Posted on 06/27/2006 9:56:30 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
A major announcement about house churches
-------------------------------------------------------- Posted: June 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
The little guy is back. For the first time in 1,700 years, simple churches meeting in homes are once again a factor in human events.
In many countries, they're booming so strongly that critics and opponents can no longer brush them aside as a fringe movement. And as I documented repeatedly in "Megashift," home churches are producing millions of proactive Christians who now and then perform miracles (though the credit ultimately belongs to God, of course).
But this week, even I was shocked to discover how big our house church community in North America really is. Briefly stated, we're right about halfway between the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention (which is the second-largest denomination in the U.S.).
OK now, let's inhale. I'm stunned, too. This really is starting to alter the landscape for all of us.
Let me state up front: These are solid numbers. George Barna, the leading U.S. church pollster and perhaps the most widely quoted Christian leader in America, is the author of the figures below. They are based on a full-on, four-month scientific survey of 5,013 adults, including 663 blacks, 631 hispanics, 676 liberals and 1,608 conservatives.
Nobody argues with numbers from The Barna Group. They employ all the professional safeguards to ensure tight results – in this case, a sampling error of +/-1.8 percent. Here are the results stated in five ways:
In a typical week, 9 percent of U.S. adults attend a house church.
In absolute numbers, that 9 percent equals roughly 20 million people.
In a typical month, about 43 million U.S. adults attend a house church.
All told, 70 million U.S. adults have at least experimented with participation in a house church.
Focusing only on those who attend some kind of church (which I recall is about 43 percent of us), 74 percent of them attend only a traditional church, 19 percent attend both a traditional and a house church, and 5 percent are hard-core house church folks. The study counted only attendance at house churches, not small groups ("cells") that are part of a traditional church.
George Barna is the author of the new best seller, "Revolution," which talks a lot about the kind of person who is leaving the fold of the institutional church and joining things like house churches. Revolutionaries are highly dedicated to Christ and know the Bible better than most. Barna predicts that within 20 years, Revolutionaries will comprise 65-70 percent of U.S. Christianity, leaving in the traditional setting only 30-35 percent (primarily the white-haired crowd).
Please don't think of the house church as a new fad. For the first 300 years of Christianity, house churches were the norm. In fact, church buildings were quite rare until the fourth century, when the power-hungry Roman Emperor Constantine suddenly outlawed house church meetings, began erecting church buildings with Roman tax money, and issued a decree that all should join his Catholic Church. If you want to stick to a biblical model, the house church is your only choice.
In China, the world's largest church (120 million) is 90 percent based in homes. The cover story in this week's World magazine (June 24) is on how Christian business leaders in China are beginning to change the whole situation in that country. Yes, even while Christians in many provinces are hunted down and tortured, CEOs of corporations in areas with freedom are changing the way government looks at Christianity. That is major.
Bottom line: Worldwide, the original church is back, re-creating the biblical model: "Day after day, they met by common consent in the Temple Courts and broke bread from house to house." (Acts 2:46) God is again pouring out His power on plain folks, bringing a megashift – not in our doctrine, but in our entire lifestyle.
House churches in North America are no longer seen as being in conflict with the traditional church. In fact, much to our amazement, noted leaders like Rick Warren have recently come out strongly in favor of house churches. Saddleback Church is even sending out their own members as "missionaries" to start house church networks! And just last week, John Arnott of Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship asked me, as a house church spokesman, to speak at his big annual conference. Unheard of.
Of course, many Christians will prefer to stay in their traditional roles, and that's OK. But now there is a strong alternative for ambitious souls who are crying out to do more, to have more, to be more.
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James Rutz is chairman of Megashift Ministries and founder-chairman of Open Church Ministries. He is the author of "MEGASHIFT: Igniting Spiritual Power," and, most recently, "The Meaning of Life." If you'd rather order by phone, call WND's toll-free customer service line at 1-800-4WND-COM (1-800-496-3266).
just curious...why do you say weak? we are "baby sheep" ourselves (7 months). what disappointed you in the pastors you met?
really i'm just curious, not wanting to start a holy war or anything. tryin to make sure we're not missin somethin.
IMHO there are two primary reasons for the decline in organized, mainstream religions: 1. Many Christian religions have embraced the influence of the PC crowd even to the extent that it is in conflict with scripture--this is a huge issue for people that look to the Bible for guidance and not to the arbitrary leaders of the PC church. 2. The constant assault by the old media and hollywood who view the church as a threat to their power to shape opinions and to compete with their financial gain. It is a control thing from the left, the secular worshipers, and mind controllers.
