraging shoplifting to prevent armed robberies is the wrong way to go?]
Then, if that were not enough, they are also championing Comprehensive Immigration Reform, a.k.a. Amnesty for Illegal Aliens. Their selective compassion for the illegals, at the expense of those that immigrate legally, the unemployed whose jobs they are stealing, and the under employed whose wages have gone backwards for nearly 20 years now! [Not to mention their eisogesis as they prooftext from Scripture…totally ignoring the significant differences between the [b]ger[/b] (legal immigrants) and the [b]nekhar and zar[/b] (foreigners and illegal aliens).]
Yes, I am sorely and truly tempted to just walk away from “organized” Church and just meet with like minded Christians to worship and share in simplicity the truth of the Gospel. It is the New Testament model, in my opinion. There is virtually no overhead expense associated with it either. Think how much money we waste on bricks and mortar, lights and powerpoint, and salaries. I think that if it weren’t for my kids, I would just walk away from the whole edifice. For now, I am withholding money from the national leadership by designated giving to my local Church. I don’t know how long I am willing to hold on to the status quo.
Spoo…typo…”lamentable”, not labmentible. I need more sleep!
We are staying home on Sunday for the balance of the summer. Because of the vacationers ont the road, it took us an hour this morning to make a 45 minute trip to church! We would have been very late for the worship service we were headed for, decided to go to the Catholic Church instead, only to find that they have gone to only one mass on Sunday during the summer, and it was just over. We had a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop and came home!
Over this week we will be considering our options…again!
Frances Scott
[blockquote] The problem with the home churches is one of quality control—how to prevent them from becoming self-serving cliques and teaching error. [/blockquote]
Uh – isn’t this the problem with TEC, and most of the other mainline Protestant denominations these days?
Right. So imagine the propensity toward mischief and power trips that non-theologically trained leaders with absolutely NO oversight or quality control can have.
I’ve got the House of Yahweh and the FLDS right down the highway, plus assorted other little cults. I know people tend to be glib about TEC and, yes, there are problems but they pale in comparison to what can happen when little spiritual groups are started and there is no oversight. If you want some really trippy reading, Google the House of Yahweh!
I don’t see how they are any worse than the episcopal club. They are both nuts.
I was part of a house church from DEC 2007 until spring of 2008 because the Reformed Episcopal mission church was too small and did not have the resources to find as church building to rent. The problem is not where the church meets but how the church meets. . My old church met in a home but still as scripture puts it. “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42 NASB). I can explain a good church, thanks to the White Horse In, A good church is where the gospel is regularly preached, and the sacrament rightfully ministered.
What I see hear with this “house church†is an unstructured, part bull session part therapy group. I also find laughable these people can find the effort to get tout to go to church. I say this not to brag but it important for me to go to church. I am unemployed and cannot afford gas to drive to church. I face a one-hour train / bus ride in each direction (it would have been two hours before voting to leave the Episcopal Church) Church is where we as a congregation go to humbly meet, listen to, and worship God in word and sacrament, not a place for self-centered and subjective experiences.
#8 — Surely you’re being ironic? The groups I mentioned have sex with children and will defend that practice. I know that to disgruntled Anglicans, nothing can be worse than their issues but truly there is worse. MUCH worse.
How any Anglican could prefer a house church such as those described in the article to regular corporate worship with priest and BCP, is beyond me. I have long taken part in home groups for weekly Bible study and mutual support and accountability and it’s wonderful. That said, it can in no way take the place of corporate Prayer Book worship and the Holy Eucharist presided over by a faithful priest. Apples and oranges.