Thanks for a fascinating post, Milton. This has so many implications, does this mean that the era of the mega-church is over?

Any approach today that focuses on making disciples of Jesus--enabling them to do all that He taught and lived--instead of aiming at making decisions for Jesus gets two thumbs up from me.

Go with God, Milton.

I am fine with home churches or whatever works but let's be careful not to prescribe something. what we read in the NT is a description not the church model it is "a" church model for EARLY christianity. I think it is a great concept to meet in peoples homes but don't say that is the way it's suppose to be.

In thinking about house churches...

House churches allowed women leadership roles in the early church.

House churches in the first century were often the result of being denied access to the synagoges.

House churches were under the radar for political expediency.

House churches required little administrative oversight and upkeep.

House churches encouraged personal relationships and accountability.

Hi Bonnie,

Regarding your question about mega-churches:

According to David Olson, from 2007-2008, the only church size that had positive growth rate were small churches (attendance of 1-49) and mega-churches (2000+).

Others suggest that mega-church growth primarily comes from "switchers". People who are switching from the medium and large church to mega-churches.

There are a number of free PowerPoints at Dave Olson's web page, www.TheAmericanChurch.org which will give you a lot more information on the trends in North America.

Hi Donna,

Regarding women:
Yes women played a major role in New Testament leadership. In fact, Robert Jewett in his 1,144 page scholarly commentary on Romans notes, "The modern scholarly controversy over this name {Junia in Romans 16:7] rest on the presumption that no woman could rank as an apostle, and thus that the accusative form must refer to a male by the name Junias or Junianus. However, the evidence in favor of the feminine name “Junia” is overwhelming. Not a single example of a masculine name “Junias” has been found. The patristic evidence investigated by Fabrega and Fitzmyer indicates that commentators down through the twelfth century refer to Junia as a woman, often commenting on the extraordinary gifts that ranked her among the apostles." page 961.

Regarding synagogue access:
"Since history records that persecution has often led to house church development, it is tempting to think that New Testament house churches were the result of persecution. This is a misunderstanding." Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke, The Letter to Philemon, 261.

Also, the Communion service, sometime called the Lord's Supper, was uniquely Christian. It did not apply to Jews and therefore did not fit in the Jewish synagogues. So this special meal, which originally happened in a home and as part of a full meal has to be celebrated somewhere else. House churches are the natural place for communion to be shared.

As time goes on, Christians are banned from Jewish synagogues as persecution intensifies.

Although house churches flourish in times of persecution, they were well established before the persecution of Christians.

In fact, this is an old idea that we've forgotten and so it is new again. During the early decades of the Adventist movement, most of our local churches were house churches. Church buildings did not become the norm until later. There is an old Adventist phrase for this kind of thing; "cottage meetings."

Of course, more recently the Adventist Church has grown in China through house churches. It has had the same effect someone mentioned above, of allowing women to play a stronger leadership role. In fact, China is the only nation on earth where the General Conference has already decided to recognize the ordination of women pastors.

In some places, like mainland China (as it was with the Early Church), house churches were borne out of necessity by the underground movement of Christians. In my country, small groups that met in the homes of either members or potential converts were known as "cottage meetings". These small groups were essentially new church plants. Based on what I've seen, house churches have a short lifespan. They either grow, so that members of the fellowship sooner or later decide to move from a private house to a larger neutral location which may be a temporary, rented structure, or fade out.

For a good account of the place of house churches vs megachurch in America/U.S. see:
- The Shape of Things to Come: Megachurches, Emerging Churches and Other New Religious Structures Supporting an Individualized Spiritual Identity.
by Scott Thumma, Hartford Seminary
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/organizationalchangechapter.doc

Milton wrote: According to Ephesians 4:12, pastors are not to do the work for the people, but are to “equip God's people for the work of service.”

Ephesians 4 is a frequently quoted but misunderstood job description of pastors/clergy, as if they have been assigned the primary task of congregational human resource directors or personnel managers. What did Paul really say?

7But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it....

