From FotF's Pastor's Weekly Breifing
Analyst George Barna, founder of The Barna Group, says millions of Americans are breaking from traditional church settings and choosing to attend a home church. These Christians, he remarks, want to "be" the church, not just attend church and are seeking greater depth in relationships and more commitment to spirituality.
Barna, who became a home-churcher last year, estimates that, since 2000, more than 20 million Americans have begun exploring alternative forms of worship, including home churches, workplace ministries and online faith communities. Although many Christians still participate in their old churches while trying out a new one, Barna predicts that over the next two decades, traditional churches will lose half their "market share" to these alternative start-ups.
The Orlando-based Dawn Ministries, however, places the number of home churches in the United States in the tens of thousands, based partly on the size of online directories and attendance at home-church conferences. These churches are usually nondenominational and consist of a dozen or so friends or family members who often meet without an ordained pastor. Dawn Ministries has about 2,000 volunteers working in about 150 countries. Over the past year, the organization has increased the number of coaches working in North America from about five to 70, mostly in the Midwest, California, Texas and Colorado.
Greg Windsor, real estate developer and former megachurch member, says that "the person sitting next to you in the pew could be close to dying, but people don't really know one another." By abandoning the steeple, the pastor and the crowds of people, Windsor said, his tiny home church congregation is trying to live according to the New Testament. "A lot of embellishments happened over the centuries." The modern Christian church is "like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy ... it starts getting distorted and changed."
Critics of the home-church movement warn that, by meeting only in small groups with lay leaders, Christians could become disconnected and stray from orthodox beliefs. "We human beings are prone to error; we need each other," said Scott Kisker, an associate professor of evangelism at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. Even the early home-based churches, he said, were connected through the apostles and "many books of the New Testament are letters from the apostles calling churches to more faithful doctrine."
But, George Barna acknowledges the challenges. "You've got the possibilities of bad teaching and errant theology creeping into the process, but we already have that happening in churches today. So we're going to have a lot of the same challenges that we've always had — it's just an issue of who's going to resolve them."
Related Tags: Home Church, Focus on the Family, James Dobson, George Barna, Barna, Pastor, Cell Church, Barna Group, Christian, American Church, USA, Bible, Jesus, God, Gospel, Christ, Dawn Ministries, Greg Windsor, Scott Kisker, Wesley Theological Seminary, New Testament, New Testament Church
6 comments:
Like it says in your post, unorthodoxy is already rampant in the Church. While I very much like this idea and feel somewhat disillusioned with larger, "traditional" church congregations, my concern is what this will do to the organized funding of missionaries and other programs that benefit from the financial power that larger churches can amass because of their size and economies of scale.
W.E.M.,
I hear what you are saying, and don't disagree (to a point). At my seminary we have a professor (Thorston Moritz) who is as strong of a proponent of cell/house church model as you will find. He would claim that because of the lack of brick and mortar, as well as the lack of other overhead related items (staff etc.) that house churches can give more than can large churches. A house church can give 40% to missions if it wants to, and some give more. Few larger churches can give like that. Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis probably gives the most to missions (percentage wise) of their budget of any large church that I am aware of. Bethlehem give sacrificially to missions, and I know they are feeling a real pinch at the moment with some budgetary shortfalls as a church.
With that said, the house church model does not serve everyone equally well. It's a great system for young people before they start families, or empty nester types. I feel it is far less effective in serving the whole family (though Dr. Moritz would heartily disagree) when there are children of different ages in the "church".
But without a doubt there is an important place in God's plans for house churches. Millions of Chinese meet in house churches (the vast majority of Christians in China).
I wrote a paper on the Acts church model last semester (May), so this is all pretty fresh in my mind. While my conclusions did not support the Acts church as being a means of advocation for cell/house church models only, it is clearly a Biblical option.
Big Chris
Very good point about the overhead.
Thanks for stopping by David. I agree that we need to encourage all models to reach people for Christ.
Big Chris
I planted a house church in rural Michigan nearly twenty years ago. They are still going strong and giving 50% of their income to world missions!
However, as someone who is presently serving as a missionary in the United Kingdom, supported by more traditional churches in America, I agree with the challenges this may raise, not only for me but for others who could not serve in this way if it were not for the support of larger churches.
Blessings,
Bill
Thanks for stopping in Bill! I pray that your missionary work is enormously fruitful. As I said, potentially house churches have opportunities to be the largest supporters of missions on a percentage basis. But for whatever reason that doesn't often happen. When it does happen they need to partner together with someone, frequently other like minded house churches, to pool their resources to be more efficient and effective in their giving. I am part of the Baptist General Conference, and in large part this is the way most of the conference works just on a larger scale. Most of the churches cannot oversee their own missionaries. They instead pool together and use their resources and talents collectively. I see this as being good stewards.
Big Chris
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