Comments on: House Church Revisited

By: Derek

Derek — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:09:00 +0000

We should be careful, but we should also be discussing maturity. Paul talked about believers not remaining as spiritual “babies.” About growing up and moving on to the “adult stuff.” I think it’s an critically important topic, because that’s the function of the church. If we’re not evaluating the church on this basis, then we’re not really being self-critical enough.

And Barna’s original point (as mentioned in Tony Morgan’s post) was really about this – that traditional churches aren’t doing a good job of it. Note that Tony didn’t disagree with the premise.

I’d have to work on a good definition of maturity, but the central thing that I would describe it as is knowing how to respond to the Spirit. Both in church gatherings and outside them. It’s also about obeying Christ’s commandments, which were few, but difficult to master. You know someone is mature by the love they show to others. And by whether or not they seek to contribute to the edification of the church instead of just seeking to be ministered to.

And it’s not that I’ve achieved it. I’ve certainly learned in the past year or so is how my lifetime in traditional church has kept me closer to a spiritual baby than a mature adult. It’s a topic I should spend more time on both to understand it better as well as to apply it better myself.

By: Rich Kirkpatrick

Rich Kirkpatrick — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 05:12:00 +0000

About maturity. What does that look like? Is it giving up beer? Is it learning a set of knowledge? Are there behaviors learned? This is a huge topic and I would be very careful about saying mature people are not being created just because a bunch of very sinful people hang out with Andy Stanley’s group. If a house church invited a sinner, what would that look like?

By: Derek

Derek — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 04:22:00 +0000

I don’t know, I’m familiar with the statistics about North Point’s success (Andy Stanley’s church here in the Atlanta area) at getting people who attend their worship services involved in small groups, and it’s not all that good. And while all small groups are relational, many are also heavily programmatic, and not really “open” in the context I mean. So they’re not really growing mature disciples.

As far as the networking of house churches together, that’s an apostolic role. But it also happens anyway – my house church regularly gets together with others. We’re not doing it terribly regularly, but it’s something we want to keep pursuing. Also, consider what a house church of 10 can do with their tithes and offerings, not paying for a building or salaries.

Regarding attraction, the only attractional model I can see in the NT is “love one another.” Which is relational. I really do think it all comes down to that. I’m curious to see if anyone comes up with any Biblical examples to the contrary.

By: Rich Kirkpatrick

Rich Kirkpatrick — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:14:00 +0000

Hi Derek,

One of the myths of large churches that ARE successful for long periods of time reaching people and raising them up is that essentially they are a gathering of house churches rather than an event. The event, has been overstated by some and I say this as one who's job it is to put on the event.

I think that the weakness of house churches is not that they neglect Great Commission since churches of ALL sizes and types neglect it. The weakness is that a greater network of believers cannot be tapped or leveraged for the greater good. This is what a large church has--the ability to leverage what in reality is a bunch of little churches to a greater cause beyond the size and scope of those groups whether it be relief for the poor or training or you name it.

The arguments here should not be framed dogmatically since really the attractional and relational models are both biblical. We should do both but no person or group can be fantastic at both at all times in all places. We have to be who we are.

I love this discussion and impressed by reading your thoughts so far on this. Thanks!