Paul says to the Roman Christians “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. ….as it is written: ‘Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.’ This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.” (Romans 15:20-22)
Home churches can become bogged down if they have forgotten to have an outward focus. Some home churches seek to include Christians who have dropped away from traditional ways of church and can then become bogged down as baggage is offloaded onto the group. Obviously groups go through various phases, but there needs to be times when we brush ourselves down and take a good look as to where our focus lies. Home churches need to balance the growing ‘inwards’ amongst the members of the group with a focus ‘outwards’ into the community around us. The healthiest home churches are those with a focus on building relationships and sharing with those who are not yet Christians. If their witness is outwards, then the ‘inwards’ often rights itself! There are many towns that have been transformed by having home churches sprinkled throughout the streets and neighbourhoods. Many Christians are fearful of ‘outreach’ holding visions of bible-bashing, door-knocking and street preaching, when in reality most good evangelism takes place as we are real in our life of faith and are open with our neighbour over the fence, or having coffee in our kitchen, at the soccer club or school committee etc. THERE IS GREATER OPENNESS ABOUT MATTERS OF FAITH, GOD AND JESUS IN THE SECULAR COMMUNITY AROUND US THAN THERE HAS BEEN FOR DECADES. Note, I say ‘faith, God and Jesus’, - NOT church! More people ‘out there’ are keen to know more about God and Jesus than maybe we are to share?? We need to be open to pick up the clues people give in their conversations and be real in response about what works for us. When they indicate interest, offer to bring a friend and do some basic bible study in their home and suggest they bring some friends. That is how home churches are happening more and more and works better than bringing them into existing home churches. We need to be open to the possibilities God presents and to be stretched!
Thank you Bessie. What you say is so true.
I think that house churches have an important ministry to the ‘dechurched’ who have dropped away from conventional church. And yet this ‘demographic’ brings baggage - something the Dales said quite a bit about.
Being outward focused is a great antidote; something our new church will certainly concentrate on.
I wonder if this is the difference between the house churches of the 1980s and the new generation of house churches which Dales and Wolfgang Simson are talking about? There seems to be a much more strong missional focus and a sense that house church is not just an option for the dropouts but the way forward for Christianity as a whole. (I mean to write a blog or article about this.)
Left by Nathan Hobby on April 11th, 2007