posted
The Church Comes Home: An Alternative Way to �Be� the Church in the Bay Area (unpublished article)
By Thomas "Steadfast" Shou
Right in the very heart of that insane 50-70 hour a week rat race called �The Silicon Valley�, a little-known yet powerful ecclesiastical phenomenon is sweeping the Bay Area. This new and, at the same time, ancient-as-the-Bible-itself church phenomenon has recently been described by many different names, including the so-called �housechurch movement�, �home church�, �simple church�, �a return to primitive Christianity�, to name a few. I like to describe this new Bay Area phenomenon as �the church coming home�, a clear new movement of God�s Spirit among His people in these last days to return the (local) church back to its most simple and original NT roots � bringing God�s church back to the literal everyday �homes� of local Christian believers wherever they may be residing in the Bay Area. In my last three years of exploring this new �housechurch� (HC) phenomenon in the Bay Area, I have already discovered almost a dozen of such simple local gatherings meeting purely in the homes of all kinds of different believers, and the number of new HCs is growing all the time.
Yes, in the middle of the most high-tech and Internet-powered region of the world perhaps, God has raised up a growing number of simple HCs that just meet in their homes for worship, prayer, teaching, and sharing church life together through a common meal and other mid-week gatherings, much like the early Christian church met over 2,000 years ago. In the very beginning of the book of Acts, Paul describes the life of the early church in this way:
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles� doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47)
The above description of the simple yet powerful and joyful local church life enjoyed by the first NT church, though penned over 2,000 years ago, could equally have been written today as a snapshot of one of the dozen of new HCs springing up in the Bay Area, CA, USA and beyond! (Perhaps one of the most well-known examples is the history of the house church in Mainland China, where Chinese Christians have been simply meeting in their homes openly and then secretly (the so-called post-liberation �underground Chinese house church movement�) since the early 1900s to the present. One HC writer has even described the constantly growing house church in China and around the world the largest church in the world today! In China alone, church watchers have estimated there to be easily over 45 million believers in house churches!
So, if you have been looking for such a simple church life that will immediately remind you of what the church first looked like in the book of Acts, look no more � there may be some saints simply meeting in their homes in this way in your own backyard! The good news is that you no longer need to go into a time machine, or go abroad and live in a Third-world country like China, South America or Africa to find saints meeting this way: the HC has finally come home to California, even the most unlikely of locations in CA � that most liberal, free-thinking, and hi-tech Northern CA community called the Bay Area! This amazing spiritual phenomenon changing the face of the Bay Area church landscape may be the best kept secret in the Bay Area today! But it is not meant to be a secret or the arcane ecclesiastical privilege of a few; it is meant for the whole Bay Area community and even the world to know. In Jesus own words, these new HCs, or �little outposts of God�s kingdom� as one HC brother put it, are meant to shine as a bright light to this world.
�A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.� (Matthew 5:14-16).
An Alternative Way to �Be� the church vs. �Going to church� in the Bay Area
So now that the secret is out, the obvious nagging question is �Why housechurch?� Why choose an alternative way to meet as Christians in the Bay Area, when there are already oodles of small, big, and mega-size churches everywhere you go in the Bay Area, as well as every type of denominational flavor in between? Aren�t there enough local churches nearby already? There is no easy and fast answer to this complicated question (made complicated by the labyrinthine amalgam of the �31 flavors� state of the American church scene today). Each HC community and each individual believer in that community each have their own story why they stopped BAU (Business As Usual) �going to church� and started to meet in their homes with other like-minded believers. For most, just the attraction to return to a more simple church life that looked much more like the book of Acts was attraction enough. But from my interactions, I have discovered that the primary motivation for believers to continue to meet in their homes as church, is far more about �moving on� (how to move forward to best be the church Jesus wants us to be) vs. a mere nostalgic longing to somehow �go back� and re-live the good �ol Acts days. For those HC communities who are learning the lesson of �moving on�, they know that the �good �ol early church days� are gone forever, and that what God is doing today among the house churches here and abroad is an altogether new and fresh, albeit similar, move of His Spirit among His people as in the beginning.