11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

I just finished watching a video of Lamin Sanneh, Professor of Missons and World Christianity at Yale University, who was cited in another thread. Western missions, he observed, consist primarily in building large organizations, of huge bureaucracies they exported abroad. Truth of the matter is, according to him, very few conversions, less than 1% of the total, have resulted from direct effort by foreign clergy.
- "Christianity, the West, and the World," Haystack 2006
Keynote Address, Haystack Bicentennial Celebration, Williams College.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7060470388286969715#

Bravo! I'm excited to watch the growing movement of small, personal, localized communities (not only in church, but in buying food, for example). In our fast-paced, technologized world I think we're starving for authentic human encounters that validate the whole of our human experience. Moving church to homes where "real" living takes place seems conducive to integrating sacred and secular, making welcome the entire person--relational, working, spiritual, physical. Offering church in an intimate setting seems to provide the safe environment necessary for deep vulnerability and sharing, allowing true transformation to take place. We meet God in each other; we meet each other in God. The mirror is easier to read when held up close and personal. Where better to practice spirituality than in a lived-in home, not a huge building that's utilized once, twice, maybe three times a week? Certainly infrastructure and hierarchy are necessary for a large organization, but at its roots, the church must be small and relational or it will lose its relevancy.

I agree that the home church movement provides a welcome alternative for bureacratic church structures that have seemed to outlive their usefulness. I also acknowledge the biblical basis as seen in the NT. But, I also find myself agreeing with Anthony that this seems to be descriptive rather than a prescriptive model. How much of this was based on the contemporary life situation of the early Christian church, be it persecution, expulsion from the synagogue, etc?

Obviously, the home church setting provides an intimacy and accountability that can be lost in the larger, institutional church setting. But, so can a larger church structured into home fellowship or cell groups. Joselito raises an interesting point that most house churhces he has seen have had a short lifespan. It makes me wonder about touting this as the cure-all for what is wrong with the church and its outreach.

Lyle Schaller, church growth "guru," has pointed to having a full time, committed team of leaders as the crucial factor in planting a healthy, growing church. Maybe house church can be one model among others to launch such.

Thanks...

Frank

Hi Joselito,

Thanks for contributing and for the opportunity to clarify.

As you pointed out, Paul says in verse 12, "to prepare God's people for works of service". My point is that these gifts articulated in the previous verses of Eph 4 are for the purpose of preparing God's people for the works of service.

Sadly, Christianity in general has not used these gifts to prepared God's people to do the works of service, but they themselves have done the work, which has culminated in the professionalization of these gifts. I recognize that this challenges the existing paradigm on which Christianity in general and modern Adventism operate.

As Monte suggested earlier, this has not always been the norm in Adventism.

It's funny how conservative Christians are into home-schooling, and progressive Christians are into home-churching.

Kent, what is your definition of "progressive" Christians? And how do we know that those who are leading in this type of arrangement are progressive? Thanks for any enlightenment.

Home schools and home churches need not be mutually exclusive,
but more often are complementary, or even essentially the same thing. Home churches, in Adventist lingo, are essentially what has previously been called "Companies".
I was involved in two "Church Companies" 30 years ago and also
two Home Schools before the Home School movement became
popular.

Another aspect of this "Home Church" movement has to do with the question of "doctrine" or what should be taught in these "Home Churches." I think Jesus gave excellent advice
in His "Great Commission" in Matt. 28:19-20,"Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you...." This does not necessarily mean all of the details of the "Creeds" of any particular modern denomination, but certainly includes "The Gospel" or "Good
News" of and about Jesus Christ, and the clear teachings of Christ's Own Apostles as found in the New Testament. Unfortunately, this essential command of Jesus Himself in regard to what His followers should teach has not always been followed by Christians through the centuries, including
some Adventists. Too often, Christ's teachings have been mixed with human suppositions and "traditions of the elders" just as happened in Judaism. When the Gospel is preached in its simplicity it has power to convict and convert in a
way it cannot have when mixed with human theories and
traditions. When the Son of Man is lifted up He promised He will draw all men unto Him and He said the Holy Spirit will
speak of Him also. No man can come to God except the Father
and the Spirit draws him.

Thank you Milton for the clarification and kind response to my comment. My sense is Paul had in mind a gathering similar to a Rabbinic or synagogue school, thus the gift of pastor-teacher.

