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We could not go any further without giving all the Honor, Glory and Praise to our Heavenly Father for placing Christ-honoring information in our hands to help us to grow in Him. One such tool the Lord has used to feed us is the preaching of Brother James W. Knox of DeLand, Florida.
To learn more about the Lord's Work there in DeLand
http://www.jamesknox.com
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Prayer is an essential part of our walk with the Lord, our fellowship with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, and doing our part to build up, burden-bear, edify and encourage each other in Him. We would like to be able to petition the Lord on your behalf and know that you too are praying for us. To leave your prayer request so that others will be praying for you as well, please go to:
http://www.ourchurch.com/member/p/Painprayerchain
This is not only a place where you make your need known for others to be praying for you, but its a place where you can read the prayer needs of others and be praying for them as well.
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To aid you in your Home Church set up, if you have someone who plays the guitar to help with the song time, here are a couple of sites that have helped us so very much. You can find the chords and lyrics for hymns or praise and worship songs.
http://www.virtu-software.com/projecthymnbook
http://www.christianmedianetwork.com
http://www.homewithgod.com/heavenlymidis/hymns.html
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HOUSE CHURCH NETWORK
Here is a site that we found that actually shows you around the country some of the Home Fellowships that are meeting and where. You are able to email each one, and "fellowship" online!
http://www.housechurch.org
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House Churches Are More Satisfying to Attenders Than Are Conventional Churches.
January 8, 2007
(Ventura, CA) - With the growth of house churches across the country, a new study by The Barna Group sheds light on how these independent, non-denominational churches operate.
Levels of Satisfaction
Perhaps the most compelling insight from the national study was an evaluation of the levels of satisfaction of those who attend a house church compared with the views of adults who attend a conventional local church. Four aspects of people's church experience were gauged. Overall, people attending a house church were significantly more likely to be "completely satisfied" with their experience in each of the four dimensions examined.
Two-thirds of house church attenders (68%) were "completely satisfied" with the leadership of their church, compared to only half of those attending a conventional church (49%).
Two-thirds of the house church adherents (66%) were "completely satisfied" with the faith commitment of the people involved in their gathering. In contrast, only four out of ten people attending a conventional church (40%) were similarly satisfied with the faith commitment of the people in their congregation.
Three out of five house church adults (61%) were "completely satisfied" with the level of community and personal connectedness they experience, compared to only two out of five adults who are involved in a conventional church (41%).
A majority of those in a house (59%) said they were "completely satisfied" with the spiritual depth they experience in their house church setting. In contrast, a minority of the adults involved in a conventional church were "completely satisfied" (46%).
The Nature of the Gatherings
The nationwide research also provided a unique profile of what takes place in the typical house church, and who is involved.
Most house churches (80%) meet every week, while 11% meet on a monthly basis. The most common meeting days are Wednesday (27%) and Sunday (25%), while one out of every five (20%) varies the days of the week on which they meet.
The typical house church gathering lasts for about two hours. Only 7% meet for less than an hour, on average, while only 9% usually stay together for more than three hours at a time.
While most conventional churches follow the same format week after week, four of every ten house churches (38%) say that the format they follow varies from meeting to meeting. The proportion of home gatherings that typically engage in spiritual practices include:
93% have spoken prayer during their meetings
90% read from the Bible
89% spend time serving people outside of their group
87% devote time to sharing personal needs or experiences
85% spend time eating and talking before or after the meeting
83% discuss the teaching provided
76% have a formal teaching time
70% incorporate music or singing
58% have a prophecy or special word delivered
52% take an offering from participants that is given to ministries
51% share communion
41% watch a video presentation as part of the learning experience
Most house churches are family-oriented. Two out of every three house churches (64%) have children involved. Those churches are divided evenly between those who have the adults and children together throughout the meeting (41%) and those who keep them separated (38%). The remaining churches divide their time between having everyone together and having time when the children and adults are separated.
The Participants
The average size of a house church is 20 people; in the home churches that include children, there is an average of about seven children under the age of 18 involved. The rapid growth in house church activity is evident in the fact that half of the people (54%) currently engaged in an independent home fellowship have been participating for less than three months. In total, three out of every four house church participants (75%) have been active in their current gathering for a year or less. One out of every five adults has been in their house church for three years or more.
The research found that there are two types of people being attracted to house churches. The older participants, largely drawn from the Boomer population, are devout Christians who are seeking a deeper and more intense experience with God and other believers. The other substantial segment is young adults who are interested in faith and spirituality but have little interest in the traditional forms of church. Their quest is largely one of escaping outdated structures and institutions.
Still in Process
The survey also indicated that there is likely to be more change in the house church environment in the years to come. The ideas of worshipping in homes rather than church buildings, and being led by group members rather than religious professionals, are new to most Americans. The survey suggested that many people are just beginning to think about, and get comfortable with, the idea of homes being the dominant place for shared faith experiences.
Currently, just four out of every ten regular house church attenders (42%) rely exclusively upon a house church as their primary "church" experience. Many of the others - including a large proportion that has been involved for just a few months - are checking out the approach before they shift their allegiance from a conventional to a house church - if they make the shift at all.
Another indication of the nascent state of the house church movement in the U.S. is people’s perception regarding the biblical grounds for meeting in homes. Among adults who consider themselves to be Christian and who do not attend a house church, six out of ten (57%) believe that attending a house church instead of a conventional church satisfies the biblical command to be part of a spiritual community that follows Jesus Christ. Overall, just one out of five conventionally-churched adults (19%) dismissed the house church approach as unbiblical.