My Own Story
So, how and why did I become interested in exploring house church? My story begins when I first heard about the unprecedented spiritual revival taking place among the underground Chinese house churches in the early nineties. At that time I was in graduate school when I first heard the amazing stories of thousands of men and women converting to Christianity through the growing numbers of underground house churches springing up throughout the cities and even in the remotest country villages. It was from that day that the Lord put a dream in my heart to one day visit firsthand this great spiritual house church revival in China. Little did I imagine that six years later when this dream in my heart had nearly faded into an impossible wish, God would actually honor this dream He first put in my heart! In November 1996, God opened a door for me to visit China. And on my birthday November 15, 1996, God gave me the best birthday present I have ever received: I was actually standing in a real life underground Chinese house church and giving my amazing testimony of how God had opened a door for me to go to China and miraculously made my 6-year long dream a reality this day! So, that was my life-changing introduction to life in a real-life underground Chinese house church.
Being a believer in America for over twenty years, I had never seen anything even close to what I experienced there! Unbeknownst to me at that moment, I would stay in China for the next two and a half years, as God continued to keep the door open there for me to become an active part of the underground Chinese house church from 1996-1998. What struck me the most about the underground Chinese house churches I had the privilege to visit was the amazing spiritual hunger of the believers or perhaps even non-believers who would arrive an hour early and form a line outside a people-packed, rickety 12 x 12 ft single-room home and crane their necks to hear what the house church preacher had to preach! There was also an astounding vitality and freshness to each house church gathering as the house church elder was completely open to whatever the Spirit wanted to say or do at any point. Saints would break out into short songs, prayers, and praise anytime and the elder was always open for any foreigner to go to the front and share a teaching or testimony!
A New Beginning
I had never encountered such a simple, joyful and open Spirit-led church in my twenty years as a believer in America. After 2.5 years of firsthand Chinese house church life, my visa finally ran out and I returned to the complicated, denominationally-diverse American church scene of the Bay Area once more. I had gotten an unforgettable taste of what the original NT church life might have been like and there was no going back after that. In my heart, I asked why couldn�t this happen in the Bay Area where we can meet in our homes anytime with total religious freedom?! But I had no idea where to look and returned back to the traditional church format I had left 2.5 years prior, the church I had basically grew up with.
The church that I was basically born into was essentially a Chinese �Brethen� local church that was profoundly influenced by the teachings of Watchman Nee and later his prot�g�, Witness Lee. At the time, I was meeting at a Bay Area assembly that split off of Witness Lee�s Local Church movement in the mid-eighties. Though they had declared their independence from Witness Lee and his Local Church movement, the leadership still essentially adhered to the core teachings and ecclesiology of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee. The same old church �wineskins� that Watchman Nee had passed onto Witness Lee over 60 years ago was still intact; they had simply declared their independence from the man and his authority, not his core teachings and way to �do church�.
I knew it was time to move on to a new �wineskin� and more importantly, new �wine�, when the Lord convicted me and my wife that this unaltered 60-yr old �local church/little flock� wineskin was increasingly straitjacketing the freedom of the Holy Spirit to move in an altogether new and spontaneous way in this church (the new wine) in every aspect of its church life/format! The �local church� leadership and program was suffocating and replacing the authority of the Holy Spirit and Head-directed body life. When I could predict what each service would look like and sound like to a tee � who would speak, pray and when � I knew that something was amiss. What is was what had been for the past 80 years and I feared that in another 20 years things would be no different. (quote Tozer). One time, the preacher had long run out of steam (the wine), yet felt compelled to preach his whole hour or more to fill up his and our scheduled time! Why couldn�t he sit down and leave time for us to hear what the Lord had given to the rest of His Body this day? (Like we see in I Cor 14:26-31) Why did the whole church have to sit there and be his captive/captured audience? Meanwhile, I look over and see my wife reading her own bible commentary sandwiched in the middle of her bible (having her own, private little bible-study) as the preacher drones on. That�s when the Lord asked me why I was still there and nudged me to move on.
