As a part of my interest in house church, a book was recommended to me: Houses That Change the World, written by Wolfgang Simson. There was a lot of stuff in this book that really resonated with me. It's not really a "how-to" book, though. It doesn't seem to flow very well from chapter to chapter. But it definitely lays out the values and principles of house church, and how it has the capacity to reach entire nations, whereas a traditional church structure does not.

One of the greatest chapters in the book deals with history of house church since New Testament times.

The New Testament makes it clear that in the early church, churches primarily met in people's homes. Nothing is said about owning or building anything. Nothing is said about evangelism, missions, worship "services," or trying to influence mainstream culture.

Much is said, however, about the the ministries of the apostles - a ministry which, along with prophets, is completely dismissed by traditional churches - and the way in which the apostles led the churches through planting churches and discipling believers. As Simson says, "the New Testament church has mostly been an organic, relational, spiritual family, multiplying itself."

Over time, there were serious confrontations to the truth of the gospel and the function of the church. One of the first was mentioned by Christ in Revelation 2:6 - "But there is something you do that is right: You hate what the Nicolaitans do, as much as I." This is referring to the group that "emphasized the difference between the 'listening lay people and the ministering brothers.'" The term Nicolaitan literally means "to conquer the common people." It was the first attempt to create clergy at the top, with lay people underneath.

It wasn't long, however, until the concept of clergy won out.

Simson says that:

Early on, the church started to give in to the pressure for security. Around AD 150, for example, 'scholastic theology' was introduced as a system to interpret Scripture and defend it against heresies such as Gnosticism... in order to defend the truth and the church against this, the church strongly focused on dogma and creed, and tightly observed who was able and allowed to do ministry, and who not... control is the natural development of a lack of trust; it comes from fear, the opposite of faith, and leads people to build a system in order to make sure that nothing can go wrong... as a result, the church focuses more on 'safe' rituals, 'right' formulae and 'approved' liturgies, and tries to become watertight as well as foolproof.

As a byproduct of this, the church quickly fell into the hands of enthusiastic theological watchdogs, policemen of the faith and a new version of 'bishops', king-like figures who were no longer the most humble servants and plain down-to-earth elders... again, a human Saul replaced God as the real king of the people of God.

Ironically, it was this development that led the church further into apostasy.

Emperor Constantine became a Christian in 312 AD, and made Christianity the state religion.

In the years after 312 the church became heavily professionalized... the church needed to be 'fit for the king' and his company, and that meant cathedrals, not shabby houses. Thus, the great divide between clergy and laity not only emerged, but was sanctioned, institutionalized, sealed and protected by the state... the church lost its identity as a prophetic counter-culture, supernaturally different from the patterns of this world, and became a celebrated insider.

Then the bomb dropped. In 380 AD, bishops Theodosius and Gratian, operating with the full authority of the Roman government, required all Roman citizens to be members of the single, state-recognized, orthodox church, and banned all other churches, including those meeting in homes. Less than 350 years after Christ's death, the exact form that Christ himself used to disciple the twelve was banned from the church.

Things just got worse from there.

416 - Infant baptism was first introduced in 220 AD, but became mandatory in 416.

431 - The Council of Ephesus proclaimed the worship of Mary.

440 - Leo the Great pronounced himself Bishop of Rome.

445 - Cesar Valentian declared himself the spiritual leader of the Western Empire.

607 - Boniface III adopted the title "Pope," which comes from the title pontifex maximus, meaning "big bridgebuilder," a term used by Roman emperors to declare themselves high priests and gods.

709 - Kissing the Pope's foot introduced.

786 - Worship of images and relics developed.

850 - First use of holy water.

995 - Canonizations of dead saints.

1079 - Celibacy of the priesthood instituted.

1090 - Prayer beads adopted from several pagan religious systems.

1184 - The Inquisition begins, and made official by Pope Innocent IV (the irony) in 1252. Millions are killed.

1190 - The sale of indulgences - relief from punishment of sins in exchange for the payment of money - instituted.

