Best House Church Resources

I recently met with a Christian leader working on a national level who is interested in exploring the idea of house church.  In his experience, traditional, building based churches had generally done a poor job at making disciples.  And, yet, embracing the house church model would represent a huge paradigm shift with many implications.  He wanted to understand the Biblical basis for seeing church this way as well as the state of the house church movement.  "Send me everything you've got" he said.

When we started on this house church journey in 1998, there were very few resources on the subject.  Today, there is a wealth of helpful books, videos and articles.  I didn't send this man everything I have but see below for some of what I think are the best resources available today.

In the "Comments" below, add the resources that you've found helpful.  Also, I mention a couple of documents that I couldn't include in this post but would be glad to send you upon request.

John White

john.lk10@gmail.com

1.  Let's start with a general introduction to house churches in the world today.

"Tidal Wave" video:  http://vimeo.com/4521963

"When You Come Together" video:  http://vimeo.com/4678782

NBC Nightly News Report on House Churches:  http://storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com/2010/10/nbc-news-reports-on-house-church.html

2.  Jesus' strategy for fulfilling the Great Commission.  As I mentioned, Roger Gehring's book House Church and Mission:  The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity caused a huge shift in my thinking.  Many people have developed strategies for fulfilling the Great Commission, but what if we adopted the strategy that Jesus used?  Gehring explains what that was.  (The book is a difficult read for most people as it was written as a 450 page doctoral dissertation.  I've collected the most important quotes in the attachment below.)

(Glad to send this attachment upon request.  Just write "send Gehring".)

3.  Our traditional, building-centered forms of church are a significant departure from the Hebraic roots of the church.  (No wonder they are highly ineffective at making disciples!)  The early church was thoroughly Jewish.  (Christianity did not become a separate "religion" until at least 70 AD and perhaps not until as late as 130 AD.)  The Jews always understood that the home and not the synagogue was the center of spiritual life.  Marvin Wilson, in Our Father Abraham,  tells us that the Jews understood that each home was to be a miqdash me'at (a miniature temple).   That's why every church in the NT met in a home and functioned as an extended spiritual family.  Every epistle in the NT was written to people who were in house churches.  

As Evangelicals we affirm that "the Bible is our authoritative guide for faith and practice" but we have departed from clear Biblical practice when it comes to how we do "church".  Can we really expect God to empower a spiritual revolution if we reject biblical (ie, Hebraic) church values and practices?

(Glad to send the excerpt from Wilson’s book about the Jewish home upon request.)

To read:  Pagan Christianity:  Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices by Frank Viola and George Barna.  This is the other side of the coin.  If our current church practices didn't come from our Hebraic roots, where did they come from?  (By practices, we're talking about things like church buildings, the sermon, the clergy, the Lord's Supper, etc.)  Viola and Barna make a compelling case that many of our current church practices have no biblical basis at all.  Warning!  This is a shocking book.  Key quote:  "We are making an outrageous proposal:  that the church in its contemporary form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to function as it does."  (p. xx)

4.  Two key rhythms.  We in our ministry (the LK10 Community) teach people two key rhythms or practices at every level.  The first practice is that of listening to God both as individuals and as a church.  The second is connecting with each other on a heart level.  We use a simple tool called SASHET to do this.  These videos will explain.  The result of this approach is that almost everyone is capable of starting and leading a church.

*Church flows from listening:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BDBw1HZJWs

*CO2 (church of two).  Two guys from my house church:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6HTr0Un_xc&feature=related

*Doing church with your family:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmTMYv9oq6A

*Using SASHET to connect on a heart level:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MWujA_D3K0

*Learning to hear God:  3 part video

            1.  http://www.youtube.com/user/LK10VIDEOS?feature=mhee#p/u/55/6jd7e5ZZYR4

            2.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAyj0NIXAUc&feature=related

            3.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lme_YhCk7qk

*Campus Crusade leader on listening to God:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CA24nGNmvo

*The Spontaneous Church.  This the first of a four part series.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o33ygW6kwJs

4.  Stories from the Revolution.  People who are doing it.  There are many more stories on our blog.  Here's a sampling...

*Praying the Lk 10:2b Prayer.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9lnDS_JALQ

*Changing the culture in Kenya:  http://www.youtube.com/user/LK10VIDEOS?feature=mhee#p/u/55/6jd7e5ZZYR4

*House churches in Brighton, CO:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOYgTGPWSp4

5.  Other resources.  

*Houses that Change the World by Wolfgang Simson.  Key quote:  "Much of Christianity has fled the family, often as a place of its own spiritual defeat, and then has organized artificial performances in sacred buildings far from the atmosphere of real life.  As God is in the business of recapturing the homes, the church turns back to its roots - back to where it came from.  It literally comes home, completing the circle of Church history at the end of world history."

