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).
"Is it really helpful for those who don't feel they fit in to start their own church?
Of course it is the Protestant ideal: break away if the reform you think is needed does not happen exactly when and how you think it should.
But how does splintering off help the universal Church?"
You have recast my statements as negative. Mine were positive.
1. Many churches have volunteer leadership that has been in control for decades and will continue to be so for decades. Many churches do not wish to add more programs to their portfolio. As a result, working your way into your own calling, "leadership" is impossible. The answer is begin your own church.
It is not a splintering away from the church, it is just a new, different location.
It has no effect on "The Universal Church" other than spreading it to other locations, with the possiblity of attracting other people.
Another way to look at it is that churches bud other churches for many reasons other than doctrinal differences.
There are a large number of Christians whose calling is to start new churches. I know a number of them and they are very active in start ups. When the church is up and running, they start another one. It's how the Church grows.
Come on now. Catholics would win more converts among Protestants if they at least pretended to focus more on Jesus instead of the very things that caused the Reformation to begin with.
Read the 95 Theses and Luther's selected works. The differences were not minor, as you say, but significant enough for him be excommunicated. He disagreed with the concept of the Mass as Sacrifice, the Pope's power of the keys, Transubstantiation, priestly celebacy, and the 7 sacraments--I think he whittled it down to two--baptism and communion, if memory serves correctly; he certainly thought it less than 7.
Yes, that is jewish law. I follow Christian law which has many more civil rules concerning conduct toward your fellow man. I think a person also needs to remember the difficulty God/Jesus have/had in communicating with humans. A similar communication gap exists between a human and an ant. Try getting your point across to the next ant you see on the sidewalk to appreciate the issue.
Life was as cheap then as it is today, what with 40-50 million killed in utero for profit in the U.S. alone.
A house church is where the government calls the members cultists, tax evaders, homeschoolers, gun nuts, and child abusers. Then the government calls the house a "compound" which they proceed to attack, surround, and burn to the ground, killing almost everyone inside. Hmmmm....sound familiar?
Hi Xena,
Not everyone is called to lead. Just some. As far as fragmentation is concerned, it could also be called diffusion or out-reach. Again, a negative argument provided when a positive one was offered.
I would never start a new church over doctrinal differences as I am a died in the wool SBC'er. But I might start a new church if given the chance, whether it be in Zimbabwe or Houston.
Houston has 7,000 churches. Most of them were started due to the need to follow the calling of "church planter" and "missionary", not for reasons of doctrinal differences.
Your Bible isn't alive until it's brought alive by accurate TEACHING. Until then it's just a book that most people cannot understand accept for its historical teachings. Do you realize that for the first 400 years of Christianity there was no New Testament Bible? What kept those early Christians 'fed' was word of mouth, not a book that they read and personally interpreted. They were taught by their priests and bishops, who were taught by their priests and bishops, all the way back to Christ and the Apostles, who were commanded by Christ to "go and TEACH all things whatsover I have taught you". He didn't tell them to write a book and spread it around.
Christianity is a religion of teaching, it is not a religion of book stores. Christ wrote nothing, the Apostles wrote nothing. And that teaching must be as interpreted by the only authority that was given the understanding of the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit, the first and only Christian Church, the Roman Catholic Church and those ancient Eastern Rites who give the Pope full authority over them. Everyone else is fooling themselves because of their rebellion against authority. How easy it is to read the Bible and interpret it as you want to. That isn't faith in anything external, it's faith in yourself.
Don't put yourself down as weak, and I hear you about the preachers.
We are all members of the Body of Christ.
:^)
That sounds ideal. I'm sure it is not in southern California, but....?
Straying from doctrine happens *within* a church also ... a prime example being the Episcopal Church I last attended.
The author doesn't know church history very well. Constantine made Christianity legal, and supported it, but he didn't impose it or make anyone join "his" church. That was done by the Emperor Theodosius, starting in 380 AD.
>I'm sure it's not in southern California but......?<
Are you looking for such a church? See if there is a Vineyards, a New Hope, or a Pentacostal church nearby. Why could it not be in southern California? If you know other Christians, ask if they would be interested in beginning a house church of your own, or if you belong to a church already, talk to your Pastor about forming house churches to meet during the week. God be with you.
Sort of like teaching yourself Spanish using a textbook, but with no Spanish speakers around to show you how its done.
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