1215 - Transubstantiation of the water and wine declared: these elements supernaturally change into the body and blood of Jesus at the incantation of the priest.

1229 - Bible declared to be too holy for ordinary people to read, and was forbidden to laymen.

1414 - Communion cup was forbidden to lay people.

1439 - Doctrine of Purgatory decreed.

1439 - Dogma of the sacraments affirmed.

1545 - The traditional teachings of the Roman Catholic Church granted equal authority with the Bible at the Council of Trent.

And so things turned full circle. What began with the separation of clergy and laity, partly to protect Christianity from heresy, ended up with a heretical church declaring that its unbiblical teachings were of equal authority with the Bible.

Two things were required for this to happen - first, the church had to wield immense political power. Second, the state-sponsored church had to use that power to shut down groups of Christians meeting in their own homes for discipleship.

Luther started to reverse the trend when he discovered the "heartbeat of the gospel, salvation by faith and grace, and the centrality of Scripture." Luther, and others like him, "reformed the content but not the form of Christianity." Since Luther, more reforms have brought us closer to what Christ himself taught. Yet the predominant structure of church has remained largely unchanged since house churches were banned by the Roman government.

If it was possible for the very essence of the gospel - salvation by faith, justification by grace - to be buried under the sand of history, what about the rest? If we can gravely err in the very key and core issues, could we also have erred in other, lesser issues? The fact that the Bible was again given into the hands of common people started what I call the history of rediscovery: it was the turning point where the church started to climb again out of darkness, escape its own structural prison and rediscover, step by step, long-forgotten truth and long-forgotten practices, including the house church as an organic form of church.

Labels: books, church, house church

Tony Morgan is on staff at Granger Community Church in Indiana. He shared an interesting story recently, and his resulting questions are well worth reading.

One of the volunteer leaders yesterday was pretty much admitting, I'm burnt out. I'm tired. I need time to myself. I need a break. Obviously, when I hear that, I'm not only concerned for the individual involved, but as a ministry leader, it sends up a red flag. I wonder, "Am I really helping people take their next step toward Christ, or am I just loading people down with burdens?"

This may be the ultimate challenge I face in ministry. On the one hand, I want to "prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up" but on the other hand I want people to have a life-transforming relationship with Jesus who said:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

This raises conflict in my mind because it feels like the Church (local church in general) needs to create opportunities for people to experience Bible teaching, Bible study, serving opportunities, relational connections with fellow Christ-followers, corporate worship, etc. so that people can jump on a discipleship track and take steps in their faith journey. But, on the other hand, every time we ask people to take another step, we may also be doing the following:

Adding to the already overwhelming pace of people's lives.

Increasing the demand on volunteer ministry leaders who are also investing their precious time to serve others.

Encouraging people to rely on church programming to take spiritual steps rather than equipping them to grow in their own faith journey.

Adding burdens to people's lives when Jesus said we were supposed to be helping people experience joy, peace and rest.

Communicating that busy is better.

Creating a works-based religion rather than offering a grace-filled relationship.

Encouraging people to be transformed into my likeness rather than encouraging people to become more like Christ and more of who God has created them to be. (Most times, thankfully, that will look very different than who God created me to be.)

When we put so much emphasis on programs, large gatherings, and high-quality productions, it will add "to the already overwhelming pace of people's lives," especially when those people are volunteers. One inevitably leads to the other.

One of the reasons why I'm enjoying my transition from presentational worship into house church is that is simply removes all of that. When I lead worship for house church, I do spend some time preparing. But it's an entirely different level of preparation. I'm not coordinating multiple musicians, sound and video engineers, setting my equipment up, getting the stage cleaned up, etc.

The main difference is that instead of hoping to utilize a high quality production to impress and attract people to the gospel, you rely on the gospel itself, manifested through the love we show to one another as well as our compassion on unbelievers. So the pressure to perform is completely removed.

Labels: church

I want to step back for a moment and talk about coexistence. First, let me quote myself:

It is not my goal to trash traditional churches - God has used and continues to use them for His purposes. But it is difficult to discuss the benefits of a house church without comparing them to, and viewing the deficiencies of, a traditional church.

