My friend (and not just on Facebook!) John Armstrong has posted a couple of thoughts about “the home church movement”, the first listing some of its draw and the second outlining some of his concerns.
Since I attend a house church, I thought I’d weigh in on his thoughts with some of my own thrown in for good measure.
His first post outlined a number of the “draws” of home churches, as he put it. I might even say that some of these are strengths.
A number of his points have to do with the way that the structure and/or feel of such a group is transformed by the absence of a professional minister and formal leadership. Not only is there a more relational feel, but there is more sharing in the ministry and worship and business-like or political power structures are less of a driving dynamic.
Here, John nails one of the “negative” components of my own move away from denominational church settings into the house church world. Traditional churches tend toward the acquisition of power, the exercise of control, and the focusing of the ministry on a few.
In denominational churches, this is often associated with power in the bureaucracy. Power and control are exercised through regional bodies that oversee how you can and cannot deal with pastors, pastoral calls, ordinations, teachings that cut against the grain of church teaching, etc. I am convinced that the pastoral transition process in the one mainline denomination I have been part of was created for the sole purpose of making sure that before another permanent pastor can resume leadership of a congregation that said congregation will be as dead and demoralized as possible. That way, if the new pastor succeeds it will only be because the God who gives life to the dead is at work in her or him.
I do fear that these bureaucratic developments are inherently antithetical to the economy of the Kingdom of God. I worry about their tendency to embody the disciples’ plea to be allowed to call down fire from heaven on anyone who happens to reject our message. I worry about their tendency to embody the disciples’ requests to sit at Jesus’ right hand and his left.
In house church, there can be no illusions about “greatness on earth” being God’s will for his pastor, despite the way that such greatness undermines the story of the cross. I don’t think that everyone needs to be in a house church, and I don’t think that denominational or more formal churches are inherently bad. But, I do think that there needs to be a constant witness of each to the potential pitfalls of the other. In the case of the deceptive allures of power, and the easy tendency for strong leaders to turn the worship of God into megalomaniacal self-promotion, I think the home church has the power to testify to the kingdom whose economy declares that the first shall be last and that the least is greatest.
Or, to put it more simply: you can’t control the work of God or confine it to your system. And, God will work things in surprising places that seem incapable of doing the great things open to those with more resources and prestige.
One thing John doesn’t say in his post that was a crucial factor for me, and related to the issue of power, is that of money.
If power was one negative force, repelling me from denominationally associated churches, money was the other. Yes, there’s the business of upkeep of buildings and pastoral paychecks that make the church itself part of the money suck. And, yes, I’ve been through fund raising efforts for buildings that turned my stomach a little.
But the point at which I was pushed over the edge was when I was having a conversation with someone who wanted to appeal a Presbytery’s decision about something. The cost? Getting a team of churches together who would agree to cover the legal bills that were anticipated to be well in excess of $100,000.
That conversation was where I said, “I cannot be part of [this] denomination. Jesus cannot be happy that we are spending his money this way.” The issue wasn’t whether or not her particular appeal was warranted or important. The issue was the way that the denominational and bureaucratic structure sucked money away from the mission of God. And no, I will not agree that fighting a court case within your denomination’s judicatory is an expression of the mission of God.
Add to that the idea of funding professional, full-time ordained “pastors” to administer the local, regional, and national denominational bureaucracy, and I was at the end of it.
So now, rather than support a church building and staff and denominational politics and judiciaries, we have picked up a couple extra missionaries to support on a monthly basis, we give money to the local food pantry, and otherwise invest our ministry dollars in people and institutions that have made a more compelling case that they are working with God for the sort of Kingdom on earth that we pray for in reciting the Lord’s prayer.
This went on a bit longer than expected! Come back tomorrow and I’ll engage some other issues. Here I’ve laid out some of my the repulsions that pushed me away from big church, but there are also some positive draws that pull me toward the house church we’re part of. I’ll cover those in a subsequent post or two, and also engage some of John’s critiques/words of warning/growth areas for house churches.
I completely agree, Daniel. I have “pastored” my last “church” and will no longer be a “professional Christian.” Instead I will be developing house churches in a tent-making role and hoping to become a “professing Christian”!