Changing the Church
George Barna, who directed the study, said that the results indicate that the biggest obstacle to the growth of the house church movement is not theological but cultural.
"Americans are emotionally open to belonging to a house church, and surprisingly few have any real objections to others joining such a community of faith," explained the author of three-dozen books on faith in America. "But the main deterrent to house church growth is that most people are spiritually complacent; they are not looking to upgrade their spiritual experience. Compared to conventional church attenders, house church adherents are much more likely to say that they have experienced faith-driven transformation, to prioritize their relationship with God, and to desire a more fulfilling community of faith.
"Those who attend a conventional church are generally content to show up and accept whatever their church has on the agenda; they place the responsibility for their spiritual growth on the shoulders of the church," according to Barna. "We found that most conventional church goers have no desire to help improve their congregation’s ministry, nor do they feel a need to increase their personal spiritual responsibility.
"On the other hand," he continued, "the intimacy and shared responsibility found in most house churches requires each participant to be more serious about their faith development. Clearly, the house church experience is not for everyone."
Research Details
The data in this report are from a pair of national surveys conducted by The Barna Group with a random sample of adults, age 18 and older, conducted in August and October 2006. In total, 2008 adults were interviewed. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample is ±2.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Statistical weighting was used to calibrate the aggregate sample to known population percentages in relation to demographic variables.
In these surveys, a house church was described as "a group of believers that meets regularly in a home or place other than a church building. These groups are not part of a typical church; they meet independently, are self-governed and consider themselves to be a complete church on their own... (They are) sometimes known as a house church or simple church, (and are) not associated in any way with a local, congregational type of church."
The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) conducts primary research, produces media resources pertaining to spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website www.barna.org
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House Church Involvement Is Growing
June 19, 2006
(Ventura, CA) - Americans are increasingly designing their lifestyles in ways that meet their needs more efficiently. This is true even in the spiritual realm, as evidenced by the rapid growth of participation in house churches across the nation. Whereas most people continue to think of "going to church" as attending a service at one of the many church buildings located throughout their community, a new study from The Barna Group shows that millions of adults are trying out new forms of spiritual community and worship, with many abandoning the traditional forms altogether.
Large Numbers Attend
The new study, based on interviews with more than five thousand randomly selected adults from across the nation, found that 9% of adults attend a house church during a typical week. That is remarkable growth in the past decade, shooting up from just 1% to near double-digit involvement. In total, one out of five adults attends a house church at least once a month.
Projecting these figures to the national population gives an estimate of more than 70 million adults who have at least experimented with house church participation. In a typical week roughly 20 million adults attend a house church gathering. Over the course of a typical month, that number doubles to about 43 million adults.
While many religious professionals say they are unaware of such activity, it might be because the house church is in its "ramp up" phase in the U.S. One consequence is that millions of Americans are intermittently engaged in a house church, alternating back and forth between house church and conventional church. (For clarity, the survey distinguished between involvement in a house church and participation in a small group that is associated with a conventional church.) The Barna survey revealed that of those who attend a house church, 27% attend on a weekly basis, 30% attend one to three times per month, and 43% attend less than once a month.
One Foot in Each Camp
The study also discovered that church attendance patterns are being reshaped. Among those who attend a church of some type, 74% attend only a conventional church while just 5% attend only a house church. Another one-fifth (19%) attend both a house church and a conventional church. (The other 2% attend a small group that was not considered to be a house church.)
The people most likely to attend only a conventional church were women, people 60 or older, residents of the Midwest, and evangelicals. In contrast, the people most likely to attend a house church but not a conventional church were men, home-school families, residents of the West, and non-whites.
The Impact of the House Church
The study was directed by George Barna, whose current best-selling book, entitled Revolution, estimates that this trend will continue over the next two decades, substantially reducing the share of adults who call a conventional church their primary spiritual community.
“The house church now appears to have reached ‘critical mass’ in the United States," commented Barna. "Analysts typically find that once a new tool or institution reaches 15% market penetration, and has evidenced a consistent or growing level of affirmation for at least six years, that entity shifts from fad to trend status. At that point, it becomes a permanent fixture in our society. Today, house churches are moving from the appraisal phase into the acceptance phase. We anticipate house church attendance during any given week to double in the coming decade, and a growing proportion of house church attenders to adopt the house church as their primary faith community. That continued growth and public awareness will firmly establish the house church as a significant means of faith experience and expression among Americans."
To read more about alternative forms of spiritual experience and expression, such as the house church, see George Barna’s book, Revolution.
For more information click here
Barna noted that this change is already reorienting the nation’s faith dimension. "By necessity, the transition from a nation exclusively offering a conventional church experience to one that offers a choice between conventional church and other forms of spiritual experience is changing the rules and roles. New leaders are emerging to represent and guide house churches -people whose names are unfamiliar to the bulk of the country, but whose ministries will become more mainstream and well-known as time goes on. A new body of spiritual resources is being developed and utilized by the expanding house church community. House church adherents make greater use of Christian radio, Christian books and online faith experiences than do people engaged solely in a conventional church. In addition, new patterns of faith participation are being implemented. The traditional ways of thinking about and experiencing ‘church’ are rapidly being revolutionized by a form of ‘religious choice’ in which people are taking greater personal responsibility for their spiritual experience and development."
