Tag Archive - house church

Adding Normal Church

June 28, 2011 in Church with 15 Comments

Folks who follow the blog (or my Facebook or Twitter projections) know that our family’s primary community of worship has been a house church since we moved to San Francisco almost three years ago. This has been a great experience. We found close community quickly, made the kind of friends with whom we can celebrate life’s joys, mourn life’s tragedies, care for in time of need, and be cared for in our own.

And for the past 6 weeks or so, we have been adding normal church to our Sunday routine, heading to an evening worship service at a smallish church plant.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why are we adding “normal church” to our regular pattern of worship?

For one thing, I have always missed large group singing. I find that atmosphere to be more often conducive to connecting with God through song. In small groups the experience of joint worship is usually not as enveloping.

Another dynamic is opening up more connections. While the intimacy and depth of small group relationships is a crucial part of our life together in Christ, there are gifts and opportunities that one finds in a larger group that cannot exist in a small house church simply because of numbers. In this case, we were looking for a little more diversity in “age and stage,” especially after some turnover in our house church. Currently there is no peer for our 6 year old in the house church, Laura and I are the oldest members, and there is only one other man in the church besides me.

A larger community contains a healthy “more” than the house church in this respect. That is to say, “more” is not always better. Having more connections can often be a cover for having fewer significant relationships. But the up side of numbers is to be found both in opportunities for connecting with more and more kinds of people and also in being in community with people who have more gifts for the building up of the body of Christ.

So, house church has been and continues to be a rich source of worship, community, and sharing in Christ with people in San Francisco. And, we’ve started enriching that sharing in Christ together by starting to connect with the good folks at Eucharist.

Any questions?

House Church as Microcosm

September 6, 2010 in Church, Culture with 0 Comments

Spurred by my friend, John Armstrong (his thoughts, his questions) I have been offering some ruminations on house church over the past few days (part 1, part 2, part 3). We attend a house church in San Francisco, something that we backed into rather than pursued from any idea that house church “gets it right.” So this has been a good opportunity for me to reflect theologically on what we’re doing.

In this final post in this series I want to address a few lingering questions and concerns.

First, what claim can a house church lay to being a church in any sense? Without institutional order, without laying on of hands, the ability of anyone to start one whenever they want, in what sense is his part of the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church”?

As with many of the concerns I addressed in the third post, this is a concern for Protestantism in general. That’s not a true answer, of course, especially if it’s being asked by a Roman Catholic or Orthodox Christian! But I keep coming back to this point, which I think should not be too readily dismissed: every problem raised for house churches is a problem for evangelicalism  or Protestantism more generally.

In this case, we lay the same claim to being a church as any other Protestant church: we tell the same gospel story of the saving value of the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are united to that same Jesus by baptism and supper.

House churches in the U.S. tend to exist within, and are a product of, Protestant church culture. We have the same strengths and the same weaknesses.

Another example of how this is true: Shouldn’t we have more commitment to work within the existing structures rather than the dissatisfied running off to try these new experiments?

Ideally, of course, the answer is yes! But to raise this as a problem for the house church is to overlook that the only reason we have a culture in which people might leave an institutional church for a house church is because we created a culture (beginning with the Reformation) in which people might leave an institutional church for another institutional church that already exists or create one of their own devising.

Which, of course, is related to the issues of what kind of accountability is there for orthodox teaching? And that, of course, is the quintessential Roman Catholic argument against the infinitely multiplying, infinitely differentiating sects of Protestantism. And, I have experienced that most institutional churches look askance at the teaching of the churches down the street, which have clearly strayed from the way.

The point is that inasmuch as house churches might vary in their teaching from the church down the road they are doing nothing more and nothing less than the other institutional churches are. House based churches are microcosms of the larger ecclesiastical landscape, no more and, surely, no less, susceptible to various errors than our other Protestant brothers and sisters.

Being part of this larger world is not simply a factor when it comes to ways that a house church might lead the fold astray. It is also an important part of why they can thrive and be healthy. One commenter asked, Where are the songs going to be written that your kids will sing in 20 years? Who is going to pay the pastors who get study leaves to write the books that will instruct your people?

My working assumption is that house churches exist as part of the world of American Christianity that actually exists. I’m not advocating an abandonment of the institution, I’m not suggesting that this is the future. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we (like those who attend institutional churches) benefit from what’s being done all over the country and all over the world due to the information technology that links us to each other’s work.

So yes, we will continue to thrive as part of the Christian culture that reaps the benefits of what the few exceptional institutional churches are doing–just like the rest of the institutional churches benefit from the songs that come out of Nashville and the sermons that come out of Manhattan, Grand Rapids (the epicenter of progressive culture), the Twin Cities, and the rest.

