H4H is a Exciting Network of Christians using their family and homes as centers of Relationship, Hospitality, Worship, and Community/World Mission. Simple Church, Organic Church, Missional Church, Incarnational Church, House Church
"Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well."
Americans splitting their church commitments
A recent Barna survey finds that 10 percent of adults surveyed attend a worship service in a home at least once a month. Ken Eastburn, founding minister of The Well, a church birthed in a building that transitioned to a network of home-based churches in Orange County, California, says the statistic invalidates the idea that some Christians are house church Christians while other Christians are conventional church Christians. “Christians sitting in a traditional bricks and mortar church on Sunday morning are often the same ones strumming guitars in someone’s living room Sunday afternoon,” he said.
Eastburn, who recently moderated the House2House national conference on house churches in Dallas, Texas, attributes the overlap to a reluctance on the part of Christians to completely abandon the customary structure of church. “It’s very common for someone to give his tithe and committee service to a congregation in a building because he feels it is too difficult to cast off all structure,” says Eastburn. “At the same time, [he may not feel he] is growing sitting in the pew, and loves the idea of dialoguing about Scripture instead of being on the receiving end of a lecture all the time.”
According to the Barna research, the number of those claiming to worship in a house setting depends on how the question is asked. When researchers asked the question in the strictest sense the number dropped to five percent. Eastbum sees this as an indication that five percent or more of individuals surveyed split their time between conventional and house church.
Says Eastbum, “We believe that a simpler model of church is part of the answer to helping people grow in Christ. Our challenge is to provide an environment where people can leave the building without feeling like they’ve lost all structure or accountability.”
—Evangelical Press News Service
Here's a recent quote from Wolfgang Simson that was brought to my attention by John White."The latest research indicates that the number of house churches in Europe have already reached or surpassed 10,000, Australia could have up to 10,000, and New Zealand up to 6,000 house churches. Research in the US shows that between 6 and 12 million are already attending house churches, making house churches one of the three largest Christian groups in the country. In the case of Bangladesh or India, with many hundreds of thousands of house churches, the various networks of house churches have already become the largest Christian movements in their respective countries." Wolfgang SimsonThis, of course, isn't counting China where there are perhaps one million house churches.
"Mission methods must be cheaply reproducible for maximum effectiveness. Americans have developed expensive methods that cannot be duplicated elsewhere. In fact, we have come to rely so heavily on borrowed money that many churches are seeing declining contributions to missions because of needing to repay loans for expensive buildings. Such luxuries did not characterize the early church, which had no buildings for the first couple of centuries. For Christianity to spread rapidly throughout the world, missions need to return to sustainable methods that do not require huge sums of money for success."
(Robert Reese. "Best Mission practices for the 21 century" Christian Standard, November 29,2009. pg844-45)
("Apostolic Passion", Floyd McClung. "Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 186c)
As the body of Christ grows from the infant to the toddler stage, it is seeking direction for its journey forward. It has gradually stepped around the barrier of old wineskins and has come to view different infrastructures.
Our view is often limited. Old paradigms are blinders, making it impossible to see peripherally. To describe it another way, we now “see through a glass darkly.”
As we step forward, we must see the emerging Last Days wineskin for Christ’s ekklesia. It does not yet exist. Should the Lord tarry, perhaps it will arise in the last half of this century. Can we set our vision to pioneer its lifestyle?
In the first century in Palestine Christianity was a community of believers. Then Christianity moved to Greece and became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome and became an institution. Then it moved to Europe and became a culture. And then it moved to America and became a business.
Priscilla Shirer
"Mission methods must be cheaply reproducible for maximum effectiveness. Americans have developed expensive methods that cannot be duplicated elsewhere. In fact, we have come to rely so heavily on borrowed money that many churches are seeing declining contributions to missions because of needing to repay loans for expensive buildings. Such luxuries did not characterize the early church, which had no buildings for the first couple of centuries. For Christianity to spread rapidly throughout the world, missions need to return to sustainable methods that do not require huge sums of money for success."
(Robert Reese. "Best Mission practices for the 21 century" Christian Standard, November 29,2009. pg844-45)
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