Research Details
The data in this report are based on interviews with 5013 adults from across the nation. The Barna Group conducted this study through the use of telephone surveys, implemented from January 2005 through May 2006, based upon a random sample of people 18 years of age and older living within the 48 continental states. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample of adults is ±1.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. In the research, the distribution of survey respondents corresponded to the geographic dispersion of the U.S. population. Multiple callbacks were used to increase the probability of including a reliable distribution of qualified individuals. Statistical weighting was used to calibrate the aggregate sample to known population percentages. The number of adults in key subgroups, before statistical weighting, included 446 evangelicals, 2343 born again Christians, 663 blacks, 631 Hispanics, 1608 conservatives and 676 liberals.
“Born again Christians" are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as "born again."
“Evangelicals" meet the born again criteria (described above) plus seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "evangelical."
The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) is a privately held, for-profit corporation that conducts primary research, produces media resources pertaining to spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website www.barna.org © The Barna Group, Ltd, 2006.
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1 in 5 ADULTS ATTEND HOUSE CHURCH: According To First Hard Statistics.
By Hannah Elliott
Published July 6, 2006
DALLAS (ABP) -- For the first time, advocates of the house-church movement in America have solid facts to back up their enthusiasm -- and those stats are shocking: Perhaps one in five American adults attends a house church at least once a month.
While attendees themselves have long said that an increasing number of Americans are moving from First Baptist on Main Street to living-room congregations, the very nature of home churches -- decentralized, undocumented and unadvertised -- has made them difficult to study. Until now.
In a June 19 report from the Barna Group, evangelical researcher George Barna said 70 million Americans regularly attend or have “experimented with” a house church. That’s an increase of 8 percent since 1996, the report said. Moreover, the movement is taking on evidence of permanence, he said.
“The traditional ways of thinking about and experiencing ‘church’ are rapidly being revolutionized by a form of ‘religious choice,’ in which people are taking greater personal responsibility for their spiritual experience and development,” Barna said in the report.
“Today, house churches are moving from the appraisal phase into the acceptance phase. We anticipate house-church attendance during any given week to double in the coming decade and a growing proportion of house-church attenders to adopt the house church as their primary faith community.”
Furthermore, the study noted, more than 20 million adults attend services in home churches each week. Over the course of a month, that number rose to 43 million. Findings were based on a year of research that included phone interviews with more than 5,000 adults nationwide.
House churches -- also known as “organic churches,” “home groups” or “mosaics” -- tend to be decentralized in structure, committed to forming in-depth relationships and patterned after first-century Christian fellowship -- before church institutions, bureaucracies and denominations emerged.
Some emphasize spiritual experience over rational analysis, while others are led by ordained pastors with seminary degrees. Most are nondenominational and include roughly 20 people, kids included.
Although it has come into its own in America during the past decade, the house-church model of faith community is nothing new. During the 1970s, the United Kingdom experienced a rapid proliferation of house churches that later conglomerated into larger, more traditional church bodies. And in communist countries like China, Christians have used an underground home-church model for years. Experts estimate that 80 million Chinese Christians gather in homes each week.
Of course, for early Christians, home church was the only church. The original Christian churches depicted in the New Testament were small gatherings led by followers of Jesus.
Tony Dale, an Austin, Texas, physician and founder of House2House, a home-church network, said the New Testament teaching of Jesus is the very thing on which house churches depend. Jesus was the “antithesis” of modern church leadership, Dale said, in that he had no social position, no backing and no seminary degree. Jesus simply had “a darn good relationship with his Father,” Dale said.
New Testament Christian leaders were distinguished not by their seminary degrees but by showing kindness, he added.
Dale and his wife, Felicity, came to the United States from the United Kingdom in 1987. They got involved in house churches after their traditional church changed locations and their pastor encouraged them to begin a more organic movement.
House2House, a result of that move, encourages and supports home churches with a magazine, newsletters, books and a website. Dale is an unpaid member of the House2House board of directors. Felicity’s latest book, An Army of Ordinary People, was published in 2005. Together they host conferences and training seminars about home churches.
They also start churches in the Austin area and then “leave as quickly as possible.”
After they started leading home churches, Tony Dale said, he noticed certain intangibles in the smaller, more intimate format had faded away unnoticed as his “legacy” church grew. For him and many others, it’s the subtle things -- like a spirit of community and the participation of everyone, regardless of station or age -- that make the difference.
“Being a Christian has become a series of events,” Dale told Associated Baptist Press. “Christianity has nothing to do with meetings; it’s about how we live. Jesus came that we might have life, not meetings.”
Dale’s sentiment echoes what other home-church proponents have said -- that the church model of the New Testament is a far cry from the traditional churches most American Christians attend today.
David Anderson, a former Presbyterian minister, said he had the same inclination when he “began to feel increasingly uneasy about the format of our services and the leadership structures, when compared to Scriptures.” Anderson said the meeting of believers in 1 Corinthians was “participatory” in that several people spoke and others were encouraged to “judge the message. We were not doing that.”
Anderson runs the House Church Network and its website, housechurch.org, which serves as a directory and information board for other house churches. The site, which lists 1,193 house churches nationwide, started in 1992.
The 53-year-old father of six sees “many advantages to a plurality of elders all equal in their responsibilities.”
Anderson said his favorite part of the house-church model is its spontaneity in everything from teaching to the food people often bring to share after services. For the past 15 years, he has belonged to the same house church, which meets at a different house every Sunday.
“The appeal is joy of ministry [and] serving others in Jesus' name,” Anderson told ABP. “The appeal is that the form fits the function -- function being the exercise of the [spiritual] gifts, equipping, ministry and priesthood of every saint.”
While methods differ from church to church, most house churches take the “priesthood of every saint” mandate seriously, allowing children to suggest worship songs and read from the Bible. In Anderson’s group, children stay with adults during the whole meeting, and all people participate in discussions of the text.