Kent, that was an interesting observation. The most conservative and traditional Adventists in my ethnic immigrant community do tend to homeschool their children, then send them to institutions run by self-supporting ministries, that is, if they can't afford the cost of educating them in our denominationally-run colleges. However, those that separate (yes, we multiply by dividing, caused by disagreement) into house churches, or start new church plants, in America may be roughly grouped into "progressive" and "conservative" although the latter seems more predominant.

Well, we should get rid of the corrupt, non-Biblical traditions that have proliferated in the church for two centuries and get back to the primitive gospel of the early church, expect we probably shouldn't do any of the things the early church actually did, like meet in houses instead of church buildings.

Home churches were the "norm" in early Christianity,not the exception, from the 1st well into the 3rd century, as was brought out by others earlier in this blog, and as Christian history clearly documents. Church-building was the "johnny-come-lately," not home churches!
As far as the primacy of the Gospel is concerned, this truth carries its own conviction and the NT exemplifies it.
Jesus Himself spoke specifically about "the traditions of the elders" in uncomplementary terms,and the history of Judaism and Christianity fully confirms what Jesus said. But the NT teaches there are both good and bad traditions.
Too much of the spiritual and economic power and potential influence for good in Christiaity over the centuries has been squandered, dissipated, and lost to the world due to the "internal friction" in church bureaucracy, vast cathedral-building programs, and unbiblical traditions mixed with the pure Gospel which the Holy Spirit could not bless as it might have blessed the pure Gospel. Now the great cathedrals in Europe are empty and being rented out for other purposes.

Anthony & Frank,

I hear your concern about house churches being prescribed vs. described in the NT. Ultimately, God can and will work through various methods to reach the lost. But are there some methods that are more ideal? I think so.

Example: Just think of the Garden of Eden as Adam & Eve's home. Was this officially prescribed in the Bible? Did God tell humans they had to live in nature/country even after sin? No, but we can easily see many more benefits of living in nature vs. cities. Think of all the Bible stories of God working with & blessing those who made nature their homes (Abraham vs. Lot, Israel's 40 years in the wilderness, David's early formative years, John the Baptist, etc.).

I think the same can be said of house churches vs. traditional churches. House churches may not be officially prescribed, but it looks like that's how God originally set-up the NT church. Also, are there more obvious benefits & blessings to the NT house church method vs. Constantine's method? I believe there are.

I pastor in rural southeast Arizona. Three years ago, one of my churches fell into "home church" by accident. It went like this: We realized that 90% of the members lived >25 miles from the church building. So we decided to relocate, put the church up for sale, bought land in a central location where growth has been projected, and then watched as the market tanked.

We had only planned on meeting in a home for a short time. It has turned into years and I wouldn't trade the experience.

We meet in four different homes, rotating every two months. Each home has it's qwerks, but we get by. We eat together each sabbath, and the comfortable home setting is PERFECT for fellowship. We wander around the kitchen, sit on the couch, lean on the counters, sit outside, and talk, talk talk.

Sounds lame at first, but you must understand that when we made this move the church was about to implode. Normal attendance was around 12-15. Tensions were high, and the politics of the church were a mess.

Now our attendance is between 28-35. Our membership is only 38! But more importantly, the atmosphere and friendships that have formed in this church have been shocking. Old wounds have healed. Old tensions have eased. Finances are better. Now our only problem is that we are too big for our homes.

I don't attribute our good experience to any type of progressive mindset. We are a very typical, fairly conservative, older white rural congregation. Nor do I say that the Magic is in the home (as apposed to a church). The blessing has been in the close physical proximity, in the eye contact, the lingering conversations after lunch, and the fact that people have opened up their very private space for all to use and see.

This church had the reputation as one of the worst in our conference, chewing up and spitting our pastors. Now it is one of the most pleasant, mission oriented, loving and caring churches I can imagine. And it was the home environment that fostered it.

By the way, we kept all the traditional church structures in place. The structures and proceedures were not a problem for us. But I do admit that when I walk into a church with Pews I feel a bit strange.

Now we are planning on building a church, but it will likely resemble a home, inside and out.

Nathan, Hey man! Thanks for the report. Great to hear things are going well for you in Arizona.

Thanks Nathan for sharing the story of your congregation. It seems to echo that comment made by Frank Lloyd Wright about how we first shape our buildings and then they shape us.
Meeting in a home, sharing food and stories helps to shape strong personal relationships. If all we ever do at church is to sit in a pew and watch the performance of song and sermon, we will not have the chance to build those relationships that make us into the body of Christ.

