News Watch

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It is Thursday, 6:30 p.m., and people are gathering at Rick and Wendy Horton’s home in Oceanside, California. They help themselves to food and drinks, they talk and laugh, and children play.

Around 7 p.m., someone says, “So, what has God been doing in your lives this week?” Soon, all 22 people join the discussion. One shares insights from a book he is reading. Others share personal problems, leading to a time of prayer. Then everyone—feeling spontaneously moved to praise God—sings worship songs. Outsiders may see just a gathering of friends, but this group sees itself as much more—as a church—without an official building or paid pastor or structured meetings.

“We’re a group of people who are committed to meeting daily and discovering the things God wants for us,” Rick Horton, 43, told the JOURNAL.

They also are part of a growing number of Christians in the United States who are leaving traditional churches for home churches. Such home churches are patterned after those they see in the New Testament and inspired by the rapid growth of home churches in countries where Christians are persecuted, such as China.

“Millions of believers have moved beyond the established church…and chosen to be the church instead,” according to evangelical pollster George Barna. His book Revolution (Tyndale House, 2005) links the home church movement to a larger movement of Christians who have become dissatisfied with traditional churches and are experimenting with alternative Christian communities, including workplace ministries, online communities, and home churches (also called “simple churches”).

The movement has critics, including J. Lee Grady, the editor of Charisma magazine, who, in a June 2006 editorial, blasted Barna for endorsing “‘spontaneous’ home group[s] led by renegades.” Grady asserted, “There is a huge difference between the growing organic churches of the developing world (all of which have appointed leaders and apostolic oversight) and the loosey‐goosey revolution Barna advocates.”

Many home churches, however, like the one David and Carolynn Anderson attend in Bristol, Tennessee, defend their right to meet, based on Jesus’ promise in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (NIV).

They also challenge many modern church practices. Spending money on expensive buildings and staff salaries, for example, has no biblical support, according to Jim Trebbien, 59, the founder of Christian Home Church Network, a Web site of resources for home churches, based in Bennington, Nebraska.

Communion has become a ritualized ceremony, far removed from the original Lord’s Supper—which was a real, shared meal, according to Wolfgang Simson, a leading proponent of the home church movement and author of Houses That Change the World (C & P Publishing, 1999). Many churches limit the work of the ministry to Christians with seminary degrees and official titles, such as “senior pastor,” according to articles on the Web site of the House Church Network—a network that consists of about 2,000 home churches located throughout the United States.

Barna estimates that 20 million people or nine percent of Americans—up from just one percent a decade ago—attend a home church in a typical week. He believes the number will double in the next decade, according to a study released in June. Some home church participants think Barna’s estimate is too high, but they agree that the movement is growing. Simson told the Journal that there are 10,000 to 20,000 home churches in the United States, calling them the country’s “fastest growing church movement.”

Their growth has gone largely unnoticed because home churches usually do not draw attention to themselves, Simson said, but he believes they are the wave of the future.
Unlike the small groups (or “home groups”) and cell churches that are attached to traditional churches, most home churches are independent or part of loosely structured networks. Some denominations, however, like the Southern Baptist Convention, have begun to experiment with home churches.

Genuine Community. Wendy Horton, 37, was reluctant to leave the traditional church her family attended in Chino Hills, California. Six years ago she was happily involved in mentoring ministries and had many friends there, when her husband, Rick, a pastor at the church, felt called by God to start a home church. Now, Wendy cannot imagine going back, she told the Journal.

“Our home church is very much like a family. It’s not a forced thing. It just comes really naturally,” she said, adding that she appreciates how the other members really love her kids and pray for them.

Most New Testament scholars agree that Christians met in homes for nearly 300 years of church history, according to Roger W. Gehring, author of House Church and Mission (Hendrickson, 2004). The New Testament refers to a number of home churches, including those that met in the homes of Philemon, Nympha, and Priscilla and Aquila. In the fourth century, under Constantine, churches began to relocate to basilicas, Gehring says in his book.

Today, the average church, worldwide, has 100 members, according to Simson’s book. In many cultures, however, 20 is the maximum number of people who can gather without feeling the need to become formally organized, he said. Simson believes that because of this, traditional churches, even small ones of around 45 people, cannot offer the relationships and accountability that are required for discipleship and spiritual growth.

In 1999, a ministry to Generation X’ers called Apex, based at a megachurch in Las Vegas, Nevada, decided to transition into a network of home churches. Greg Hubbard, 35, a leader of Apex, said the transition took several years, and Apex lost many members in the process. The resulting community was worth the difficulty, however, he told the Journal.

“We now have the freedom to be church, anywhere, anytime. It is simple and often spontaneous,” Hubbard said. He recalled, as an example, that when a member of one of the home churches was dying, the home church moved their meetings into his home, where “church” consisted of caring for him in his last days.

Kyle Knapp, 50, a home church leader in Omaha, Nebraska, and a former Foursquare Church pastor, said that home churches allow people to feel safe sharing their needs, struggles, and doubts about their faith.

“Something about traditional churches makes people feel like they need to pretend everything’s fine,” Knapp told the Journal. “The typical story is the family that fights in the car all the way to church, then they step foot in the door and put on their smiles,” he said.

