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1 in 5 adults attend house churches, according to first hard statistics By Hannah Elliott, Published July 6, 2006
DALLAS (ABP) -- For the first time, advocates of the house-church movement in America have solid facts to back up their enthusiasm -- and those stats are shocking: Perhaps one in five American adults attends a house church at least once a month.
While attendees themselves have long said that an increasing number of Americans are moving from First Baptist on Main Street to living-room congregations, the very nature of home churches -- decentralized, undocumented and unadvertised -- has made them difficult to study. Until now.
In a June 19 report from the Barna Group, evangelical researcher George Barna said 70 million Americans regularly attend or have “experimented with” a house church. That’s an increase of 8 percent since 1996, the report said. Moreover, the movement is taking on evidence of permanence, he said.
“The traditional ways of thinking about and experiencing ‘church’ are rapidly being revolutionized by a form of ‘religious choice,’ in which people are taking greater personal responsibility for their spiritual experience and development,” Barna said in the report.
“Today, house churches are moving from the appraisal phase into the acceptance phase. We anticipate house-church attendance during any given week to double in the coming decade and a growing proportion of house-church attenders to adopt the house church as their primary faith community.”
Furthermore, the study noted, more than 20 million adults attend services in home churches each week. Over the course of a month, that number rose to 43 million. Findings were based on a year of research that included phone interviews with more than 5,000 adults nationwide.
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With so many people churching at home there must be no small concern among the many pastors and bishops. It calls to my mind something I read of past history where the people were compelled to attend church and the enforcement was carried out by civil government at the church's wish.
This law is a Virginia law but it is not unique.
1617--Governor Argall's decree. "Every Person should go to church, Sundays and Holidays, or lye Neck and Heels that Night, and be a Slave to the Colony the following Week; for the second Offence, he should be a Slave for a Month; and for the third, a Year and a Day."
I am wondering if similar thinking occurs today among the pastors. Are they thinking...Does there need to be a civil law that compels people to attend church? Would that break the back of the house-church movement and bring my congregation back?
Don't under estimate these men. They feel it is their duty to shepherd the flock. They may be wrong, but they are certainly motivated. Just as the RCC used torture to compel heretics to renounce their faith and adopt the Catholic faith because they believed it to be their duty to bring all into the faith.
Now I am not advocating we all return to the IC. You are where you are at for a reason. I have no doubt that the Light has gone out in many a church. What I am wondering is whether it will be enough to provoke action from the IC. I for one will be watching to see if a movement arises attempting to join the church and state. I know it is coming, but how soon.
Prophecy tells us that a woman rides the beast. We know that a woman represents the church. The woman in white is the pure church. This woman, however, is a harlot. We also know that a beast represents a nation or power. We all know that a rider holds the reins that control a bit that exerts pressure in the mouth of the beast such that the rider has full control over the beast and can direct its course. The mouth is in the head of the beast so if you turn the mouth you turn the head and you turn the beast. So in Revelation 17 we have an apt picture of a corrupt church riding reigh over a nation.
Now lets repaint the picture in fuller detail. An unfaithful church will sit on, or over, a civil power and will hold the reins that control the heads of state. The bit will control the mouth of the civil power. This mouth is the legislative body for it is they who "speak" for the nation with their laws. This aptly describes a working relationship between church and state. When such a connection exists then it will be possible for this power to give life to the image of the first beast which was wounded to death yet lived. The giving of life represents the power to legislate and bring it about. People in power can make things happen. They misuse their power to make this image a living thing. (See Revelation 13).
So now I ask my question again. Will the flood of people leaving the IC for the home church cause any concern with the pastors? Will it awaken a giant? Will it start the persecution? If so, then we will see who is faithful and who is not.
You say: "Does there need to be a civil law that compels people to attend church?"
To me, as soon as we use the expression "attend Church" as opposed to "being the Church", then it means that we have yet to experience the "glory that Jesus gives us, in order to be one with Him just as He is one with the Father." The Church is not somewhere to go to, nor in and out of, period. Either I am grafted to the Church by God or I am not, there is no in-between, as far as God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the bible "IS" concerned!
The Church is not people going somewhere, but She is (We are)someone whom God Himself generates deeply within the intimate and personal contact, in order to materialese Himself as we host Him to dwell in our bodies, His Temple.
The Church is the personification of the Solemn Beauty of Being Human Who is answering to the Ancient Voice of Humanity's Youth, in whom God Himself abides, feeds and cares for. As time goes onto completion, the Church is the becoming growth of that someone, from God's gift into me, you and between us.
He is Who makes each of us, all that is needed, in order to be ambassadors on earth, to those who are not of Him and of His assembly of His sanctified humanity, from beyond time, space, circumstances. We are the body of Him Who is all in all upon the face of the earth. We are a habitation for Him to dwell in spirit, regardless of our physical congregating or not. Each one of our bobies, is the very Temple of God.