Nathan's report of his experiences in a home church is interesting. It reminded me of a recent PBS
Frontline documentary entitled "From Jesus to Christ; The First Christians." This excellent 6 hour DVD is available through the PBS Online Store.
This professionally made well-documented history of early Christianity shows pictures of early Christian Home Churches and includes several church historians on camera discussing them and their use by early Christians. These historians also comment on how home churches related to the active role of women in early Christianity. This entire documentary places the use of home churches in full historical context and provides an excellent resource for anyone interested in this subject or for authoritatively and interestingly introducing it to other people. Showing it to home churches would help
them understand their own role better also.

Nathan - If I have read your story correctly: You started 3 years ago with a congregation of 15 older, white conservative members in rural southeast Arizona (near the border); that they have been meeting as a Simple Church in four different homes. Present membership, according to your account, is 38.

I have a couple of questions for you:
1) Where did your growth come from? How many of the original 15 are still with you? Of those that have been added, how many were reclaimed former members, transfers from other SDA churches, and new converts? What is your current congregation's age composition, including number of children and baptised old and young adults? Ethnicity?

2) Since you've already done so well meeting in homes as a Simple Church, why have you decided to build a sanctuary that structurally will simply mimic a homelike atmosphere instead of keeping it Simple by dividing the 38 members you already have so they can multiply by two house churches instead of one?

I'm not out to prove my point in regard to the short lifespan of house churches, but gathering in 4 different homes for 3 years, in my view, is not a very long time. I wish though that each of our pastors could be persuaded to submit an annual report of all congregations in their care that we may more easily flesh out the details of their stories for the benefit of all concerned.

Another "house church" option is what we have at Forest Lake Church. We stream our services live around the world - and we have a "web pastor" on staff who ministers to those who worship in their homes. We even have a Sabbath School class that is broadcasted live.

Our local church is full of many small congregation of believers who gather in small groups to pray, study and encourage one another. They then come together on Sabbath for corporate worship, but their "church" is their small group.

The house churches which sprang up in the first century were places where believers "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine" (Acts 2:42). The apostles led and taught the people in obedience to the commission of Jesus, "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:20). These cell groups were not free-flowing arenas of every wind of doctrine, and these early Christians were not trying to distance themselves from the "church." Indeed, they were the church in those days, but they had solid instruction in the things of God. From time to time issues of contention or disagreement would occur, and the apostles would prayerfully clear the matter up. But still, God was leading His infant church in a distinct, orderly manner. When Mrs. White spoke of house churches she did not have in mind doctrinally-neutral entities, but rather safe, attractive havens of truth which could effectively be used to bring people into God's remnant church. The trend I see these days is much different than this. While we are always to be searching the Scriptures and to remain open to new truth, we are also to be discerning enough to notice when a teaching or practice is not in accordance with Scripture. We are here to help people come out of confusion and despair, and into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Revelation 14 tells us that in the last days there isn't a plethora of belief systems that are acceptable to God, but rather that His people--all who will be saved in the end--will be identified by having the faith of Jesus and they will obey the commandments of God (moral law). Instead of becoming more and more eclectic and relative as time progresses, the truth, in God's estimation, becomes very specific in nature. "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17). To the extent that our house churches are contributing to this end, they are Biblical, they are powerful, and they are of God. But groups which do not want to be associated formally with the Seventh-day Adventist Church--due to societal pressure to move away from a semblance of organization--are not fulfilling the role that God established for them. People don't always realize what they truly need. They long for fellowship, community, yes, and they also long for truth and real contact with a real God. We must not shy away from our distinctives, when endeavoring to reach people. We must allow our life-enhancing message to shine in all of its beauty, and God will lead us to those who are searching. Our health message is exactly what people in the 21st century need to hear. This is God's ordained way of reaching secular people. People today are very interested in health and well-being. If they can see the difference this message is making in our lives, they will want to be part of it. Do we take our own message seriously? Or are we catering to the whims of innovation, and adopting the practices of fallen Christendom.

For those who will at the General Conference session in Atlanta, look for the simple church network at the Adventist Mission’s booth, #815.

it’s good to see this information in your post, i was looking the same but there was not any proper resource.