House churches and missional ecclesiology

[Steve Hayes]

For some reason I was thinking about house church recently, and decided to
write something about it in my blog -- different places where I had been
involved in house churches, and where they seemed to work and where they
didn't.

I was introduced to the idea by John Davies, an Anglican priest (now a retired
bishop) more than 40 years ago.

My blog post, if anyone is interested, is at:

http://khanya.wordpress.com/2007/12/29/house-church/

Comments are welcome, there or here.

But what I really wanted to talk about here was what happened after I had
written it. As often happens, when I've written about something, I want to
see what others have said about the same topic, so I read a few other
blogs that mentioned house churches, and I was rather surprised to find
that they were all very strongly negative. Not that they were all negative
about house churches, but that they had almost all who had gone to house
churches did so because they were reacting against something else, and they
all assumed that the only possible reason for house churches was because one
was running away from something or reacting against something else.

So I'm curious to know how widespread such attitudes are, and whether
others have had negative or positive or no experiences of house church.

[AJA]

"Steve Hayes" <***@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:sMjej.1928$***@trndny09...
Not that they were all negative

Post by Steve Hayes
about house churches, but that they had almost all who had gone to house
churches did so because they were reacting against something else, and

they all assumed that the only possible reason for house churches >was

because one was running away from something or reacting against

something else.

Or running into something entirely off the rails, perhaps. Questions arise:
in a house church, who is the leader? From whence does he/she get that
leading? If a doctrine arises like the drinking of poison to prove faith,
etc., who corrects or directs that kind of behavior? You'll remember that
even early Christians had to deal with love feast gone amok. Keeping 'in
track' in house churches could present a problem.

Blessings,
Ann

[Bob Crowley]

Post by Steve Hayes
Not that they were all negative

Post by Steve Hayes
about house churches, but that they had almost all who had gone to house
churches did so because they were reacting against something else, and

they all assumed that the only possible reason for house churches >was

because one was running away from something or reacting against

something else.

in a house church, who is the leader? From whence does he/she get that
leading? If a doctrine arises like the drinking of poison to prove faith,
etc., who corrects or directs that kind of behavior? You'll remember that
even early Christians had to deal with love feast gone amok. Keeping 'in
track' in house churches could present a problem.
Blessings,
Ann

I'm Catholic, so I'm a bit cynical about people setting up their own
churches, when Christ gave the command to be unified. I get a bit
annoyed when I see one-off churches which display a name like like
"Christ's one and only true apostolic church". The first thing I
suspect is that somewhere along the line somebody was unable to submit
to church discipline and they of course knew better.

However I have attended home groups, usually Bible Study groups,
established within the auspices of a particular church, both in my
Protestant days, and occasionally now in a home group run by my wife's
Baptist church.

Home Groups serve a purpose in that they allow you to meet people in a
more relaxed atmosphere, and perhaps to get to know a small number of
people within a large church, where it's difficult to establish close
relationships.

The only place for real "Home Churches" is, in my opinion, when the
church is forced underground because it's been outlawed, or the
government wants to control the church.

[Red]

For some reason I was thinking about house church recently, and decided to=
write something about it in my blog -- different places where I had been
involved in house churches, and where they seemed to work and where they
didn't.

...

But what I really wanted to talk about here was what happened after I had
written it. As often happens, when I've written about something, I want to=
see what others have said about the same topic, so I read a few other
blogs that mentioned house churches, and I was rather surprised to find
that they were all very strongly negative. Not that they were all negative=
about house churches, but that they had almost all who had gone to house
churches did so because they were reacting against something else, and the=

y

all assumed that the only possible reason for house churches was because o=

ne

was running away from something or reacting against something else.
So I'm curious to know how widespread such attitudes are, and whether
others have had negative or positive or no experiences of house church.

The Amish have used house churches for many generations and apparently
have no problem with the concept. They meet every Sunday in groups of
20 or more at different homes or barns, have their service, eat a
community meal, and enjoy each other's company. Much better than many
churched religions where people are in & out in an hour and rarely
speak to each other.

Red