I meant what I said there. I don't think that house churches have everything right, and that traditional churches have everything wrong. I certainly don't think that anyone attending a traditional church is wrong, or that God isn't interested and involved in what traditional churches are doing.

My brother has been involved in house churches for years. My sister and her husband started one about a year ago. I'm just now jumping in and discovering for myself what this is all about.

While I will certainly be drawn to something through my own experience with it, I also tend to analyze things before I really commit. What I'm really trying to do with this series is share both of those processes with you - both from my personal experience, and also from the ways in which house church just makes sense to me.

I've also discovered, and many of you have known for some time, that I'm just an extreme kind of guy. I think extreme measures are often the best way to address problems:

On taxes, let's scrap the IRS and replace it with the FairTax, a consumption tax.

To fix politics, I think we need to repeal the 17th amendment - which calls for popular elections for Senators - before that, Senators were elected by state legislatures, and therefore represented the states, not the people. (I got this idea from reading Zell Miller's book, but the idea has been around for longer than that.)

On education, we need to have vouchers to allow parents to choose what schools their children go to, and where the funding goes, so that competition motivates innovation.

I'm into big fixes, scrapping one system in favor of another, especially when the new system is not only better, but simpler.

To me, house church is another big fix. It's a major shift from what I've been involved with in the past. And I want to share why we're doing this, how it's different, and not just that I think it's better, but why I think it's better. Of course, our experience with it is limited, and just like anything we'll learn more as we go along. That's part of any major shift.

The thing about this "big fix," unlike the other ones I tend to gravitate towards, is that it doesn't require everyone to jump on board before anyone can experience it.

So what about coexistence? It's just going to be a part of this. Despite the fact that there is a significant trend towards house churches, I don't think traditional churches will ever go completely away - they will always represent some portion of my brothers and sisters in Christ. I think both can lean on and learn from each other - but this will not be easy.

The relationship between house churches and traditional churches has been rocky. As I mentioned in a previous post, many house churches have been born out of bitterness, from bad experiences inside traditional churches. Many traditional churches view house churches as a threat, look upon them with disdain, and do not consider a house church to be a "real" church. These relationships will have to be healed, and it will likely begin with younger pastors, on both sides, who are much more open to the possibility of the coexistence of different structures.

But even if you are committed to a traditional church, and don't think this house church stuff is for you at this point, you should be watching it - the movement is growing, and people like myself - who were once fully committed to traditional church, large weekly worship services, nice buildings, etc. - are being attracted to something that is much more simple and organic. Whatever you do, don't dismiss it, and don't ignore it.

Labels: church, house church

-- posted by Derek at 8/28/2006 09:40:00 AM

0 comments

I've talked about house churches, and so far I've compared them to traditional churches with small groups. But there's a structural model, growing in popularity, that's in between house churches and small groups, commonly called cell churches.

A cell church is somewhat like a traditional church with small groups, and also somewhat like a tight network of house churches. A cell church is characterized by an equal emphasis on the cell gathering and the celebration, both meeting weekly. The largest churches in the world are organized as cell churches. While churches with small groups have an upper limit in the thousands, cell churches can grow into the hundreds of thousands.

In some ways, cell churches are similar to house churches. But using the same comparisons I used in my last post, cell churches really sound more similar to small groups:

First,, the cells are not autonomous - they have many of the same characteristics as small groups in that regard. Leaders are expected to be trained, and the discussion points are often provided by the parent church. While leaders of house churches often host discussions more than teach, leaders of cell churches, like small groups, are expected to "facilitate." The "real" leaders are on staff.

Second, unlike small groups, the cells are outward-focused. A high emphasis is placed on evangelism in the cell context. Cells are designed to split: cell leaders are usually required to be training another leader. Cell churches view the cell gathering and the celebration as entry points to the church. Those who begin in one location are strongly encouraged to participate in the other.

