House Church - Not the Goal but a Means

David, This statement from the early Harvard documents is a fine reminder of what life is all about. Today I began reading from the book you sent me, "The House Church," by Del Birkey. There are some great insights so far.

Since 1995 we have not abandoned the concepts of House Church even though we felt God has helped us to see we are not in competition to other churches. It is our love for one another in Christ that should be the distinguishing factor, even when we disagree.

One point I appreciate in this book is that of Paul's concept of the church as a family and also the Body of Christ. The fact is that the human body is an amazing living thing. When properly nourished and protected it will regenerate itself and reproduce as well.

While we know that we are at war with outside forces trying every day to destroy us, there can also be those things within the community that hinders our growth.

Sadly we have developed many good things that can easily hinder true spiritual growth in the church today. May we be faithful to discard them when He makes them known to us.

Over the last few years, and especially most recently, I have been led to believe that house churches are not the answer to the question that I was seeking to answer. My goal, as someone who was completely dissatisfied with "church as we know it", was to be able to engage with my fellow saints on a much deeper level. As a disciple of Christ, I was only somewhat interested in the praise element of modern-day churches. Whenever I would read about confession (e.g. Psalm 51), I intuitively understood that there was something more to our gatherings even though I couldn't articulate what that "something" was. It wasn't until I left the institutional system that I was free to follow God's leading through the Holy Spirit. The demand of today's churches to conform to their traditions and a preconceived notion of who God is really constrains the believer. If your church has an enumerated list of steps to becoming a true disciple then you know that you are in big trouble. And let's be clear... creeds, catechisms, confessions, and other man-made documents are no different than any series of bullet points to becoming a better Christian that you'll often find in a weekly sermon at your local megachurch

Shortly after leaving the church, I found this website. I was curious about these "house church" things that I'd only heard of in theory, and a quick Google search led me here. As I read through the posts, I found a lot of camaraderie with my fellow believers. It quickly became an important resource for me as I attempted to navigate my way outside of the system. And it remains as such. Because my reason for leaving the system was to get out from underneath a false system of authority built up by the elders of my church, having the assurance that I was not somehow in violation of God's will for my life was extremely beneficial to me. (According to my last church, I was committing an unrepentant sin and therefore subject to eternal damnation for not being a church member.) I will forever be grateful to God for putting the House Church Network near the top of my search results that day

Fast forward to just this month. For the last few years, all of my fellowship has been online. In most cases, I have found this to be very edifying. There is no one to report to, no schedule to keep, and mostly I have learned so much from other Christians who have different perspectives than I do. I belong to a few different groups where those involved are willing to confess their sins to one another (James 5:16). I've also learned that holiness is not something to be shunned because then it supposedly allows me as a Christian to claim my works toward my own salvation. Instead, I desire to be holy for the sake of Christ. Of tall of he things that I've learned, most of them fall into a category of being a better disciple. And though I still retain a robust theological viewpoint, I really have no desire any more to argue the finer details of my beliefs. I've come the believe in these past few years that there are two categories of belief: there is faith (Matt 16:16), and then everything else is theology and not worth fighting over

So what has happened recently to influence my thinking on house churches? The answer to that question may be found in 1 Cor 14. Here the Bible tells us that the assembly of believers (ekklesia) is for the edification of the saints. All who are present are to use their gifts for the benefit of the others, with no centralize focus or leadership other than the Holy Spirit. At most, someone is facilitating the gathering, and there should be elders to help gently guide things back on track if they really go off the rails. But nowhere does the Bible speak of a centralized authority consisting of seminary trained men following a strict order of worship for the purpose of limiting the scope of our beliefs. There is no holding the faithful hostage to their membership vows. The assembly is a gathering of any believer who confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God

In the last few months, I have had opportunities to fellowship with two different house churches in the Seattle area where I live. And I turned down both of them. In the first instance, an extensive doctrinal website talked a lot about unity (which I love), but it became clear after reading some of the material that unity would also mean conformity. So long as I agreed with their teachings then I would be ok, but if I were to step outside of their system (e.g. they do not allow women to teach) then I'd be back into the same situation that I had left. My second opportunity was with a group that seems much more relaxed, but the videos of their gatherings demonstrate one strong, central figure who did most of the teaching and answered a lot of the questions. While this group was more participatory than many of the groups that I've seen, I couldn't help but feel like the church was just a scaled down version of the institution where monologue is valued over dialogue

So for the moment, I'm sticking with YouTube and online forums for my discipleship training. That doesn't mean that I've given up all hope of finding a local assembly. What I'm looking for in a local group is the same style of interaction that I get online. Much like what we do here, I seek a place where any Christian may post whatever is on their heart and then we all talk about it in the light of Scripture. In all honesty, I wish that we did a bit more of that here, but for now **any** source of Godly discussion is a blessing. Perhaps someday God will bring me together with other Christians in my area, but for now I am content with all of the challenges that I get from my online friends who encourage me to live by the leading of the Holy Spirit each and every day