A few months later after finding some regular fellowship in the homes of some local believers while slowly phasing out of my old local church life, the Lord finally led us to a local couple who had been seeking for like-minded believers to simply meet in the homes to �be the church� where you live for the last seven years in the Bay Area! They were ready to give up and concentrate on their overseas ministry to the Chinese HCs, when God put us together! So, in March 2002, we opened up our home for church and enjoyed our first open, bread-breaking fellowship in our condo with just me, my wife and a local minister�s wife. Since then, we have continued to gather weekly for fellowship and prayer in our little condo in Palo Alto, and have had as many as 30 visitors from all backgrounds come and go. We have seen as many as 12 cram into our little living room, but now are an intimate group of 6-8 who just want to seek the Lord together and share simple Body life with each other through the week!
Though we are just a handful of saints, we have seen the LORD work mightily among us: we have seen lives and hearts changed, supernatural healings, tongues, prophecies fulfilled, timely provision, and other amazing answers to our prayers and problems in every aspect of our church life. We have realized one thing meeting this way in our homes: that is, we just can't go on meeting this way without moment by moment looking to Him and His indwelling and out-leading Holy Spirit for every aspect of our simple church life here. And the wonderful result is: I feel that for the first time in the longest time that I'm finally starting getting a little taste of real New Testament Christianity!! As one other home churching brother put it: "Once you've had the real thing, you just can't settle for Taco Bell anymore!" We certainly openly welcome anyone to come and visit us if you are in the Bay Area!
Stories of Other Bay Area House Churchers in Northern CA
Every believer each has their own totally unique story and reasons for taking the �HC Plunge�. For fellow housechurcher Ron Langum, an ex-Pentecostal ordained minister, who had been serving and actively ministering both to the larger congregation and cell groups in the Assembly of God church for many years, it simply came down to a matter of �what is the best way for us (the church) to do what God has called us to do? So what is the best way to make disciples for Jesus? I found the best way is to eat together, meet together, worship and praise together � this is the best way to bring people to Jesus. I have found so much more growth in the Body of Christ in small groups vs. the �goto church� once a week routine. I believe that house church life gives a more accurate picture of the true Christian and church life vs. the institutional church format.� Ron summarized what Jesus has called the church to do in three main steps: �1. Evangelism (bringing Jesus to people so people can be brought to Jesus), 2. Discipleship (Taking in the truth after you are born again), 3. Releasing people into ministry (Giving out the truth). House church is simply the best way to fulfill all three goals of building up the Body of Christ! It�s simply the way to keep focus on Jesus. For example, instead of a typical IC (Institutional/Traditional Church congregation) format where one man/pastor is in charge and does all the talking, in the HC, all have opportunity to share what they have received from the Lord!�
When I asked Ron how he would define HC in a word, he simply said, �Jesus.� I wasn�t ready for that short an answer and he went on to make clear, �The funny thing is I�m not joking! It�s all about just meeting in Jesus name to worship Him, like in Mt 18:20 vs. building some IC program. The focus is absolutely not about another, better �wineskin�, in opposition to the traditional IC way.� When asked what is the difference between HC and current �cell� groups, he said, �The main difference is that the HC is not hooked up/tied down to the program of the larger IC. But the key is: if they are doing the main job of building up the Body of Christ in the above three ways, that�s great and they are doing God�s will.�
For Hollister businessman Jeff Welch who recently hosted the first house church gathering in his home, his choice to explore house church arose from a search for something more than he and his family was currently experiencing in their current church involvement. Jeff explains, �I started examining my faith and realized that I had developed a performance-based religion. As a family, we found ourselves following a bunch of rules and surrounded by negativity. I was concentrating on outside issues rather than looking into my heart.� Jeff�s search led him to make a trip further south to visit a long-time active house church community led by the Lindvall family, together with 15 other families simply breaking bread in their homes for the last 10 years! There Jeff discovered 15 other families in sincere, intimate relationships with each other: a living picture of Body life, an atmosphere of openness and trust fostered as a result of their deep, longstanding mutual interactions in each others lives. Pride and arrogance took a back seat as families learned how to seek out the truth in the Bible for themselves and then apply the truth into their daily lives. �With this kind of close-knit church setting, there is no such thing as �blending into the crowd� like you find at some of the larger churches�, observed Welch.