Do we realise what this means???
"Time is fullfilled and the Kingdom is at hand; repent and be baptised.." These words are said to be the very first words spoken by Jesus, at the start of His public ministry. Mk 1, 15
This shows that having to go somewhere, anywhere for the Church to be real, is to demonstrate that we are not where, what and who Jesus calls His bride, because everywhere is already filled in Him, by Him and for Him!
This does not mean to say that God forbids our congregating; it simply means that we cannot replace the word "assembling" for "congregating" and vice-versa. The 2 words do not mean the same. They are complementary to each other, but in time, assembling dissolved into our congregating, leaving the Church with no basis in reality, becaused congregating replaced God's assembling. God's assembling of us, is the drive to congregate not the other way around, as it is the case for too long, in most of christianity, and the downfall of the witness of the power of resurrection.
So let's be clear on how God's continuous communion witheach one of us within each one of His Temples, is the inspirational drive to keep us congregating from His assembling us, and then we'll be living our lives in the state of overcomers and we'll be meeting one another where the Lord never left since pentecost and throughout the Acts of the Apostles.
There is only one calling...
-------------------- ...all blessings be with us all... Benoit Couture
The question that you quoted was asked in the voice of the many pastors and bishops who are loosing their flock to the home-church movement. I asked it on their behalf. Believe me! I do not support civil laws to enforce church attendence and I am certainly oppossed to union of church and state. I suppport the 1st Bill of Rights in America which guarantees that our government will not establish a religion nor prohibit the peaceful assembling together.
But regarding our individuality as the temple of God; while there is a relationship between God and the person as an individual, Jesus is the head of the church which is his body. The truth that the individual members make up a body strongly implies closer connections that you appears to allow for in your reasoning. This is further emphasized by the purpose of the gifts given to the body, the church.
"For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."
The apostles always speak positively about assembling together to encourage, exhort, and edify one another.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
And they always speak negatively about things which divide the body in smaller factions.
...there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
The following passage certainly sounds to me like Paul is describing a functional body consisting of many members. How can these individual members function as a body as described here unless they are in close contact with one another? We attempt to accomplish this closeness using the internet. But it is still quite impersonal.
1 Cor 12: 18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. 19 And if they were all one member, where were the body? 20 But now are they many members, yet but one body. 21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. 22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: 23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. 24 For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: 25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
Now I realize there is locality of the members of the body. But the Lord is leading a people, not a person here and there.
I guess what I am trying to say is that it is easier to lead people astray one person at a time than as a group. As is well known, "divide and conquer."
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Dear jqlogan, I agree with all that you said in your reply. I was simply making the point that getting together does not necessarely add up to assembling in the way we are shown in the Acts. Our bodies being the personal temple of the Spirit is for the sake of being assembled into a dwelling place for God in Spirit.
It is like a model airplane that is not put together yet. You can gatther all the pieces out of the box and then put them back in the box. Those pieces were congregated but never assembled. The same is true with the gathering of people whose lives do not assemble with one another. The tradition of congregating does not replace God's assembling of His people in the oneness of His glory within and between each one of His children.
-------------------- ...all blessings be with us all... Benoit Couture
I agree with your posts, the model airplane example is very good. I believe God is gathering his people into the kingdom now; but it seems we haven’t been assembled yet, at least physically, as scriptures speak of us scattered through out the world, still living in the world but not of the world. Being not of the world would mean we were assembled in Christ spiritually in his kingdom, would it not?
Jeff, I agree that it is good to gather but there are no strict rules as to how often, where, etc. I believe the congregations of IC to be like gathering into a box pieces that will never fit together as the body. The denominations are divisions. While they appear to have some unity, some fit together to make a car, some a tractor or train, none make an airplane. However, a few airplane parts are stuck in the wrong boxes. Once the airplane parts realize they don’t fit in the box they are in, they leave. It takes a while to shake off the idea that you are not a car or tractor part; but an airplane part. (The reason we sometimes see HC groups with denominational beliefs.)
While you say it is easier to deceive one person at a time, I have to disagree. There seems to be a herd mentality in the denominations. People like to follow other people. If everybody is doing it, it must be ok. Think of how God worked in the faithful mentioned in scriptures. Most all of them were set aside by God and dealt with individually. I think that is what he is doing today in the HC.
As for divide and conquer, that is what the denominations have done. Most have a tiny bit of truth, their division. They have taken that bit of truth and split from the whole truth making that truth their god, leaving much room for error. It is their insistence on accepting only their view that has kept them fighting over various issues and keeping them from growing. It is much easier in a group to gain a prideful attitude and believe your view is always right because you have 100 or 1000 or several thousand who agree with you.