Third, they are identical to a traditional churches in terms of resource handling. The celebration is more or less the same as a traditional church worship service, with a premium placed on quality, and the celebrations require a lot of resources to do that weekly.

Fourth, the styles of cell gatherings vary greatly, but with such a high importance placed on the weekly celebration, they often do not incorporate worship in the cell gatherings.

Fifth, like in a traditional church, the senior pastor is in charge. Cell churches tend to take on a pyramid structure in terms of authority, with authority being delegated from the senior pastor on down.

I believe that the major reason why cell churches can grow so much larger than traditional churches with small groups is primarily the outward focus - with a strong emphasis being placed on cells splitting, and reaching non-believers in order to do so, cells have the potential for explosive growth. But in many other areas, cell churches are identical to traditional churches, from the emphasis on the worship service, to centralized control, and resource needs.

The other reason that cell churches grow faster, and larger, is because they are far simpler - they tend to have very few programs besides the cell meetings and the celebrations.

While I think that a cell church approach is probably good for an existing church to take, I do not think cell churches naturally have all of the advantages of a network of house churches.

Labels: church, house church

A common question we've heard already when talking about house churches is, "how is that different from a small group?"

Many churches today are implementing small groups as a core part of their growth strategy. The thinking is pretty straightforward - as the church grows beyond several dozen, members simply can't really build relationships in a normal church gathering where there may be hundreds or thousands of people. So they are encouraged to meet in small groups, usually no more than a dozen, for relationship building and Bible study.

Small group programs can vary, but they are always very different from a house church.

First, since they are not autonomous, and fall under the umbrella of the traditional church, small groups always play a "secondary" role to the more prominent worship service. This can manifest itself in different ways, but often it includes the choices of leadership, agenda, and meeting times. Typically, group leaders have to undergo some sort of official "training" or approval process. Some churches distribute the discussion items to the group leaders, often making the discussion an exploration of the sermon from the previous Sunday.

House churches, by comparison, are autonomous. The agenda is set by the members of the house church or the leader. The house church is not seen as a secondary meeting, it is the primary gathering time for members of the church.

Second, small groups are not outward-focused, they are inward focused. Even if the goal is to split the group, the goal is to split the group and add more members of the church to the small groups. While churches might not discourage non-members from participating in a small group, it is certainly not viewed as an entry point to the church. Because of this inward focus, small groups are usually more about caring for believers than they are about seeking out non-believers and introducing them to Christ.

Third, small groups defer to the parent church on matters of money and resources. The members of a small group are expected to be active church members, and tithing to the larger church. The church has to pay for the building, the staff, the equipment, and other various programs of the church. The church views the small groups as another "program," and provides some resources to the small groups, such as study books, videos, etc. Some small group programs provide for child care during meetings. But the bulk of the money going to the church is used for the Sunday worship service.

House churches, on the other hand, do not have to pay for buildings or fancy Sunday morning worship services. Most house churches do not pay for any staff at all. This allows money to be available to serve others and meeting needs - whether it is the needs of members, those in the community, or around the world.

Fourth, in small groups, worship is what you do on Sunday mornings, so the small group gathering takes on more of a Bible study feel. House churches usually incorporate worship into their agenda. Even if a house church participates in a celebration-style gathering with other house churches, they usually keep worship in the house church setting, because worship in the celebration setting is quite different from worship in a cell-sized gathering.

Fifth, most of these differences come from the fact that a small group is part of a larger traditional church, whereas house churches are usually separate, at most having a loose network with other house churches. This begs the question: who is in charge?

In a traditional church, and in small groups, the answer is always obvious - the senior pastor and/or the board is in charge. They determine the how the small groups are structured, how they function, and tweak the process along the way.

In a house church, the simple answer is that the leader, if there is a clearly defined one, is in charge. But since a traditional church is really hundreds or thousands of people, looking at a single house church is not a valid comparison. You need to compare a traditional church with a collection of house churches, dozens or perhaps even hundreds of them. When looking at a group like that, there is only one answer to the question of who is in charge: the Spirit of God is in charge, leading His servants in the faith, guiding them through the apostles and the prophets, and building His kingdom, house church by house church.