Knapp said his home church also ministers to misfits. “We’ve met many outcasts— people who just don’t fit in the church,” Knapp said, mentioning a friend who struggles with addictions. “The [traditional] church doesn’t know what to do with them.”

Home churches also are welcoming places for new Christians, according to Simson. Ninety‐nine percent of converts never get plugged into a church, according to his book. He believes a lack of community is to blame.

Everyone a Minister. Home church advocates also complain that traditional churches revolve around Sunday morning services, where clergy lead while the members watch—much like entertainers performing for an audience. Wendy Horton says that the New Testament teaches, in 1 Corinthians 14:26, that everyone should take part in a church meeting, not just the people up front. The idea of the same pastor delivering sermons every Sunday now seems “odd” to her after participation in a home church, she said.

“[In our home church] we all have something to offer and add,” she said. “Church now has a richness to it because it’s not just one person teaching; it’s all of us.”

David Anderson, 53, a former pastor with the Presbyterian Church of America and the founder of House Church Network, says he left his traditional church when he realized that the meetings did not correspond to those in Scripture. One troubling difference was the dependence the church members had on him, as the pastor, to provide all their teaching, he told the Journal. He also has noticed that when a pastor goes on vacation, many churches feel the need to invite a guest pastor from outside the church to fill in. This would not happen if churches had applied the doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers,” Anderson said.

In contrast, the home church that Anderson now is part of has a plurality of teachers or “elders,” including him. “God has promised to give wisdom to all. To restrict the bulk of the teaching to one person seems to deny that,” he said, adding that in his home church even children take part in the discussions.

Critics of the movement point out that home churches can become breeding grounds for heresy when lay people are doing the teaching. Anderson admits this is a definite possibility.

“But I have to add that even the denominations are breeding grounds for heresy, now,” Anderson said, pointing out that theological liberalism is eroding Scripture, evangelism, and the traditional family structure. Error has plagued churches since the beginning, but they should not counter it by constructing institutional, hierarchical structures, Anderson said. It should instead be addressed with the guidelines Jesus gave in Matthew 18:15–17, he said. Anderson also is using his Home Church Network Web site to teach orthodox Christian doctrines.

Anderson is among many home church leaders who will not accept financial support for doing ministry. He supports his wife and five children by driving a tractor‐trailer during the night shift for United Parcel Service.

“If there is a plurality of leaders as seen in Scripture, then everybody can’t be paid a salary,” Anderson said, noting that in 1 Corinthians 9 the apostle Paul declined financial support. Michelle Lee, an assistant professor of biblical studies and theology at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California, agrees that New Testament churches had a plurality of leaders and teachers, despite the presence of a few leaders such as the apostle Paul and Timothy, who had a great deal of authority, she told the Journal. Lee also agrees that many churches have too great a division between clergy and laity.

“1 Corinthians 14 does support a church gathering which seems to reflect more participation by the regular congregation than we have today,” Lee said.

She does not, however, believe that church form rules out paid, full‐time church staff. This is true, she said, given that Paul also argued in 1 Corinthians 9 that he had a right to receive financial support from the Corinthian church even though he declined it.

Home church advocates are correct in pointing out that the biblical concept of church is more a gathering of believers than a building, according to Lee. The believers themselves are said to be God’s temple in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19, she said. Lee does not believe, however, that the Bible teaches that meeting in a church building is necessarily bad.

“House churches can be a very positive thing if what people are after is greater intimacy and participation by all people,” Lee said. “But just a house church, per se, is not necessarily better than, say, a megachurch. It’s not the place of meeting as much was what happens in that meeting that makes it biblical,” she said.

Smaller Churches, Larger Growth. Many home church advocates, however, believe that meeting in homes is essential, not only for fellowship and spiritual growth, but also for church growth. Simson believes that home churches, which have been responsible for the rapid growth of Christianity in countries such as China and Vietnam, are the key to church growth in the United States, where many traditional churches are seeing declining attendance.

Statistically, most churches stop growing after they have reached 200 members, Simson writes in his book. One reason is that 200 people are the most a pastor can care for personally, he says. Home churches are the solution to the “200‐barrier,” Simson believes, because they can keep breaking off into new home churches —maintaining community while offering unlimited growth potential. An average home church of 12 people that reproduces once a year could be expected to create a network of almost 2 million people in 20 years, he says.

Anderson, whose home church has reproduced three times, sees them as a way to reach people who have not been touched by traditional churches. He said, “We need to ask ourselves, ‘Could this be the format to help expedite getting the Good News out?’”

Gary McIntosh, a professor of Christian ministry and leadership at Talbot School of Theology and one of the foremost church‐growth experts, however, does not think the movement will become a major force in the United States. “My research has found that house churches are successful most often in countries where the church is persecuted,” he told the Journal. ”They are also successful in countries with a strong connectional family culture, and where facilities for church meetings are mostly unavailable, often due to lower economic issues.” McIntosh believes that the wave of the future is not home churches, but “small groups,” which are groups of people from traditional churches who meet in homes midweek.

— Holly Pivec