IMO, Faith
Oh, BTW, I wondered just how they came up with 5,000 to call in the first post. That means they spoke with only 1,000 people who said they home churched at least once a month. Were these folks all Baptists? Were they all Christians? Or did they call the first 5,000 folks in the phone book? Did they speak with any non-Christians at all? Were all the people from one city? Or state? Also of importance would be exactly what was considered a home church? Did denominational cell churches count? Only homes with several folks meeting? Or individual’s studying with their families? To say 1 in 5 now home church doesn’t sound right to me. It’s a lot like saying 90 % of Americans say they are Christian but our nation surely doesn’t reflect it. So, somebody is stretching the numbers or the truth. (Not sure on the % of Americans professing to be Christian but I know it is high. One would wonder their criteria for determining that % also.)
-------------------- 1 Thes. 5:21 (KJV) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
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Dear Faith, Thank you for your encouragement and also for your words to Jeff. We are touching on "who" the bride is and who she not, in a very gracefull way. You say: "Think of how God worked in the faithful mentioned in scriptures. Most all of them were set aside by God and dealt with individually."
This is true, not only for some, but for anyone and everyone who has been made into a child of God. That is what the word sanctified means. Seperated by God, for God. The mature state of such sanctity is also the state of overcomers. Overcomers are the ones who live in the experience of the Kingdom of God on earth and against who's personal collectivity(Body membership), the gates of hell do not prevail, because the bond of our collectivity is the person of Christ in each one and between each one.
The words "mature" or "perfect" are used in some versions of Ep 4, 13: "...till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature(or perfect) man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;"
I have yet to come to meet any leadership of the Institutional Church who actually accept such possibility while we are on earth, awaiting for the Lord's return. Yet, Paul is clear that this is a basic part of being the Church, explaining why in the following verses:
"...that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."
The Lord indicates that the Church is visible to the world around us, by our love for one another. Overcomers is the personal experience of loving God and my neighbour as myself, in the continuity of sanctification, in spite of all adversity and imperfections. This experience cannot be maintained without the personal experience of the Body, which comes from the Head, first and in between each one and the others as a result of our contact with and through the Head. Although never absent spiritually, the Church is physically manifested as we each learn to live from the gift of obediance of the Holy Spirit, Who deploys the divine nature's life from the Head of the Body to each part, by the faith for the faith. None of the parts can function without the clear signal from the head. As an example, let's think of a small part of my finger that I can move without moving any of my arm. That did not take my arm away and although it did not move, my arm was instrumental in my finger receiving the signal. My brain's connection being clear, my one knuckle obeyed the signal of my mind and moved.
The point I am trying to make is that we each must be cultivated personally into knowing Who is Jesus and how He does live in me so that it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me. This is not a bragging rigth nor is it a leap of blind faith, but the glorious reality of God's will in His people, in the simplicity of our devotion to Christ-Jesus. So, no matter what the statistical news of the United States are about reagarding the Church, the evidence of Christ-Jesus on earth gets to be measured by the number one, no matter how many or few, one is the only number that matters to God, and overcomers know that only me for me and only you for you will answer to God, when the day of judgement and of reward distribution comes. The Church is manifested by individuals who live to serve one another with and into such divine glory! From such service can the world see Who is humanity's Creator, because God is then equipped with who and what He needs to multiply His spiritual seed in the world. That is how the herd is safe from following other people as though they were the Lord.
-------------------- ...all blessings be with us all... Benoit Couture
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Just a few points. Don't know if is because I attend an IC or if it's simply how I say thngs, but I am not for congregating in the ICs per se. As I said earlier, the Light has left nearly all IC churches. So I hope we don't focus on that issue. I understand why people leave those churches. What I don't understand totally is what we are left with--that being the family unit to survive mostly on its own.
What I am hoping and praying is that God is working behind the scenes to organically grow his church--as many of you have suggested. But I see so many opinions here that I am wondering if we are all being led by one spirit.
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Jeff, You wonder: "I understand why people leave those churches. What I don't understand totally is what we are left with--that being the family unit to survive mostly on its own."
You also say: "What I am hoping and praying is that God is working behind the scenes to organically grow his church"
The family unit is where God's organic blessing is active since Abraham sealed obediance and thanks giving in his encounter with Melchizedek. When it comes to the actual Church growing from within the family unit, this is partly what I meant with: "Although never absent spiritually, the Church is physically manifested as we each learn to live from the gift of obediance of the Holy Spirit, Who deploys the divine nature's life from the Head of the Body to each part, by the faith for the faith."
A family is where we apprentice or not, the extents and the limits of mutual subjection in love and truth. When completion of the Church is not given access in the family unit, each departure of the children becomes a starting all over again, of Adam who is going to meet Eve or vice versa. The family unit will re-create itself and God's work and that unit's work will be the same.