*The Messianic Church Arising:  Restoring the Church to Our Covenant Roots! by Robert Heidler.  Key Quote:  "The change from the informal house church to the formal basilica changed the whole concept of church.  Before Constantine, a church was a family of believers.  After Constantine, the church became a building.... The Jewish Sabbath celebration provided a pattern for the development of early Christian house churches."

*The Global House Church Movement by Rad Zdero.  Key Quote:  "The early church of the first three centuries was a 'living room' movement.  This was the church that "upset the world" (Acts 17:6) in the first century and that forced the mighty Roman Empire to legalize Christianity after a three hundred year showdown.  It is also the church that tens of millions of Christians are rediscovering today in places like China, India, Africa, Cambodia, Cuba, England and Western Europe, and, yes, even in North America."

*When the Church Was a Family by Joseph Hellerman.  Key Quote:  "For Paul, as for Jesus, the church was to function as a family... (The early Christians) had no temples, no sacrifices, no priesthoods, no liturgy - just an informal weekly meeting in a local home where they broke bread and sang a hymn "in honor of Christ as if to a god"  (Pliny).

Church of Two: "I feel so supported!"

A CO2 (church of two) is amazingly simple yet profoundly powerful.  We think it's the missing structural element in most churches.  Here's the definition of a CO2:  Two people.  Two rhythms.  As close to daily as possible.


Imagine a house church made up of 3 or 4 CO2s!  Imagine a tradition church made up of 100 COs!


Tracey Schlafer and Brittani Morris have been connecting with one another in a CO2 for almost a year now.   Brittani's comments:  "This is a place where I experience the heart of God on a daily basis."  Here more of their story in the video below.

The six week LK10 Foundations Course goes in depth into the two rhythms that make up a CO2.  A new session (cohort) is beginning on December 1st and there are a few openings.  For more information about the Course, go here http://storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com/2011/09/foundations-course.html

Email me right away if you are interested.  John.lk10@gmail.com

John White

Spiritual ADD?

ADD - Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is a disorder (often now referred to as ADHD) that affects 15% of the adult population as well as a great many children.  Although the symptoms can be complex and varied, the commonality is a difficulty in staying focused on one thing at a time.  These people are easily distracted and wandering attention makes it difficult for them to stay on track.  ADD can have a devastating affect in school, at work and in family relationships.

As harmful as physical ADD can be, Spiritual ADD may be much more widespread and have even greater negative consequences.  Epidemic, especially among American Christians, this condition is one of the greatest strategies of the Enemy.  As someone has said, "If the Devil can't make you bad, he will make you busy."  And, Christians in the US are some of the busiest people in the world!

Recapturing our most valuable possession.  In the interview below, Dr. Kent Smith reflects on the meeting of our LK10 Board of Directors held in Jan. 2011.  In this context, he talks about the idea that we have been robbed of our most precious asset - our attention.  The result is Spiritual ADD.  We can only recapture our ability to be centered on Jesus as we train ourselves in "rhythms of attention."  (Kent is a professor at the Abilene Christian Graduate School of Theology.)

Possible next step for recapturing your attention?  The LK10 Foundations Course is designed to train Christians in the rhythms of attention.  For more information and to register, go to http://storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com/2011/09/foundations-course.html

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.  God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.  Mt. 6:34 (The Message)

Planting a church called "Beer and Bible"

What if planting churches was much simpler than we ever imagined?

What if planting churches flowed naturally from hearing God's voice?

Early in 2010, Sean Hyatt took his wife out to eat in an area of Denver called the DTC  (Denver Tech Center).  While there, he felt the Lord telling him to plant a church in that area. The next step was asking some friends to join him in praying for direction.  The result, a year and a half later, is three churches in some unlikely places.

Here's the story...




Want to grow in your ability to hear God's voice?  a great next step is a six weeks learning community called The Foundations Course.  For more information and to register, go here  http://storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com/2011/09/foundations-course.html

Pair power!

Meeting once a week for church (even house church!) just doesn't do it.

We are encouraged and nurtured and filled up when we meet with God's people.  But, then, we have to wait seven days for it to happen again.  Instinctively, we know this isn't enough.  Clearly, God has constructed us to need the encouragement of God's people on a daily basis.