Small groups are usually added to a traditional church in order to improve it. But small groups are really only a patch. Churches should be focused on gatherings that meet the vision that Christ cast for His church - discipleship. Rather than "tack on" discipleship, as an optional program, to the main worship service, shouldn't we be focusing on a primary gathering time that has discipleship at its core?

Labels: church, house church

Now that I've thrown something out there, it's time for me to take a minute and define it.

There are three major categories of church gatherings, in terms of size:

Cell - a cell is a small gathering of people, from a handful up to about 20.

Congregation - a congregation is a medium-sized gathering, from about 20 up to a couple of hundred.

Celebration - a celebration is a large-sized gathering, from several hundred to many thousands of people, covering a geographical area.

Megachurches are notable in terms of their size, and we tend to focus on them. But the fact is that the vast majority of churches are in the size range of a congregation. The average church size, worldwide, is about 100. A small percentage of churches grow beyond 200. For the most part, traditional churches fall into the size range of a congregation. But even churches that grow beyond that are primarily large congregations, not celebrations.

Church history, including examples in the New Testament, indicate that the typical meetings in the early church consisted of cell-sized gatherings (in people's homes) and celebration-sized gatherings (usually in public places, such as the outer court of the temple in Jerusalem).

Many house churches today do not participate in a celebration-sized gathering. Some house churches are born out of bitterness, and simply remain in isolation. Some churches remain in houses simply because their theology or culture makes it impossible for them to grow.

But there is a growing number of house churches, those birthed out of mission, that seek to fulfill the great commission - to "train everyone you meet in this way of life." We are called to share life with others, train them how to follow Christ, and help them to train others how to follow Christ. It is not about being inward-focused, it's about simplifying what we do so we can allow God to do marvelous things.

Many of the people I know who are involved in house churches are also eager to birth celebrations - gatherings of house churches across a wide area, for worship and encouragement. I do not know yet when that will happen or exactly what it will look like, but I can see God working through multiple people, and it will happen.

Still, the celebration is not the focus. It's not the main thing, and it's not even on the same level as the cell-sized gathering. The church is not people coming together in large crowds to worship God. The church is people gathering together, sharing life, and discipling others. The church is best realized in cell-sized gatherings.

What happens in a house church? What does it look like?

In reality, every house church is different because every house church is composed of different mixes of people. Kind of like a family - it all depends on who is thrown into the mix. But house churches generally involve:

Eating - something special happens when you eat together. Many house churches regularly include meals, and most others include some level of refreshments on a weekly basis. Give people the chance to interact informally. The simple fact is that the "Lord's Supper" was a meal, and was, in the early church, regularly celebrated as one.

Training - unlike how traditional churches teach in a presentational or educational style, house churches generally concentrate on training, in a relational approach. That is, I can't train you unless I get to know you. Jesus said to "teach them to obey everything I have commanded to you." (Matthew 28:20) But true teaching is less a presentation, and more a demonstration.

Sharing - the early church shared both material and spiritual blessings. "No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." (Acts 4:32) "When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation." (1 Corinthians 14:26) At a traditional church, it is simply not possible for either of these to occur. Yes, we can give our offerings to the church, but such offerings are typically used to maintain the church building and pay the church staff, not to be distributed among those who have needs. And churches can ask people to be involved in the worship team, read a scripture, etc., but Paul specifically states "everyone."

Prayer - believers should be regularly gathering together, praying for each other and their community. Having a five minute prayer in context of an hour-long worship service is hardly what this is about. Traditional churches often have special "prayer meetings," which have rather poor attendance. Prayer should be at the center of our gatherings, not a separate program.

Finally, the goals are different between a traditional church and a house church. In a traditional church, the goal is to "add." Add more members to the group. This will allow for more programs, more outreach, bigger buildings, and more impressive presentations. In a healthy house church, the goal is to "multiply." As our group grows, God will raise up a new leader and the group will split into two.