Peace,
Lee Wyatt
Looking forward to your follow-up posts! I’d love to chat more about this in person, so next time you take a family vacation to Cleveland, stop on in …
great post! looking forward to tomorrow!
Daniel,
This is a very interesting and thought-provoking post; something my husband and I have been thinking about for a while. And although some of your posts and their big words make me want to #stabmyself (haha, I just had to throw that in there), I love hearing your heart and look forward to the next post.
Daniel, I don’t think either paradigm is immune from the abuse of power. The form of that abuse simply differs. Charismatic, controlling and manipulative leaders often arise in house churches and other less formal groups precisely because such groups often form around charismatic leaders. By contrast, such people don’t usually get as far in more highly structured churches/denominations because–like it or not–there are more checks and balances in those structures. There, it’s not charismatic power but ecclesial power that gets abused. The same goes for money, imo.
As for bureaucracy, it is inevitable. Any group that gets big enough, unless it wants to be an entirely insular entity that has no relationship with any larger network, simply has to become organized and develop systems/structures of communications, decision-making, authority, etc.
Joel, you had me right up until you said that controlling and manipulative leaders “don’t usually get as far in more highly structured churches/denominations”. No, really, they do. People who rise in the denominations, and in churches, learn how to use their charisma to manipulate the system.
Good topic. I don’t know if I should comment or write a blog response. The issues that both you and John raise are good and I think our context needs to do more work on house churches and that model.
I could certainly hear the pain of past wounds in your post here. I work with church planters and nearly every good one I know says “sure it can be better than what I’ve seen…” and that’s usually true. It is also the case in nearly every case that whatever solution they sought to address the problems they saw came with their own set of challenges.
There was a time in my ministry when I was very attracted to the model. I had worked with very small churches in the Dominican Republic which were practically house churches. The model address a number of problems inherent in the American church, but some of John Armstrong’s “yeah buts” also resonated with me.
Institutions tend to do one thing well, stabilize and preserve. I tend to find house churches unstable when you start to consider decades, not years. They require a lot of their members, often more than members can sustain over the decades. Many people have periods in their lives when they have a lot to give, and other periods when they tend to coast and rest. There isn’t a lot of room in house churches for both movements.
I also think currently two groups are attracted to house churches: those who have been hurt by the institutional church but aren’t ready to give up on the faith, and those who are idealistic (often the young) about finding the “true” way to do church. When these two groups are happy about how things are going everything is dandy. How will they do when conflict sets in (in a small group there is no place to hide for better or worse) and something ugly happens?
The worst thing about the American system of church is that it is easy to walk away from each other rather than do the hard work of working through conflict. I don’t really see house churches as addressing this even though many say it does. You can leave a house church as easy as a B&M church.
I hope John’s post and yours generate some good discussion. Thanks for bringing it up. pvk
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Paul. A couple of thoughts:
(1) I only laid out a few things here, the negative factors that might propel a person toward a house church. I should say that I am not in favor of house church as a model or movement in the abstract. I have more of a “figure out what works where you are” type ecclesiology. Maybe that will be clearer in subsequent posts.
(2) I do think that the generating factors, such as the negative ones outlined here, are amenable to several different outcomes. In fact, most of what I’ll say today and tomorrow is reflective of the types of questions/issues that gave rise to Emergent–which is, itself, filled with people from all sorts of denominations and non-denominations. It’s also behind a larger house church movement, and folks breaking from some churches to start others, etc. That is, I think part of why house churches are proliferating (if, in fact, that’s the case–I have my doubts) is due to a certain number of culturally influenced questions that people are asking. At some point, I hope that the pressures from all the different directions will not stop traditional churches from existing, but drive them toward more open-eyed awareness of where they abuse their power and fail to faithfully embody the gospel narrative.
(3) I think it’s also important to recognize that the people who are striving to uphold the system are as influenced by their stories as those of us who are trying to find ways to survive outside of it. It’s important that we not just look to people who have had less than successful attempts at integrating with the established church as position-defining experiences while assuming that those who have been embraced and found ways to thrive within the system are some baseline “normal” that’s unscathed by their own particular experiences.