On the other hand, these same information technologies are making it increasingly possible that a song written by one of my house church members could very well be sung around the world. We sing it. We share it on YouTube. We tweet the YouTube video. Unless your church has a producer or widely recognized musician staffing it, that’s probably as likely a route to canticle immortality as occasionally writing songs for your own large church’s worship.

House church, for me, is not a statement that the institutional church has gotten it wrong for 1954 years (ever since it started misreading Romans and needed me to come and unlock it). It stands within and is a participant in the broader world of North American Christianity. But as a voice from within not tied to the institution, to its power, to its retirement accounts, etc., it does have the potential to ask questions that might make the institutional church more healthy if its willing to take them up.

And, vice versa, if the house church will keep listening to the challenges raised by the institutional church it will have its sights set on a healthier way forward as well. Thanks, John, for helping us to that.

[House] Church Challenges

September 4, 2010 in Church, Culture with 4 Comments

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.

House Church, Take 2

September 3, 2010 in Church, Culture with 6 Comments

I want to clear up a few things about my own participation in a house church.

First, I’m not doing it because I love that small group experience. Honestly, the “small group experience” has posed the greatest difficulty for me in this setting. I tend to prefer to sing songs with a hundred or two hundred people than with eight or ten. Unless you have a group of confident singers who know all the songs, the singing doesn’t have quite the same power to draw you inward and upward in a small group. We have had that kind of experience on several occasions, but it’s not the norm. I miss big group singing.

Also, inasmuch as I do leading and/or teaching, I am much more comfortable teaching 18+ plus people in a less discussion-oriented manner. Even when doing small things like administering communion, I feel more myself in my teaching when I am leading more people.

It may sound ironic, but I think that both of these things are because I am an introvert. The large group setting disallows some of the intimate contact, and I find that ability to be more myself because enmeshed in a room with more people enhanced.

There is also a myth that house church is some sort of regression to the early church, a truer embodiment of the house-based communities that defined early Christianity. I don’t think that this is an accurate assessment of the early church. Or, perhaps it’s better to say, there were probably some communities that look something like a house church and probably some that looked like networks of house churches that came together for larger worship experiences, and some things that looked more like a larger group that would meet in some “third place” for worship.

The idea that house church (or any church) is repristinating the ancient model depends on the myth of “the” ancient model. I don’t buy it.

This series began as a response to John Armstrong’s thoughts about “the home church movement.” I want to pick up on a couple other positives that he mentions. These were some of the positive pulls toward a house church when we moved to San Francisco.

First was children. As Armstrong puts it, “Children are not a problem to be solved but welcomed little people.”

Photo Credit: www.thedesignblog.org

One thing that our church in Philly had done very well was integration of children as members of the worshiping community. They were welcome as part of the worship service, and participated in everything until the scripture reading and sermon. So they were there for all of the liturgical and memorized elements as well as a good bit of singing.

Outside the worship service, during the scripture and sermon, there was an excellent children’s program that was not babysitting but age-appropriate worship.

After the sermon, the children were brought back up to participate in the family meal (communion), again in a somewhat liturgical context where they would soon memorize all the responses. For the final song, there were often instruments up front for the kids to play while everyone sang before the final blessing.

That beautiful both/and of integrating children into the service and having space for them to be children and worship and learn accordingly was something we did not find in SF. The options were either a great children’s program at a place where children were  welcomed into the adult worship or children welcome to be part of adult worship or, alternatively, to go to babysitting. After having it all, we weren’t willing to go back.

The other major pull was the way in which house church is a more natural extension of our real life. One question we asked of the churches we visited was, “Could we bring a non-Christian coworker here? Why or why not?” Especially given the amount that we entertain, having a house church was a simple way to say, “Yes, we’d invite anyone here.” (Our church, “The Table”, has brunch every week, so the extension of our “real life” is quite natural.)

Finally, there is the blessing and curse of being in close community. Our group, almost two years old, has had its share of conflict. Some of it has been handled well, some of it badly. But even when I looked at everything and said, “We’re dealing with this terribly,” the next thought in my head was, “and that makes us healthier than 98% of the churches in the world, because we’re actually dealing with it.”

There is no running and hiding, no avoiding of people you don’t like in favor of those you do. There’s community for better or worse. And even when it’s going badly, that is good community. But more often, it goes well. This group has been our family, and we’ve been other people’s. We’ve kept kids while others have had emergency surgery, we have friends who help get ours to school when Fuller thinks I should be somewhere besides in my home office at 9:00 in the morning, we have older mentors to challenge and encourage us, we have younger friends to help draw toward maturity.

So, while not being totally within the assessment John gives of why people go to house churches, much of what he said there rings true to our own desires for family-based Christian community.

Tomorrow I’ll tackle some of his concerns.

Reflecting on House Church

September 2, 2010 in Church, Culture with 19 Comments

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.