In most house churches, offerings go completely and directly to outreach and charity work, since meeting in homes translates into almost no operating costs. Often, house-church communion involves eating a full meal together, and baptisms happen in bathtubs, rivers and -- in Dale’s case -- a Jacuzzi.
The sacrament of baptism reveals another important tenet to the house church, one which some critics attack as a shortcoming -- the absence of a single position of authority. In Dale’s group, for instance, whoever leads a convert to faith performs the baptism for the new believer. Sometimes that freedom means a two-day-old Christian baptizes another new Christian.
And with no pastor, house churches can fall victim to one dominating participant. As Anderson said, “The blessings of intimacy in a small group can actually become a curse if love doesn't prevail at all times.”
An absence of leadership also concerns some who fear small groups of people could gradually depart from biblical truth and sound theology.
Jim West, pastor of Petros Baptist Church in Petros, Tenn., recently railed against house churches on his blog, petrosbaptistchurch.blogspot.com. West, who received degrees from Andersonville Baptist Seminary and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, deplores house churches because they involve “untrained persons doing a job they have no skills for.”
“If there's no sermon, then where's the proclamation of God's Word?” West wrote. “Frankly, one's feelings are not a very good indicator of the will of God. When emotionalism dries up and one is left with no more excited feeling, where will those who depend on that emotionalism turn?”
Resentment for past wrongs or hurt feelings from the institutional church drive some proponents of the home-church movement to seclude themselves, West said. Bitterness is not exactly the best thing on which to build a church, he said.
However, many home-church proponents say God and the Bible are the only sources of authority necessary for church to happen. Movements that remain simple and “lay-led” will be better able to focus on the Bible, the thinking goes.
Home-group leaders also claim that, historically, heresy emerges as leadership becomes more formal, not when it springs from the grass roots.
Perhaps the greatest weakness a home church faces, Dale suggested, is the tendency to “turn in on itself.” House-church leaders must use their influence for “strong evangelistic” growth, he said. They must also watch for potentially manipulative personalities and lack of love in their midst, he said.
“There are lots of negatives" about house churches, Dale said, noting that “flaky” leadership and negativity can also hamper growth. But he added: “To be honest, that’s true in traditional churches as well. What we do see is that the Holy Spirit seems to be orchestrating some fascinating checks and balances [in the house-church model].”
Both supporters and critics agree home churches are growing in the United States. According to the report, the people most likely to attend a house church are men, home-school families, residents of the West and minorities. Dale said Barna’s report also demonstrates the house-church movement is growing more diverse.
“It’s almost inconceivable to me that almost 9 percent of the population last week attended a home church,” Dale said. “This is huge. It’s obviously involving every type of background.”
More important perhaps, Barna says the growth is here to stay. When a movement maintains 15 percent market penetration for at least six years, Barna said, it qualifies as a cultural trend. If his estimates for monthly participation are accurate, house churches have reached that plateau. At that point, it becomes a permanent fixture in society, the report said.
No matter the roots or outcome of the trend, many house-church attendees say they bear no animosity toward the traditional churches they left behind. They look to them as a source of history and a foundation that can complement the trend.
“I am honored to be among Christians at any place or any time,” Anderson said. “I wish the home-church movement could be an influence for true unity. The church should return to apostolic hospitality, which means that where Christians are, other Christians are welcome too.”
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HOME CHURCHES GROWING INCREASINGLY POPULAR AS WORSHIP ALTERNATIVE.
Agape Press
By Natalie Harris
(AgapePress) - Church and culture analyst George Barna, founder of The Barna Group, says millions of Christians are leaving conventional churches to meet in homes. According to the researcher, about 50 million American adults meet in home churches at least once a month, and the numbers choosing this option are on the increase.
Barna says home churches are a growing trend among Christians who want to "be" the church, not just attend church. Many who join such groups do so, he explains, because they are seeking greater depth in relationships and more commitment to spirituality than they may have found in traditional church settings.
Home churches often do not have traditional settings and can vary, depending on what the members contribute from week to week or what they feel led to discuss and pray about at any given time. Barna himself started attending a home church a year ago, and he admits that this style of fellowship can have its weaknesses.
"There are some challenges, of course," the Christian researcher says. "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."
Barna predicts that the home-church movement will continue to grow. He also predicts this increasingly popular alternative to traditional churches will prompt many Christians to take their faith more seriously and to avoid depending on clergy for spiritual growth.
Leaders Who Left Traditional Churches: Why They Chose to Go 'Home'
South Carolina home-church leader Doug Shales vows he will never go back to traditional church, which he left more than a year ago to start meeting with about 20 other believers of a variety of ages and church backgrounds. Every Sunday evening, they meet in his home to eat, worship, pray, and teach one another from the Bible. There is no preacher and no structured format for the group's services.
Shales says he left the traditional church because he felt its structure was contrary to the model he found in scripture. "To me, I just could not reconcile it at all with anything biblical to just have three or four people ministering to three or four hundred, and having the spiritual life of those three or four hundred pretty much hanging on what those three or four people give them," he says.
"It's just not the way that I understand the Holy Spirit wants to work in our lives," the home-church leader says. So, instead, he and the other members of his small congregation seek understanding, mutual accountability, and spiritual growth together.
Shale says most problems faced by the home church are logistical. For instance, he notes, members have to consider issues such as how to give and how to grow new churches. But in many ways, he notes, the size of these congregations can contribute to a more intimate style of problem-solving that involves everyone.
