House church movement gaining momentum
To get to church on a recent Sunday morning, the Yeldell family walked no farther than their own living room to greet fellow worshippers.
The members of this "house church" are part of what experts say is a fundamental shift in the way U.S. Christians think about church, Associated Press reporter Linda Stewart Ball writes. Skip the sermons, costly church buildings and large, faceless crowds, the experts say. House church is about relationships forged in small faith communities.
In general, house churches consist of 12 to 15 people who share what's going on in their lives, often turning to Scriptures for guidance. They rely on the Holy Spirit or spontaneity to lead the direction of their weekly gatherings.
"I think part of the appeal for some in the house church movement is the desire to return to a simpler expression of church," said Ed Stetzer, a seminary professor and president of Lifeway Research, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. "For many, church has become too much (like a) business while they just want to live like the Bible."
House church proponents claim their small groups are sort of a throwback to the early Christian church in that they have no clergy and everyone is expected to contribute to the teaching, singing and praying.
They are more commonly seen in countries where Christianity is not the dominant religion. Organizers say they're just starting to take off in the U.S.
A study by the Barna Group, a firm specializing in data on religion and society, estimates that 6 million to 12 million Americans attend house churches. A survey last year by the Pew Forum found that 9 percent of American Protestants only attended home services.
"The only consistent thing about house church is that each one is different," said Robin Yeldell, who, in 2006, left a traditional church where he was a missions committee chairman.
The gathering at the Yeldells' home is a lively, sometimes chaotic event, with noisy and mostly happy young children flitting about.
After a time of fellowship, everyone gravitates to the kitchen table to observe the Eucharist with prayer, pinched-off pieces of sourdough bread and red wine in plastic cups. There's grape juice for the kids.
The celebration continues with a potluck meal. When they return to the living room, one member picks up a guitar to strum praise-and-worship songs that others softly sing.
Sparked by a previous discussion about whether they should start collecting an offering for the needy, Yeldell shares a Power Point presentation he created about "corporate giving" on his big screen TV.
The majority seems averse to a regular offering, preferring to take up a collection only when a need or charitable cause arises.
As if on cue, Sean Allen, a laid-off welder who is now homeless with health issues, joined their gathering late. The soft-spoken 39-year-old said he had been sick and struggling to pay some bills.
"I'm just here," Allen told fellow worshippers. "Do what you want. Let the Lord lead your heart."
Allen, who recently converted to Christianity from Islam, said a friend at a traditional church introduced him to the house church, which he prefers and occasionally attends because "they're more down to earth."
A few people agreed to write checks directly to the companies Allen owes while some debated whether money is the best way to help the man. A couple with five young children told him they couldn't afford to assist financially but he was always welcome to join them in their home for meals.
"I'd say the vast majority of house churches we know are Christians honestly trying to live 24-7 for Jesus," said Tony Dale of Austin. He and his wife, Felicity, are pioneers in the American house church movement which is also referred to as home church, organic church or simple church.
There aren't any signs out front so house churches are difficult to find. Prospective worshippers usually locate them by searching the Internet or through word of mouth.
Members rotate the services from house to house and take turns facilitating the gatherings. Anything more than about 15 people and the small group loses its ability to interact with each person, churchgoers say.
When they get too large, they divide and multiply.
"We view it as natural to grow, flourish and disband into three or four new ones," Dale said. "Not everything multiplies. Sometimes it shrinks and dies."
Sometimes congregations with diverse religious backgrounds break up over doctrinal issues or personality conflicts, moving on until they find or create a better fit.
In Texas, home to several megachurches, the house church movement is beginning to catch on, judging from the chatter on social networking sites and interest in a national house church conference organized by House2House Ministries held in the Dallas area in recent years.
"Often when you see a trend (like the growing number of megachurches) you see a counter-trend, like the proliferation of micro-churches," Stetzer said.
The Dales are among those actively working to bring mega- and micro-churches together.
Tony Dale cites the Apex Community Church in Dayton, Ohio, and The Austin Stone Community Church in Austin as examples of the complementary approach. They operate a network of dozens of small house churches, which can band together to become big.
Some who embrace the concept "have become kind of disillusioned, maybe bored with what's going on in traditional church and looking for a way to be more passionate in church," said Dale, who co-founded House2House magazine.
Bill Benninghoff of Arlington, a former pastor of charismatic churches in Texas and North Carolina, has been attending house churches exclusively since 2005.
"You get to know people in their good and bad times," said Benninghoff, a software engineer. "You get to pray with one another and have an incredible sense of camaraderie and community."
Benninghoff said he and his wife "felt lost in the big church on Sunday."
Reggie McNeal, a church leadership consultant based in South Carolina, said many people experimenting with house church have been doing so "under the radar," especially in Bible Belt states.