And, this is exactly what Scripture commands us to do.  "Encourage one another daily"  (Heb. 3:13)  The Greek word for "encourage" is parakaleo.  The noun form of this word is what Jesus calls the Holy Spirit in John 14:16.  "I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraklete."  The word literally means "one who is called along side to help or encourage".  Our ministry to one another is similar to the ministry of the Holy Spirit to us.

But, how do we do we encourage one another if we don't live next door to the others in our church?  The answer to this question is a CO2 (a church of two).  This "practice" was at the heart of Jesus' group (church?) of twelve.  Every one had a partner.  (See Mt. 10:2-4)  And, every person Jesus sent out went with a partner.  (See Lk. 10:1)  No exceptions!

The CO2 concept allows us to "do church" daily.  To come alongside one other person every day for mutual encouragement.  The CO2 is the basic building block for all larger expressions of church.  A house church with several CO2s functioning during the week becomes much more powerful when the whole church gathers together in its weekly meeting.

One of the primary goals of the LK10 Community is to train believers in the practice of CO2. We do this through a six week learning experience called The Foundations Course.  We currently have a few openings for Courses beginning in October.  To learn more and to register, go here http://storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com/2011/09/foundations-course.html

There are hundreds of CO2s now spreading around the world.  The interview below gives you a picture of how one CO2 functions.  This is one of three CO2s in the church that meets at Tim and Brittani's house.  (See more CO2 stories below.)



More CO2 stories...

*Tony Dale (House to House) tells of finding CO2s in the Philippines...   http://youtu.be/PcRVtntSwJo

*There are dozens of CO2s now in Australia.  They all started here...   http://youtu.be/3CPg7h-5lX4

What John Wesley missed: family = church

250 years ago, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement, glimpsed the simple but powerful concept that "family = church".

"In his sermon "Of the Church", Wesley said the church is, in the proper sense, "a congregation, or body of people, united together in the service of God."  Even two or three united in Christ's name, or a Christian family, may therefore be called a church."  Snyder, The Radical Wesley and Patterns for Church Renewal, p. 73.

Although Wesley saw this truth, as far as we know, he never implemented it.  Wesley was hugely gifted at developing a system of starting and overseeing small, house church-like small groups called "classes".  By 1798, seven years after Wesley's death, there were 101,712 members in these groups.  As powerful as this movement was, it began to erode over time.  Today, the class concept is largely unknown in the Methodist church and, in some cases, is actually opposed.

Contrast Wesley's strategy with a talk given by Dr. John Patrick with this title:  "Why There Are No Hittites on the Streets of New York".  The Hittites were a world super power 2500 years ago but today they have disappeared from the face of the earth.  On the other hand, the Jewish culture continues to thrive after 2500 years in spite of terrible persecution.  Why?

Dr. Patrick makes that case that the Jews have endured because the home was the center of their spiritual life.  The temple could be destroyed.  The synagogues could be destroyed.  But, as long as there was one Jewish family, that spiritual heritage would survive.  The Jews have survived and often thrived because they obeyed God's direction to make the home the center of spiritual life.  (Dt. 6:5-9)

The early church, which was thoroughly Jewish, followed this same pattern.  When a new church was birthed, it was always in the context of a household and a family. And, that church functioned like an extended spiritual family.  "A house church could only be established if a well-functioning family existed."  Gehring, House Church and Mission, p. 240.

How might the Methodist Movement turned out differently if John Wesley had followed through on his insight that a Christian family could be considered a church?  If he had taught each Christian household how to function like his "class" groups (ie, house churches)?

And, will the current house church movement recapture this foundational divine definition?

Family = church = family.

For more on this subject, see http://storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com/search/label/every%20home%20a%20church

John Wesley's mother births a church

John Wesley (1703 - 1791) is known as the founder of the Methodist movement which transformed the England of his day and then spread around the world.  At the heart of that movement were small groups that are similar to the house churches of today.  But, where did John learn about the value of small, family-like expressions of the church?

No doubt, John was deeply influenced by his mother, Susannah.  While his father, Samuel, saw the value of smaller groups (called "religious societies" in his day), it was his mother who actually lived this out.  This amazing women had 19 children, nine of whom died in infancy.  Here's the story of how she started a "church" (although that term wouldn't have been used in her day for what she started).