Traditional churches often strive to have multiple services, multiple locations (satellite venues are growing in popularity today), and even talk about "church plants." But a "split" is hardly ever the specific goal.

It is not my goal to trash traditional churches - God has used and continues to use them for His purposes. But it is difficult to discuss the benefits of a house church without comparing them to, and viewing the deficiencies of, a traditional church. The goal is not necessarily to find a better way, but to get out of the way. To get out of God's way, by removing our man-made structures and programs and let His spirit lead the way. We must remain focused on the call of Christ, not on the traditions that have been passed down to us.

In a sense, this is what we have chosen. But the truth is, this is what God has placed on our hearts. This is what He has called us to do.

Labels: church, house church

It's been a few weeks since I've posted about our transition, and I feel like it's time for me to open up about what's happened in the past two months.

The first Sunday after we had left Faith Community, we were ready to start visiting around. I had been wanting, for a couple of years, to take a few weeks off so I could just see what some other churches were doing. Being a worship leader doesn't really give you a lot of time to do that. But after we lost a couple of folks from our worship team a couple of years ago, it got harder to take some significant time off. (Quick note to other worship leaders reading this: take some time off! Go see what others are doing! If you put it off, it'll never happen!)

Then, my first Sunday of not having any commitments, one of our kids got sick. So we all stayed home. Bummer!

The next couple of Sundays were interesting. We visited a church in Loganville that I had heard good things about. Pretty solid doctrine, good musical style, and the church has been growing pretty steadily. The sermon was good. The main problem I had with it though, was that it was quite a "one-man show." Meaning, the pastor was also the worship leader. There was another guy who was playing guitar, and led singing on a couple of the songs, but the pastor led most of the singing and had a firm grip on the wheel. The pastor also kept talking about himself - what he wanted to do in Loganville, how he needed help doing what God wanted, etc. Overall, not necessarily a situation I'd want to put myself into...

The following Sunday, we were in Manhattan - I had been sent on a business trip, and Amy came along. We visited a church there that was pretty cool. Kind of like a North Point wanna-be (or whatever standard they would have used for themselves), only they weren't anywhere near 100% in their execution. But they had four services on Sunday in Manhattan (though their space was limited in seating to probably about 400, and on Sunday evening when we went there were about 150), and had just started a satellite campus in Jersey City.

At this point, though, I began questioning the whole approach. On our way up the elevator (yes, this church was in a ballroom on the 6th floor), there was a greeter and another visitor in there with us. Some things the visitor said made me think she just didn't know how to take all of this in, like she was quite skeptical. I'm not sure what brought her to that church that night (she was alone), but I kept thinking about how the entire production was probably failing to capture her spiritual imagination.

The music was pretty good by church standards, but she probably couldn't figure out why everyone was so excited - it wasn't nearly as good as anything you'd hear on the radio (the fact that they sound mix was off probably wan't helping). Besides, as "relevant" as the music style was (it was pretty much exactly what I would do), her preference in music was probably a bit more hip than anything they could have tried to accomplish. (Though their rendition of Switchfoot's "This is Your Life" was decent.)

The sermon was a good presentation about how God has a purpose for you (it was basically the outline of the Purpose-Driven Life), but there was very little about it that was mysterious. It was presented based on reason, with some humor mixed in. Typical sermon. I'm thinking, she's probably here to see if God shows up, and all we tend to do is put on a show and try to convince everyone that we're right and that we're talented. It started making me skeptical of the entire approach.

The following Sunday, we made plans to visit another church where some friends have been attending. It was one of the better ones we had visited. It was the first Sunday for the new pastor. The people were genuinely friendly, and the music was great (the only one of the three we visited that didn't incorporate a praise team - a big plus for me!).

But one thing was consistent with each of these visits to these churches (as well as a visit we had made to North Point several months ago): pretty much the only people we had any amount of conversation with was the person who greeted us at the door, and the people who were taking care of our kids. And in those conversations, we never really got to know them. There was simply no time - we had to get our kids in place, find a seat, and be ready for the "show" to start. It's kind of like how Amy doesn't consider going to a movie to be a real "date". We don't get to talk much. Was our experience visiting these churches really any different?