"It's kind of seen as an alternative or radical kind or approach," he said. "An increasing number of people are saying that they don't want to go to (any) church so there better be a way for church to just be where people already are."
Although house churches emphasize shared leadership and lack hierarchy, there doesn't seem to be a backlash from accredited seminaries devoted to training clergy to take leadership roles in traditional churches.
Dr. Nancy Ramsay, executive vice president and dean of Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth said interpreting Scripture for people of faith is an important responsibility but they respect those who see it differently.
"I wouldn't want to say that we feel threatened by that," Ramsay said. "We are concerned."
She stressed that a greater challenge for various denominations is being able to financially support a full-time religious leader during these tough economic times.
House church advocates say that's not an issue for them because they don't have paid professional leaders.
"You don't have to be dependent upon someone you hear at church to translate for you," said author Neil Cole, who directs Church Multiplication Associates in Southern California, which has helped start hundreds of organic churches in the U.S. and abroad.
"God is capable of speaking your language and talking to you where you live and I think that's attractive to people," Cole said.
Comments
If this catches on, it could be a serious threat to Religion, Inc.
But I'm sure ways will be found to keep faith a money-making enterprise. I'm thinking tapes, DVDs, CDs, training seminars, home-study guides, home altars/pews, prayer cloths (oh yeah ... that's been done already....)
Ka-ching!
Posted by: BankStreet | July 27, 2010 1:51 PM
I don't see it being a threat to Religion Inc. anymore than home wine making or beer brewing has hurt those businesses.
Posted by: Dana | July 27, 2010 3:15 PM
My sarcasm/cynicism indulged in a bit of hyperbole, Dana.
There's nothing I'd see as healthier than home-based worship (if there has to be worship at all, of course). Stripped of hierarchical, liturgical, and political issues and obsessions. The problem is (and here comes that cynicism again...) what may be one man's "home-based worship" could well be another's "cult," armed with AK-47s to do "the Lord's Work"
Captcha: situations smolder!
Posted by: BankStreet | July 27, 2010 6:23 PM
This sounds like a good idea. When it comes to worhsip, simpler is often better. It encourages people to get more involved rather than to just see people come in and leave without interacting.
Posted by: Clay | July 28, 2010 6:34 AM
Clay yes that is what we need. Tens of thousands of mini churches all coming up with their own intrepretations like you do.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 28, 2010 12:09 PM
Unlike other religions, Catholics would be able to practice “house church” without dilution of our principles. In fact the family is considered the “Domestic Church” and the family is where “one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life.” (CCC 1657)
The house church is just this, extended to friends and neighbors. Since we have a codified system of belief, two thousand years of study, and the magisterium it is unlikely that groups will come up with interpretations that fall too far from church teachings. It sounds much as things were in the Maryland colony during the mid eighteenth century. There were from ten to fourteen priests to cover the entire colony. Between visits communities worshiped among themselves.
The Catholic faith is practiced in that manner in modern day Tibet also.
Posted by: Dana LaRocca | July 28, 2010 4:27 PM
Dana in Clay's world unless you are practicing his nisguided view of the bible you are not doing what God wants.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 28, 2010 4:48 PM
Oh I'm quite sure of that Anonymous. I was just pointing out that the practice is not new. Heck, we were doing this in the catacombs in ancient Rome.
Posted by: Dana | July 28, 2010 6:27 PM
Dana,
I don't doubt you at all as to the history and validity of Roman Catholicism as practiced "in the home," by why do you claim this is "unlike other religions"? Surely other liturgies and forms of worship could just as easily be undertaken at home....
Posted by: BankStreet | July 28, 2010 9:00 PM
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear BankStreet. Catholics have the Catechism of the Catholic Church to guide them in all spiritual matters. The teaching authority of the Church, called the “magisterium,” and two thousand years of writings by Doctors of the Church; Augustine, Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, and the like. So the likelihood of misunderstanding what the church teaches or making it up as we go along (like Clay) is pretty much mitigated.
That's not to say we don't disagree, but we rarely disagree on doctrinal matters, and when we do we realize the serious nature of such disagreements. For instance Ravensfan and I both know what the Church teaches about free will and conscience. We would not disagree on the teachings but might disagree on the degree to which conscience might come to bear on a particular decision.
Yes other liturgies and forms of worship could just as easily be undertaken at home but, lacking the aforementioned Catechism, history, and magisterium, could easily become (like Clay's) a hodge podge of poorly understood bible verses mixed with a big dose of human weakness and conceit.