The trinity lives comfortably in the kind of brotherhood that lives in mutual subjection so well as to each be equipped to genuinely forgive 7 times 77 times a day, if need be. This is where and how we are kept within the boundaries of His glory, because such grace can only live from the blood and the flesh of Christ-Jesus being consumed from within one another to one another!
I am of the opinion that House Church simply means a household where the flow of the Spirit of God is free and healthy to move within and between each family members for: "if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
The Church is visible where Jesus is given access from His Spirit to our spirit and heart and once we accept the discipline of the cross, we are then each personally lead to enter the experience of eternal life from our spirit and heart where the gift and the seal are established by God, then from the heart and spirit into our soul and body. The experience of the cross in truth is one reason why I love the term "organic" and also because the family is specified and explained by Jesus to be a most difficult battle ground, where He has to draw the lines Himself: "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. Mt10,34-39
The elders of the Church are those who know how to handle such battle ground by maintaining the people within the sufficiency of Christ-Jesus in our midst. At some point, it all becomes very, very, very simple because God means for us to experience His version of unity; the one specified to come from His glory. The complications are from not knowing how to stop refusing the simplicity of abiding in Him, feeding from His flesh and from drinking His blood from one another because of His abiding into me and you. The genuine service of eldership in the Church is to oversee that we all remain where God's simplicity remains free flowing.
In my case, I must confess that I am father of 4 young adults and grand father of a one year old child; and that I am responsible for living in a very defeated battle ground. I know that God is picking up the pieces slowly, but I am left to watch God building His Church in our midst from a distance. We need the physical eldership that I described above, but with now 4 children who range from 25 to 19 years old, we've pretty well become our own version of a worldly, dysfunctional House Church and like all other Churches we've been to, defeat reigns. Solution? Becoming overcomers. How? That is the perpetual question that only God's gift of eternal life can answer with the personalised organic expirience of spiritual unity, as defined by the simplicity of God's glory in our midst...
"May You please lead all Your people by Your glory, to eliminate by Your Spirit and our obediance, all distance between us, so that Your Church becomes visible and healthy now in our organic reality of the daily grind...In Your presence Father, in the name of Christ-Jesus our Lord and brother I pray in the identity of Your Spirit into ours...amen to Your Yes in us all..."
-------------------- ...all blessings be with us all... Benoit Couture
quote: You wonder: "I understand why people leave those churches. What I don't understand totally is what we are left with--that being the family unit to survive mostly on its own."
Think of our nation 200 years ago. The pioneer folks lived far from one another. They taught their children at home. Today many are taking their children from the public system to again teach children at home. One thing the scriptures tell us is we are to teach our children of the Lord and his ways. That is to be done consistently during the day, when we go out or come in. It is not a two hour class once a week; but a way of life.
A lot of people are beginning to understand the value of teaching math, science, reading, etc. at home. However, it seems very hard for most to grasp the importance of teaching God’s way and word at home. Somehow, we’ve been brain washed into thinking that the family can’t do the things it was designed to do. We have been told we are too stupid to read the Bible and understand and we need a preacher to explain to us how to live. Public school is in part to fault for the lack of reading comprehension; but even those who can read fall for the lie repeated so often. So much for progress.
As for being alone. Hmm. When I was a child in a denomination I had many friends of a sort. I was part of the herd. However, as I grew up, I saw that if one of their own really needed support and encouragement, they were unable or unwilling to give it. Later I have seen the same thing in all denominations and groups. They tend to be fair weather friends not true friends. The Bible tells us there is one who will stick closer than a brother. I’d rather be alone with him than have all the fair weather friends in all the denominations!! For if he is for me who can be against me?
BTW, if I need the entertainment and socialization of the IC, there are plenty of country clubs, etc. to join.
Benoit,
quote: with now 4 children who range from 25 to 19 years old, we've pretty well become our own version of a worldly, dysfunctional House Church and like all other Churches we've been to, defeat reigns. Solution? Becoming overcomers. How? That is the perpetual question that only God's gift of eternal life can answer with the personalised organic expirience of spiritual unity, as defined by the simplicity of God's glory in our midst...
All we can do is teach our children, they are responsible to believe and work out their salvation. I think all have to go through a time of testing and decision making of their own. Today it is hard once they go into the world to avoid the world. They have to make their own mistakes and learn from them. So for a time they may leave the church and try and test various things. Scripture tells us they will return when they are old. I think of David and Samson and their youthful lusts; but they returned to the Lord. They have to come to a point where they really realize they are sinners and need a savior before they can truly repent and believe.
Yes, the solution is for each of us to be overcomers. Keep the faith. Continue in the race. Encourage those searching whenever you can. Be patient with those unruly young people knowing this to shall pass. Know that God will finish the work he started in each of his even when it seems impossible.
Faith
-------------------- 1 Thes. 5:21 (KJV) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
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