Author and former pastor, Rev. Chip Brogden, a home-church leader in North Carolina, considers home churches a necessary part of the Christian community. He believes this style of Christian fellowship is filling some of the gaps left by traditional churches.
Brogden says home churches can be a place for those who have been hurt by the traditional church or for those who do not want to be distracted from Christ by a complex church structure. But he cautions Christians not to differentiate themselves from one another based on what kind of structure they choose for their worship and association with fellow believers.
"Whether they're in the church building or outside of the church building, we're all still brothers and sisters," the North Carolina minister says. "We're just going about the life of Christ and how we see the life of the body of Christ differently from the more traditional way of going about it."
Home churches allow Christians to see the body of Christ as more than just a local fellowship, Brogden says. Also, he adds, such churches give members the chance to gather with believers of different denominational backgrounds from their own.
Obviously, home churches serve a function that their members consider desirable and perhaps vital to their spiritual nourishment and well being. And if many believers who have chosen to leave traditional churches for what this alternative has to offer are any indication, the home-church trend has already begun to change the face of contemporary Christianity.
Natalie Harris, a contributor to AgapePress, is a summer intern/reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
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DEC. 18, 2006
BELIEF & PRACTICE
House churches gain ground
More Americans are choosing to worship in small, informal gatherings instead of attending traditional churches. Called “house churches,” “simple churches” or “organic churches,” they are a modern attempt to recapture the spirit of the first-century church, when small groups of Christians gathered in each other’s homes and each person – male or female – contributed to worship. Today’s house churches are generally regular gatherings of fewer than 20 people meeting in a member’s home, or sometimes a local theater or bar during off hours. They are peer-led and have at least one belief in common: Where two or more are gathered in his name, there is church.
While house churches have long been a part of the underground worship scene in countries without freedom of religion, their numbers appear to be growing in the United States. By how much, it’s not clear. A June 2006 Barna Report says that in a typical week, 9 percent of U.S. adults attend house churches – up from one percent in 1996 – and that 70 million U.S. adults have had some experience with a house church. Some say that’s too high, but worship attendance has always been difficult to count, and the informal nature of house churches makes it even harder.
House churches have plenty of critics. Some worry that without denominational oversight, they are fertile grounds for spiritual or sexual abuse. Others question their theology because they have no trained clergy. And some say that as house church networks develop, they are maturing into the same type of institutional religion that they say they are rejecting.
Why it matters
House churches are a part of the post-modern trend in Christian worship that is marked by the breaking down and re-imagining of traditional forms of worship. The house church movement – and the broader emerging church movement – has the potential to reshape the mainstream way of doing church.
Questions for reporters
Why is the house church movement growing? What attracts people to house churches? What is the response of leaders of traditional churches to house churches? What kind of internal structures do house church members construct to protect themselves? What does the future of the house church movement look like?
Jump to background
HOUSE/SIMPLE CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS ON THE WEB
• Church Multiplication Associates will host its first Organic Church Movement Conference in Long Beach, Calif., in January 2007.
• Dawn Ministries is a nonprofit group working to plant house churches around the world.
• The Early Church maintains a state-by-state list of house churches.
• House2House is a webzine about the house church/simple church movement.
• House Church Central is an online resource for those who run and worship in house churches. It maintains a worldwide directory of house churches that can be searched by city, state and county. Contact Herb Drake, hdrake@hccentral.com.
• House-Church.org is the Web site of the Chigwell Christian Fellowship, a network of house churches in Essex, England. Deleted: an English house church group that The network holds workshops on house churches in the United States.
• House Church Dot Org is the Web site of the Home Church Discussion List. Contact talk2ccf@hotmail.com.
• House Church Network Association is a Web site that supports the planting of house churches in North America. Contact info@hcna.org.
• The House Church Network is a resource for house churches operated by David and Carolynn Anderson in Bristol, Tenn. Contact 423- 538-7897, contact@housechurch.org.
• The New Testament Restoration Foundation seeks to restore first-century house church practices with the Bible as sole religious authority. It maintains a state-by-state list of house churches. Contact Stephen Atkerson, 404-351-6340, nt_restoration_foundation@juno.com.
• The Rebuilders is a resource ministry for planting first-century-style worship in home churches. It is run by Milt Rodriguez and is based in Cedaredge, Colo. Contact 970-856-6492, admin@therebuilders.org.
• Relational Christianity is dedicated to the planting and support of house churches.
Click the map for interview sources
in your state and region
National sources
• George Barna is the author of Revolution: Finding Vibrant Faith Beyond the Walls of the Sanctuary (Tyndale, 2005). He is also the founder of The Barna Group, a polling organization that focuses on American religion. It is based in Ventura, Calif. Contact 805-639-0000.
• Bill Tenny-Brittian writes for the House Church Network Association. He says people say they join house churches for reasons of intimacy, the ability to participate more fully and the level of discipleship opportunities. Contact bill@hcna.us.
• Paul and Lori Byerly publish House2House, a webzine for home church planters and members. They also conduct seminars and workshops on home churches. They are based in Manchaca, Texas. Contact 512-282-2322.
• Neil Cole is a church starter and pastor, and founder and executive director of Church Multiplication Associates, which has helped start more than 700 churches in 32 states and 23 nations. He is the author of Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens (Jossey-Bass, 2005). He describes how to plant churches in nontraditional places – bars, neighborhoods, etc. Contact neilcole@aol.com.
• Tony and Felicity Dale are the authors of Simply Church (Karis Publishing, 2002). Both the Dales helped launch House2House.com, a support network for house churches. Tony agrees with George Barna’s theory that the current move toward house churches is a “third reformation” of Christianity. The Dales live in Austin, Texas. Contact 512-828-8124, tdale@thekarisgroup.com.