What Samuel Wesley only dreamed and talked of doing, however, his remarkable wife Susannah carried out, at least in a measure.  Samuel Wesley often traveled to London on church and political business, leaving Susannah and the large family alone at Epworth.  In early 1712 (John would have been about 9 years old), while Samuel was on a prolonged absence, Susannah began a small meeting in the parsonage.  As she related in letters to her husband, the meeting grew out of the family devotional time Susannah held on Sunday evenings with her children.  A few neighbors asked to attend, then others, so that the group soon grew from about thirty persons to over 200.  At these gatherings Mrs. Wesley would read a sermon, pray and talk with the people who came.


This new venture caused a stir in Epworth and some friction between Susannah and her husband.  Samuel liked the theory but not the practice.  He objected to these home meetings because they were led by a woman, might cause him some embarrassment and would be seen by some as a "conventicle," a private, separatist religious gathering."  Snyder, The Radical Wesley:  Patterns for Church Renewal, p. 16-17.

Two observations about this story...

1.  The healthiest house churches generally form around one or more "spiritual parents".  A spiritual parent is a person who is an "elder" as to maturity (ie, a spiritual grown up).  And, they have the heart to care for spiritual "children".  (By "children", I'm not talking about physical age.)  Susannah is a great example of a "spiritual mom".  See John 14:9, 1 Cor. 4:15, 1 Thes. 2:7, 11.

2.  No doubt, most New Testament house churches also started from family devotions.  In the Jewish culture, the home (not the synagogue) was always seen as the center of spiritual life.  Family devotions (the Shabbat Meal) occurred on Friday evenings.  The core group was mom and dad and the kids.  (Family = church).  Into this family community, friends and neighbors were invited and the house churches grew.  A high value for the LK10 community is expressed in this statement:  The marriage, and then the family, is the first and most foundation expression of church.


For more on Susannah, who is called "the Mother of the Methodist Movement", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Wesley

SASHET transforms families

The value is for connecting on the heart level.

One practice that helps us live out that value is "checking in" using SASHET.

By regularly "checking in" using SASHET, the simple church gatherings equip couples, families and households with a powerful transformational tool.

In the video below, Hugh Brandt (who was a missionary in Africa for many years) and Walt Hastings (who is coaching church planters in Kenya) explain how the CO2 (church of two) concept (which includes daily SASHET) is changing families in Kenya. While the African customs may seem strange to us in the west, the reality is that communication around the typical dinner table in the US is often equally superficial.

Both church and family should be what John Eldredge calls "a fellowship of the heart".

John

(This video also is evidence that the CO2 concept and SASHET are transcultural. People in every culture have emotions and need ways to connect with each other on a heart level.)

SASHET helps us listen deeply to each other

Interview with Hobby Chapin. Hobby is a house church planter in Brighton, CO which is north of Denver. In this short interview, he explains how the SASHET "tool" bonds a group and why he teaches it to every new house church that he plants.

Using the Foundation Course to start churches

One powerful way to start new churches is to have a whole group of people go through the Foundation Course (previous called the Apprenticeship) together.  The goals of this Course are to help people learn how to listen to their own hearts, to the hearts of those in their church and, most importantly, to God's heart.

We also want people to understand the principle of "smaller still".  That is, that house church is not the smallest expression of church.  The smallest expression is the CO2 (church of two) and house churches made up of multiple CO2s are much stronger and more dynamic than those that aren't.

By going through the Foundation Course together, a house church is birthed with people who are on the "same page" in terms of the values and practices.  This really allows a house church to hit the ground running.

In the video below, Jim Mellon, network leader in central Texas, explains how the Course has been of value to his network.

John

"Every home a church"

In articulating the idea of "every home a church", we are recapturing a fundamental Hebraic value. Marvin Wilson in Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith writes...

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem... the rabbis began to refer to the home as a miqdash me'at, that is, a "small sanctuary" or "miniature temple."... Foundational to all theory on the biblical concept of family is the Jewish teaching that the home is more important than the synagogue. In Jewish tradition, the center of religious life has always been the home. The Church has yet to grapple seriously with this crucial concept... Nothing in God's plan has ever replaced the home as bearing primary responsibility for imparting Christian values and insuring godly nourishment and growth for each family member." (p. 214-216)

See below for two videos about one family that is taking this biblical concept seriously.  The first video was made early in 2010.  At that point, the Hyatt family had been experimenting with this for about two months.  The second video interview took place about a year later.  This is a wonderful picture of a home that has become a miqdash me'at.

America (or any country) would be transformed if every Christian household returned to this one biblical value!

John

An Overview of C02 - Video

C02 Overview from tim pynes on Vimeo.