The center is in Rome.
No other core exists, as none of the 27,000 groups thinks having such a core is necessary.
Peter, you are Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my church!
"But I also know that I need the support of a community of Christians. So I choose to attend and keep my silence on areas where we differ."
Never be silent. This allows the PC crowd to win.
My center is Jesus. Not Peter. Not Rome. Not the Pope. Not anything of this world.
>> What ever gave you the idea of early Christians having ceremonies, ordained pastors, sermons, etc.? <<
The Lord's Supper is described in the bible. It is a ceremony. Those who led it were "presbyters" (presiders), who were appointed by "episcopi" (bishops), who were, in turn, appointed by the apostles.
The first-century work, "The Teaching of the Twelve," also simply known as "The Didache" (which is Greek for Twelve, and is pronounced DID-uh-kee) describes in considerable detail the conduct of house church meetings. There is no record of any church father criticizing the work by name. It was probably left out of the bible only because it was for ecclesiastic administration by pastors, not public worship. It's only conflict with the bible is that it cautions not to pay prophets, whereas Paul says to do so, but this conflict is likely referring to a different circumstance than Paul meant; Paul referred to ordained, traveling preachers raising funds for other communities, whereas the Didache seems to be referring to unordained members of the local community.
Incidentally, the Didache contains the Lord's prayer, followed by (or including) the prayer, "For Thine is the power and the glory," nine centuries before this was included in any publication of the bible.
I would tend to agree with your assessment.
There is still a core doctrine of beliefs, we just have a lot of heresy to deal with too. Don't worry, God will protect His church. Right now it seems that he is reorganizing things.
I have no particular statement on house churches one way or the other. The building you meet in is not a significant issue. However, I would question the doctrines of some of these groups. That matters.
Barna may not even be a very good pollster, at all. He is respected among Protestant Christians primarily because is the only pollster to specialize in Christianity, and because he uses extremely charged, Protestant-sectarian definitions. For instance, he frequently phrases questions in such a manner that few Catholics would ever answer "yes" to, and then uses those questions to establish that those who answer "no" to them deny central teachings of the Catholic faith, such as the infallibility of the bible.
Even when his phrasings are not extremely charged, he gets results which are often wildly, even preposterously different from other pollsters asking very similar questions.
My basic assessment of his polls is that they are the absolute worst of any major pollster as measured by validity (the ability to measure what they intend to measure), accuracy (the ability to obtain the proper measurements for what it is that they actually do measure), and reliability (the ability to be repeated by others so that the others get the same results).
"Church of the Festering Boil"
Alas, any times statistics are cited without definitions, those statistics are meaningless. That is why I can boldly state, without fear of capable refutation, that 99.6% of all World Net Daily columns are written by hacks, nut-jobs or losers.
(If I defined what a hack, nut-job or loser WAS I could be refuted... but even then, I doubt I would be =^D. )
Hasn't it been established by Freepers that his entire so-called "church" is nothing but his own (likely in-bred) family members, and that Phelps was a longtime Democratic operative and current Democratic donor? In other words, that his "church" is no church at all, but merely Democratic-Party theatrical production to discredit Christianity?
"The center is in Rome.
No other core exists, as none of the 27,000 groups thinks having such a core is necessary.
"
That is, of course, the RCC's position, and it's one that can be defended, too. However, there are other large denominations that have core beliefs as well, so you're incorrect on that count, I'm afraid.
Still, the continuing splintering of the non-Roman Catholic Christian Church (I recognize the Eastern Rite Churches, as well, as being of the ancient core) is troublesome for Christianity, in my opinion.
I see folks discussing doctrine with regard to these small, independent churches, yet, when I talk to folks who either lead or are members of these small churches, I find that they are referring, usually, to very small aspects of doctrinal difference to justify their separation from others.
Between the RCC and Martin Luther, the differences, doctrinally, were really actually pretty minor, and had to do primarily with intercessionary stuff.
Still, if you attend, say, an Easter Sunday service in a traditional Lutheran Church, then go to a Roman Catholic Church for Easter Mass, you'll be hard pressed to find much difference in the two.
Christianity seems, with some exceptions, to be fragmenting, and I don't think that's a good thing. Even the Roman Catholic Church is in danger of fragmentation, I think, right now, with the American Church pushing hard at some basic doctrinal issues.
ping
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