• Robert Fitts is a church planter and author of The Church in the House: A Return to Simplicity (Preparing the Way Publishers, 2001). He lives in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. Contact 808-334-9682, robertjoni@aol.com.
• Dan Hubbell is a member of a house church in Winnsboro, Texas, near Dallas. He also runs a house church support Web site called Church Restoration and has helped plant house churches in the U.S. and four foreign countries, including China. He says China is currently experiencing the largest boom in house churches, with more than 100 million people meeting in house churches. Contact 903-629-7347, hubhouse@quik.com.
• Wayne Jacobsen is the founder of Lifestream Ministries, an organization dedicated to “relational Christianity,” including house churches. He contributes to Relational Christianity, a Web site that supports house churches. He is based in Moorpark, Calif. Contact 805-529-1728, waynej@lifestream.org.
• Todd Johnson is director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. He wrote an article on house churches for the Encyclopedia of Protestantism (Routledge, 2003). Contact 978-468-2750, tjohnson@gcts.edu.
• D. Allan Karr is director of the Nehemiah Project in church planting, a joint venture of the North American Mission Board and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, where he is an associate professor of church planting. He lives in Denver. He told Time magazine that he estimates that three out of 10 churches founded today are simple churches and that their odds of survival are better than for the other seven. Contact 303-779-6431, akarr@cbcg.org.
• Dan Mayhew is the editor of Church@Home Newsletter and a member of Summit Fellowships, a support network of house churches in Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash. He foresees a stream of house churches that will mimic the traditional approach to church by becoming centralized and market-driven, and he predicts a “new set of Christian celebrities” that will come out of house churches. He is based in Portland, Ore., and writes a blog. Contact 503-287-6905, info@summithome.org.
• Brian McLaren is a well-known expert on post-modern Christianity. He has helped plant churches. In 2008, he will lead regional workshops called Deep Shift 2008 aimed at church planters and worship leaders. Contact through Kelly Hughes, 312-280-8126, kelly@dechanthughes.com.
• Frank Viola is the founder of Present Testimony Ministry and the author of several books on house churches. He lives in Gainesville, Fla. Contact Violabooks@aol.com.
• John White is the U.S. coordinator of Dawn Ministries, a group that supports house churches and house church networks. He and his wife attend a house church in Denver that has about 15 members and that considers itself evangelical. Contact DenverWH@aol.com.
• L. Michael White is a professor in classics and religious studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins. He is an expert on house churches in the first century. Contact 512-232-1438, lmwhite@mail.utexas.edu.
Background
• A Barna Report survey released Jan. 8, 2007 found that people say they find house churches more satisfying than traditional churches in four major areas: leadership, faith commitment, personal and community connectedness, and spiritual depth.
• House Church Dot Org maintains a list of New Testament Scripture in which the word “house” appears.
• Read a Feb. 27, 2006, Time magazine article about house churches.
• Read an Oct. 5, 2006, article in the South Bend Tribune about house churches. It’s posted by the webzine Relational Christianity.
• Voices in the Wilderness is a magazine that was published in the late 1980s and early 1990s by a group of people from Salem Community Church, Salem, Mass. It was intended to support home churches and intentional communities.
• Read the Barna Report that shows that 9 percent of Americans attend house churches.
• See an April 10, 2006, ReligionLink issue on the emergent church movement.
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The EPIDEMIC AMONG US
by Terry Stanley
The family unit is where the strength of the church is maintained. When there are break downs at the level of the family, there is a breakdown in the church.
There is a sickness that has become so common in our families that it has become an accepted epidemic. It is an unseen and unnoticed plague that is destroying the very strength of the church. It is a vast and ever spreading plague in our modern society. This plague infects the husbands, the wives and the children. And the worst part is that the traditional church system offers a false remedy for this sickness and allows it to go unhealed and largely unnoticed in our families. Therefore this virus continues to infect and to spread, potentially sweeping into every household in every city and every village on this planet.
What is this virus that has taken so many captive? What is this debilitating disease that cripples most households among us?
It is men not being men.
It is women not respecting their husbands.
It is children not respecting and trusting their fathers.
And the traditional religious system offers its counterfeit replacement.
The counterfeit intensifies the infection at the family level. The counterfeit legitimizes the disease and allows it to continue undealt with and unhealed among us.
The apostle Paul told the Corinthians in I Cor. 11 to follow in his example as he followed Christ. Immediately after he spoke this, he said “but, the head of every man is Christ, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” (I Cor. 11:3) He said this to say that even though I am encouraging you to follow me, Christ is your head. (this passage is not to be used for a fleshly independence among men in the church. Brothers are not to have a fleshly independence of just doing their own thing with out an attempt to be of one mind and move together in unity I Cor. 1:10).
The scripture shows us the proper order of things. Paul was not any man’s head. Paul was not any woman’s head.
We also see other passages that support and shed light on this (Eph 5:33, I Tim. 3:4,5, 1 Cor. 16:13, Eph 5:22,23)
Every man is to provide leadership and shepherding to his own household. Every man is to be teaching his family the Bible, pulling them together for prayer, speaking into the lives of his wife and children. Every man is to provide shepherding and leadership in every way to his family, physical and spiritual. Every man should be honorable and live a respectable life. Men are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church and the women are commanded to respect their husbands.
