[House] Church Challenges

John Armstrong invites what he calls “the home church movement” to reflect on a few of its potential pitfalls.

The first question is whether or not the home church movement can thrive if there is not more emphasis on preaching and teaching the word. Instruction is important, but here are a few thoughts in response.

First, contrary to what most preachers think, the preaching of most preachers does not deeply impact the thinking and/or acting of the people in their congregations. Where the preacher tends to see the sermon as the heart of the service, most people in most churches are eager for the sermon to get over so that they can get on with life, having already done their singing.

There are, of course, marked exceptions to this, and many gifted preachers are not only gifted speakers but also able to create a culture in which actively wrestling with sermons is an important part of the community’s life. But in general, I think that we who fill those teaching roles overestimate their impact.

Another thing I think is important to recognize is that home churches are growing up within the larger Christian culture of the 21st century. This means that there is a thriving Christian publishing industry and ready access to online sermons, to conference video and audio, and the rest. What this means is that even a group without a particularly gifted teacher has access to excellent Christian teaching.

But his point is an important one to wrestle with, and trickles through several of his challenges: Does the home church want to grow in obedience to the word of God, and if so, what mechanisms are they actively pursuing in order to make that happen?

Another question has to do with participating in the larger Christian community locally and also abroad. On participation with other Christians locally, I think that home churches have a leg up on denominations and more established groups.

In a recent conversation with a good friend, we got on this issue of ecumenicity. He has a theological commitment to the necessity of denominations for the true ecumenical work of the church to thrive. He is concerned that there be a body to recognize the other body as a functionary in the larger body of Christ.

But as someone who attends a home church, I regularly go to a local “faith leaders collective,” at which I meet people who are doing work in all sorts of churches, non-churches, denominations, and non-denominations. We each affirm each other’s work. I would recommend many of their ministries to folks living near them. It’s precisely the fact that I don’t have a denomination that allows me to recognize all their ministries without having to subject it to my list of specific denominational qualifications.

Yes, working with others is important. I had coffee with Robert Banks this summer, and one of the words of wisdom that sunk most deeply into my mind was that house churches that thrive have a larger connection, either with an institutional church or a group of house churches.

So yes, John is right to raise the question about connection, and its import for a healthy church. But, I think we need to be careful in assuming that denominational or institutional churches are better poised to, or better actors upon, that mandate.

I think that this is my response to a number of John’s concerns: yes, they are concerns for the house church movement. But, many house churches are doing these things well; and, many institutional churches are doing them poorly. He mentions sacraments. Once upon a time I was Presbyterian, and most of the people in my denomination were essentially baby-wetting Southern Baptists. Having a robust sacramentology (such as one finds in the Westminster Standards) is no guarantee that sacraments will be well taught. Similarly, having a group with without a commitment to such standards is no guarantee that the sacraments will be ill conceived.

Again, the reality that we are part of a larger Christian world, with its popular impressions, internet presence, and publications, is what drives the content of the life of the home church. Like any church, it will be better or worse as it learns from, participates in, and reacts to the broader currents in the church of its day.

Finally, John asks if a house church can be truly inter-generational. In fact, it seems to me that many, if not most, institutional churches program themselves so as to specifically not have to be inter-generational, and that the house church is the best opportunity for this to happen. One of my kids’ favorite people at our house church has about 10 years on my parents. That would not happen at any of the institutional churches we were looking at here in SF, and would have been highly unlikely at the churches I’ve been a member of in the past.

So I agree with John’s concerns about the church almost down the line. But, they are a mirror to hold up to the church in the U.S. in general, and carry little in the way of critique of the house church movement that does not apply to the more traditional church as well.