The bigger and more successful the church, the worse the problem becomes. So the very things that make a church grow (inspiring sermon and music) also create the problem where you simply won't get to know anybody when you walk in the door. Is this how we're supposed to disciple the nations?

So not only had I started to become skeptical of the presentational approach, it's starting to gnaw at me more, because there's no time for building relationships...

We'd been wanting to visit some house churches, but it's kind of hard to find them since they're not particularly visible and don't generally have websites. And most of the ones we're aware of don't offer any sort of child care, and as I've tried to point out to the people I know involved in house churches of that nature, when you hvae a two-year-old and a four-year-old, you'll understand why you need something different for young kids.

But while searching for churches in Snellville, Amy found a link on a church's website to a website for a house church that meets in Suwanee on Sunday nights. After looking at the site, and really connecting with the vision that was shared there, we decided to check it out the next evening.

That Sunday night we went to the house church in Suwanee. It was a completely different experience. Rather than sitting, listening and simply singing along, we participated. We got to know everyone else there. They were not satisfied with just asking our names and finding out where we lived. They wanted to hear our story. And we got to learn about their stories. And our stories intersected.

This particular night, there were ten adults in attendance. With a group that size, you have a completely separate dynamic. Nobody is there to see a show - everyone is there to worship and grow. You contribute to the discussion, and see where the Spirit leads. You can get a type of interaction in a group of ten that you could never get in a group of even fifty, much less two thousand.

As a worship leader, it's quite a different experience to lead worship for ten people that you are getting to know, as opposed to a hundred or more, where you know maybe a couple dozen of them, some more of them, you know their names, and the rest of them are just faces.

You simply can't walk into and out of a house church anonymously.

We had already been thinking about and considering house churches already. But being involved with this group for the past two months has made it clear to us that this is the direction God has been leading us. As I look back over my own blog, I see that I have been asking questions that are best answered in the context of house church.

Beyond our own experience, there are many reasons why I'm convinced that gathering in house churches is a superior approach. More on that to come - stay tuned.

Labels: church, house church, life

So kind of like Insha'Allah, there's a saying in the south: "Lord willin' and the creek don't rise." Today the creek rose.

We're currently on vacation at the beach with some friends, and as we got up this morning it was raining. So we chose a place for lunch, and got the kids ready (all four of them!) to head out.

We were leading the way. Turning out of the parking lot, it looked like this:


This was the view from the driver's perspective with the car as close to the street as possible. So now comes the question, what do you do? I inched out, and couldn't see anything, but there were no cars coming so I was OK. What's your other option? Back up six feet? Not much use:


Back up another six feet? Still no good:


Or back up about twenty feet? You can barely peek out:


It turns out our friends were not as lucky as we were: they waited, backed up until they could see through the trucks at least a little bit, and watched. No cars. So they pulled out. Turns out you can't see a Camaro very well when there are large trucks lined up along the street. The Camaro ended up hitting our friends' SUV.

They're all OK. The driver of the Camaro had an injured leg and was taken to the hospital. Both cars were towed - the Camaro was damaged pretty badly, our friends' car appeared drivable but it's being looked at to tell for sure. But now all eight of us are here with one car. The creek rose, indeed. Plans change. Life happens.

Everyone we've talked to here at the place we're staying have said they've had similar trouble about pulling out. We asked the police officer to get them to move their cars -- these were all guys parked there while working at a nearby construction site. The officer said he'd talk to the foreman, but I don't believe he did. Then when the cop pulled into the parking lot and tried to pull out, he almost got hit. (Funny, would he have written a ticket to himself for failure to yield?) Those cars were still there until about 4:30pm.

What would you do in a similar situation? We now know what we'll do when we pull out again -- someone will stand by the street and let us know when it's clear, and then we'll pull out, and wait for that person to get back in the car.

I also know what I'll be doing tomorrow if those trucks are parked in the same spot - calling the cops.

Labels: life