When you live with someone, you get to know them. You get to see all of their weaknesses. Women in the church don’t live with the pastor and don’t tend to see his weaknesses like they do their own husbands. Besides the fact that the position a pastor holds doesn’t allow him to be just a regular man like everyone else. When the wife of a man lives with him and sees her husband’s weaknesses, she is tempted to not respect him. Not so with the pastor. He speaks into the lives of families without confessing his sin to them on a regular basis. He doesn’t blow up at the family and throw a temper tantrum and then get to humble himself and apologize. No, he has an image of holiness to uphold. He is a righteous man and is to be respected. Why are families on their best behavior when the pastor comes over to their house? Because we believe he is in a different class than the rest of us, and often these men play the part.
Many times women respect the pastor more than they do their own husbands. This is not healthy. Many times, subtly and sometimes even overtly, the woman leads the household. She also can lead the husband and the children to be enamored by the pastor. The pastor begins to have a place in the household that only the father should have. This is a subtle thing in the hearts of the women, in the hearts of the men and in the hearts of the children.
The men lack confidence, are too passive to lead and would much rather have another man do it for them. They are quite content to let another man stand up before their wives week after week and provide them with instruction and answers for their lives. The pastor is speaking more into their lives and hearts than their husband is. The woman take it right in. The men are so docile and so sickly passive that they follow another man and allow another man to lead their wives.
We’ve exchanged the authority structure in the scripture of:
Christ
Husbands
Wives
For the more common authority structure of:
Christ
Pastors
Wives
Husbands
Or even the erroneous:
Christ
Pastors
Husbands
Wives
People are crying out and begging for leadership.
But it is the man of every household who is to provide this leadership.
When one man stands before you week after week after week and speaks with authority into your life, it does something inside you. It affects your heart. Our hearts were made to follow. Our hearts were created to trust. When you spend very much time at all listening to one man speak, he gets in you. You begin to trust him a little. You begin to follow him a little.
I am well aware that many of you have your concepts all straight. “I don’t worship my pastor”. “I would never follow a man.” But I am telling you that in many, and I mean MANY, in your heart, not your head, in your heart the pastor has power with you. He has an authority in your life.
There is a place that we can give someone in our hearts that has authority IN us. There is a place that we can give someone in our hearts that has authority OVER us. When this certain person speaks to us, we listen to what they say. Not just ordinary listening. But listening that takes it in deep. When this certain person, the person whom we give this place to in our hearts, speaks to us, we listen to them without their words running past our healthy filter of weighing it out to see if it’s truth or not.
Only Jesus should have this place in us! Only scripture should have this place in us!
When a man speaks to us, ANY MAN, we must have the attitude of “maybe so”. It must be weighed out with scripture.
Let me say that there is a proper function of someone doing the work of a “pastor”, which the word really means “shepherd”. But if someone is doing this work and speaking into the life of a member of a family, it should be weighed out by the father of that household. The father of the household is the gatekeeper and shepherd of the family.
What if a lady does not have a husband? What if there is someone who is not her husband doing some real, true shepherding in her life? (refer to pastors are not Biblical) As long as there is:
1. A healthy expression of the church where many are active and functioning.
2. All things are in the light.
3. Those who are operating in their different giftings are accountable and on an equal playing field as everyone else.
Then there would be a healthy atmosphere for what is spoken and shared with to the singles and those without a husband or father to be received. I’ve seen very healthy situations in which there was a widow or a single in which many brothers and families provided covering and shepherding for them.
But more commonly, we have very subtly, at a heart level, substituted the place that only King Jesus should have and given that place to the traditional pastors. Because we’d rather have a man who we can see with our eyes lead us, rather than be of faith and trust in God whom we can’t see. We’d rather have someone just tell us what is and what to do, rather than seek, rather than wait on the Spirit of God. We would rather give our respect to a man who week after week proclaims God’s truth to our lives from a pulpit, while we are unaware of what he does and says and thinks during the trials of everyday life.
We want men to remain as icons in our minds, so they can remain qualified for us following them and trusting them to provide leadership for our lives and families. If we knew all about men’s real dirt, which is common to all men, we might not be so impressed with what the pastors have to say.
All men of rank should be viewed as here at the bottom with the rest of us. Those who are lowly and are of no account should be raised up. There is equality at the foot of the cross.
Romans 3:4 “…all men are liars.”
Psalms 62:9 “…men of rank are a lie”.
For more on this subject refer to the article on Pastors are not Biblical.
This epidemic is so pervasive and so ingrained in our culture, that most will not come out of this pattern by just hearing about it or studying it. Just hearing about it and studying it will only produce limited results. As with most things, it takes living it out and learning in the reality of everyday life to really have it. It must be learned and lived with those who are already living it. Church life quickly grows the disciple. Books and articles give us concepts only. We are a “concept” society in a “concept” church. Books, articles, and newsletters flood our homes. But the reality of living the experience of church life together is rare and only for those who are sick and tired and are ready to choose more of Christ.
***To find the article "Pastors are not Biblical", please look in the Biblical HOT Topics page.
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Barna's Annual Tracking Study Shows Americans Stay Spiritually Active, But Biblical Views Wane
May 21, 2007
(Ventura, CA) - It is hard to miss Americans' comfort with and interest in spirituality. Most adults say that their religious faith is very important in their life. Two-thirds of the nation’s adult population firmly embraces the idea that their most important purpose is to love God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength. However, a deeper look at people’s full array of spiritual beliefs and behavior calls into question the sincerity of their commitment.
Every year, The Barna Group explores the state of the America’s faith, examining various facets of people’s spiritual activity, faith identity, commitment and religious perspective. According to the 2007 survey, while their spiritual activities and religious identity have changed little compared to recent years, the area undergoing the most change is what Americans believe.