Posted by: Dana | July 28, 2010 9:34 PM
Dana,
Thanks for that explanation ... but ... I don't share your confidence that the magisterium would prevent home-based Catholics from running off the rails and into the briars of fanaticism and ...yes ... the snares of "human weakness and conceit." Other denominations also have their codes and rules (Not to dismiss the historical moment and even preeminence of the magisterium, but I dare say the Presbyterians think just as highly of the "Westminster Confession of Faith" and the Southern Baptists the "Baptist Faith and Message."), but without oversight -- and discipline -- from a central "authority," the natural tendency would be to evolve (inspired by human, rather than divine, impulse -- toward independence, no?
I dunno. Perhaps a healthier scenario is a community of believers/seekers who are unfettered by dogma and unified "denomination," cobbling their own beliefs, structures, and practices. So long as they don't involve AK-47s, that is....
Posted by: BankStreet | July 29, 2010 9:08 PM
O.K. BankStreet, mostly I agree. I see Catholic catechisis more as a grammar than as an instruction book. The Westminster Confession of Faith provides direction similar to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Both attempt to form a way of thinking as opposed to only a concrete set of rules. So I concede to your view. I prefer not to comment on the Baptist document.
That said, as we have witnessed on this blog, there are those who build their own religions based on their own beliefs and preferences with a smattering of thee's and thou's for dramatic effect. If a scripture agrees with their view they quote it often. If it does not, they discard it. My fear is that when people of this ilk band together they will build something less than holy.
I agree that the natural tendency would be to evolve toward independence. And given the Catechism, the writings of the Doctors of the Church, and the magisterium that independence will become the evolved church. The church is, in a very real sense, a living being. And like you and me She grows.
Teresa of Avila's writings, for instance, were considered quite independent in her time. Francis of Assisi wasn't considered exactly mainstream either. Yet each of these saints built a kind of wisdom within a close community that with time became very important to our faith.
“Dogma” is only a “fetter” if you allow it that role. It is actually quite useful, like grammar. It has a unifying characteristic that enables us (Catholics, in this case) to communicate better. The more things that can be taken as “given” or “understood” the less that needs to be defined in each new conversation. Like grammar, too, the rules can be broken to good effect as long as everyone knows what the rule was that was broken and why.
I agree with you about the AK-47s. Joan of Arc would have gone down in history as a terrorist rather than as Catholicism's loveliest crossdresser had she wielded more than a sword and a banner.
Posted by: Dana LaRocca | July 30, 2010 8:36 AM
Perhaps they are just preparing for the day when abortion has been unconstitutionally made illegal and thousands of very angry women, armed with matches and accelerants, fan out over the nation reducing the buildings of the offending churches to rubble, in retaliation for religiously imposed forced breeding, which would have the effect of rendering them third class citizens.
Posted by: Robert Littel | July 31, 2010 8:42 AM
Robert, take your meds.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 31, 2010 9:52 AM
Anonymous you need Buspar to combat your Robert Littel obsessive compulsive neurosis. Hinduism and Buddhism have both been home based religions for eons--the Hindus, like the Catholics have their icons and their idols and they convert at least one room in each home into a tiny temple of worship where the residents can withdraw, meditate, practice yogic breathing, recite the ancient vedas and pray. Ditto for the Buddhists who don't have to go to public places or to temples to worship in large groups--in both religions, worship within the home is a daily ritual--an everyday homage to the divine, as the Hindus and the Buddhists would put it-- a destressor and a decompressor and has been in practice for millennia. While both religions are family based, families usually don't enlarge the praying units by inviting whole neighborhoods or communities into the foray. BankStreet is right about the dangers of such expansions of praying groups--they will then be no different from the churches, assume the same political, hierarchical and other structural and functional anomalies with individuals competing for preeminence before, during and after the worship. That's when the Jim Joneses of the world blossom forth and grab the gullible by the throat.
R Anon
Posted by: Anonymous | July 31, 2010 9:13 PM
That was me, R-anon, who suggested that Robert take his meds. I didn't sign my post. Maybe you just haven't been reading his posts very well or maybe you just don't care. I would hope it is the former. And since you seem to be his only friend on this blog I would also hope that you care.
In another thread he said that he would be inclined to “off” a store clerk if she spoke to him about Jesus. In this thread he writes about burning churches. We should be concerned when an acquaintance talks of murder and arson and we should be more concerned if that person has shown other signs of sociopathic behavior.
Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems to me that neighborhood bible study groups are probably less of a threat to our society that nut-cases who talk about murder and and arson as appropriate ways to demonstrate their contempt for those who believe differently than themselves.
Posted by: Dana LaRocca | August 1, 2010 10:35 AM
Bobbie - The only person rendering women as third class citizens is you with neandrethal comments like forced breeding and offering images of women gone bezerk with rage. It's fairl apparent you have much pent up rage. Follow Dana's advice and take your meds.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 2, 2010 12:46 PM