Having power and wanting to cling to it is as influential on a person’s ecclesial practice as having been burned by persons in power and wanting to avoid them.
Daniel,
I totally agree with you, but I’d like to play devil’s advocate for a minute and say some of the things my friends tell me. The first is the whole “historic” debate. If your church leader (bishop, pastor, etc) can’t trace the “laying on of hands” back to an apostle, then you’re not historic and somehow your church, though it might be “church” with a small “c,” is not the Church with a big “C.” House churches can’t do anything close to this because any average Joe can start one whenever he/she wants.
The other is the doctrinal issue. Where is the accountability factor? People at house churches can just believe and say anything they want to without any type of accountability. You can start teaching Gnosticism and most of the congregants would not have any idea. It’s “dangerous” man, because you need to be part of a wider church government that makes sure its leaders are Christian. The Anglicans, Orthodox, and Presbyterians are all safer routes to go to make sure that you don’t become a heretic.
And finally, throughout the NT we can see some type of church government and institution forming. The early church fathers certainly advocated this, as there was a distinct government set in place with bishops and other leaders to provide order. Are you telling me that this is wrong? Have we “gotten it wrong” for the past 2000 years and you are the “enlightened” one who finally knows how to do it right? Historically the church is much more than just a bunch of house churches. It’s an institution with order and a government. Therefore, we should be a part of the same because this is what Christ’s bride is.
I look forward to your response!
You’re right that there is an argument about the “apostolic line”. But is that argument at all related to anything in the NT?
Teachers are accountable before God to teach truth. Learners are accountable before God to know the scriptures well themselves. Considering the state of many/most denominations, I can’t see how having teachers be accountable to institutions is really likely to help all that much. Once the institution fails to remain orthodox…
Can you list some of the passages in the NT which show an institution/government forming?
I do see some indicators, Dannii, and some of them quite early. The earliest indication seems to be in Philippians, where the greeting includes the “overseers and deacons.” In the pastoral epistles there is the instruction to appoint elders in every church. In 1 Timothy the idea that a calling is bestowed/gifts given by the laying on of hands is evident. In Acts we see early on the need for apostles–people who have been with Jesus and specially commissioned to act for him; then in Acts 15 there is a gathering to decide a difficult issue.
So yes, I think that there are indications of “government.” Now, were those positions more along the lines of gifts of the Spirit that played out in a certain function rather than a standing office that needed to be fulfilled? I think there is an argument to be made in that direction.
I too was playing the Devil’s advocate for a bit
I think the key idea behind the concept of an apostolic line is the illegitimacy of leadership outside the line. I think the evidence in the NT instead points to the wisdom of 2 Tim 2:2. I don’t think the NT is explicit about what to do in the unusual situation that an unplanned, unplanted christian community developes without strong ties to the leadership of another church. I think though that through wisdom and experience such a church may legitimately self-appoint its own leadership line.
Acts 15 is a fascinating story, and I think shows strong evidence that at least at that time there was no institutionalised church. The order is significant: it is Antioch which asks Jerusalem for help. The Apostles authority is in the knowledge and wisdom and maturity, but not heirarchially. They are not “bishops” who can order the smaller younger church to do as they say, and their response reflects that.
I am a member of a brethren church, which as I understand it, had many similarities to the house church movement. But as is the case with these non-institutionalised churches, there’s probably more differences within each movement than there is similarity.
Luke, I started a reply to your questions and then got sidetracked. I may put them into a main post soon. Stay tuned.
Sounds good Daniel. I’m looking forward to it.
Interesting stuff. As a graduate student racking up an obscene amount of debt on an advanced theological education, I wonder how does the house church movement address theological education? With the expenses of that kind of training, I’ve got to be looking for a job either in a church that can pay me a decent salary or in a teaching job where I’ll be teaching students who are spending lots of money that they’re hoping to make back by working in ministry. If there are no professional pastors, who is going to pay your salary as a trainer of ministers?
Ok, Adam, that’s enough out of you.
I would love to hear some answers to luke’s “devils advocate” questions about accountability and the seeds of government appearing in the nt.