The Lindvall family has been experiencing church in their homes and with other families for over 10 years now in Springville, CA. Jonathan Lindvall, a former pastor, home school administrator and international conference speaker and head of Bold Christian Living ministries, recently presented a 1-day HC Seminar south of Hollister where he introduced the notion of HC from a scriptural perspective, as well as many invaluable real-life illustrations drawn from his own long HC journey. The Seminar was attended by over four active Bay Area house churches. Lindvall�s vision for �being� the church from house to house is �really simply that the Shepherd would be the Head of His church in a very practical sense, and that His bride would find her fulfillment in giving Him pleasure. The church is not about �doing� anything, but gathering our hearts together to �be� a habitation of God. To be a place where Jesus can relax, where the LORD can enjoy us! It is about people in relationships with each other centered around the Lord Jesus. It�s not about what we want, not even Christian �like-mindedness�; it�s not about us at all � it�s all about the Lord Jesus and what He wants!�
For long-time Silicon Valley software engineer Sam Kho, choosing house church is all about �Gemeinschaft�, a German word emphasizing �the community of believers�. Sam is part of Bay Area Anabaptist Ministries (BAAM), a fledgling group of Silicon Valley believers from different backgrounds that meet weekly in the homes to enjoy a potluck meal and informal worship/Bible study time. Sam is discovering the reality that �it�s the community that�s the church, not the building.� BAAM believes that the people they work with need a greater sense of God�s presence � a greater sense of community.� Software developer and entrepreneur Lever Wang provides testimony to that. Over 10 years ago, he was feeling disconnected and stressed out over work. Joining BAAM has helped to counterbalance the work-related pressures in his life. �I�m so refreshed after our meetings a lot of times, �says Lever who is married with two children. �Instead of thinking of computers all day . . . the slowdown helps me a lot. � Moving forward, BAAM members say they want to emphasize faithfulness over effectiveness. Sam says he has no vision for the group other than being a New Testament church. �There is enough vision in the New Testament to last a lifetime, � he says.
Aside from the above reasons to take the �HC plunge�, San Jose local Tim Aagard and his family were spurred to take a fork in the road on their traditional IC journey for another very compelling reason: the unbalanced and highly-unscriptural investment of resources, especially financial, in the large traditional IC he was attending. To his chagrin, Tim discovered that in his large IC, like so many other megachurches, 75% or more of the gathered money of the saints was going back to directly fund ministry for the church itself -- its staff of �professionals�, programs, campus buildings, etc. vs. missions, the unchurched and the poor. Tim went back to the scriptures and found that the only time collections were taken in the NT was to help other believers or churches in need. There was no Biblical support for collecting money for either church buildings for ourselves or hire professionals to perform spiritual services for us. Giving is for giving to others, not pooling money for our needs. Tim describes the scriptural alterative and model: �Small groups of believers meeting in homes allows 100% of the resources to be devoted to needs beyond ourselves. Local teaching and directing needs no longer demand a professional. Now the costly challenge of bringing the gospel to the 90% who have never heard of Christ can receive the priority funding it deserves. Now believer�s giving is truly giving.�
For more information about Bay Area house churchers or finding house church believers in your area, please feel free to contact Thomas Shou at (650)856-0749 or email me at thomasshou@yahoo.com. You can also visit our church website which has many valuable house church resources at www.geocities.com/thomasshou. If you are in the Palo Alto area, we welcome you to visit us and get a first-hand house church experience any Sunday!
Email this page to someone.