The Barna study, which began exploring the nation’s religious behavior and beliefs in 1984, shows that commitment to orthodox biblical perspectives is slipping in a number of areas.
How Beliefs Have Changed
It is not unusual to spot minor ebbs and flows in what adults believe. However, the 2007 study of the nation’s core beliefs found that five out of six theological perspectives have shifted in recent years away from traditional biblical views. This includes perspectives about three spiritual figures: God, Jesus, and Satan.
Most Americans still embrace a traditional view of God, but they are less likely than ever to do so. Currently two-thirds of Americans believe that God is best described as the all-powerful, all-knowing perfect creator of the universe who rules the world today (66%). However, this proportion is lower than it was a year ago (71%) and represents the lowest percentage in more than twenty years of similar surveys.
Few adults possess orthodox views about Jesus and the Devil. Currently, just one-third of Americans strongly disagree that Jesus sinned (37%) and just one-quarter strongly reject the idea that Satan is not a real spiritual being (24%). Each of these beliefs is lower than last year and among the lowest points in nearly two decades of tracking these views.
The other changes in beliefs include greater reluctance to explain their faith to other people (just 29% strongly endorse this view, compared with 39% in 2006) and the willingness to reject good works as a means to personal salvation (down to 27% from 31%).
Given these shifts, it is ironic that the only religious belief that was unchanged from previous years was the belief that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches. Not quite half of Americans (45%) strongly assert this perspective.
American Spiritual Activity - More of the Same
The Barna study also examined 10 areas of religious engagement. Involvement levels for eight of those activities were statistically no different than 2006. The two activities that had changed included the following: Americans were less likely to volunteer at church and less likely to read the Bible. Although these had declined from the participation norms measured in 2006, they were not statistically distinct from the engagement levels of a decade ago. In other words, even in those areas where there has been recent fluctuation in religious behavior, the net effect of those changes has done very little to alter the overall religious engagement of Americans.
The 2007 study showed that among the ten activities studied, Americans are most likely to pray. More than four out of every five Americans (83%) said they had prayed in the last week. This was followed by attending a church service (43%) and reading the Bible outside of church worship services (41%). Notably, just one-quarter of adults possess an active faith, meaning they engage in all three of these activities (pray, attend church, and read the Bible in a typical week).
Slightly less than one-quarter of adults had volunteered free time to help a church (22%) or some other type of non-profit (23%) in the last week. About one-fifth of all adults had attended Sunday school (20%), while a similar proportion had participated in a small group for Bible study, prayer and Christian fellowship (19%). The survey showed that half of all adults (50%) said they had donated money to a congregation in the past year.
Another element of spiritual engagement is evangelism. While most Americans are more skittish than usual about explaining their faith to others who hold different religious views, among born again Christians a majority (61%) said they had personally explained their faith to someone else in the past year with the hope that the person would accept Jesus Christ as their savior. This was on par with previous tracking data from the California-based firm.
Identity and Commitment
The study also examined people’s spiritual identity. For instance, 83% of Americans identified as Christians, yet only 49% of these individuals described themselves as absolutely committed to Christianity. The remaining portion of the adult population (about 17% of Americans) was split almost equally between those who aligned with another faith and those who describe themselves as atheist or agnostic. These indicators of faith identity are also on par with earlier Barna research.
In terms of denominational affiliation, one-quarter of adults identify as attenders of Catholic churches (23%), which is about half the size of the Protestant-attending segment (49%).
The Barna survey categorizes people based upon their convictions about life after death and creates two additional faith segments: born again and evangelical Christians. These are not based upon self-identification or denominational attendance, but based upon their personal commitment to Christ as well as their theological perspectives. The percent of Americans whose beliefs are categorized as "born again" has tapered off somewhat: currently, 40% are born again Christians compared with 45% in last year’s study and 43% in 1997. Despite the slight decline in numbers, this still represents 90 million born again believers nationwide.
Within the born again group, there are an estimated 16 million evangelical Christians, who also embrace an additional set of beliefs in addition to their profession of faith in Christ and confession of personal sinfulness. The 2007 study found that 7% of adults qualify as evangelical Christians, which is statistically consistent with prior levels.
Perspectives on the Research
David Kinnaman, who directed the study, indicated that "most Americans do not have strong and clear beliefs, largely because they do not possess a coherent biblical worldview. That is, they lack a consistent and holistic understanding of their faith. Millions of Americans say they are personally committed to Jesus Christ, but they believe he sinned while on earth. Many believers claim to trust what the Bible teaches, but they reject the notion of a real spiritual adversary or they feel that faith-sharing activities are optional. Millions feel personally committed to God, but they are renegotiating the definition of that deity.
"In fact, one reason why beliefs fluctuate is that most Americans’ hold few convictions about their faith. For instance, even among those who disagree with orthodox views, many do so while hedging their bets. Most Americans have one foot in the biblical camp, and one foot outside it. They say they are committed, but to what? They are spiritually active, but to what end? The spiritual profile of American Christianity is not unlike a lukewarm church that the Bible warns about."
Kinnaman, the president of the research firm, suggested that the shift away from biblical perspectives is like moving the foundation of a building. "We are likely to see more significant alterations to the spiritual landscape, since what a person believes dictates a great deal about their behavior and allegiance. To give purpose to the spiritual lifestyle of Americans, there are few tasks more important than helping Americans develop a biblical view of life. Otherwise, millions of people, including many within the youngest generations, will conclude the Christian faith does not represent deep, consistent truths about the spiritual and natural world."