Nice to hear (courtesy of Steve McCoy via Planet Emergent) about somebody doing church in the way I have previously advocated to our local org, even though my vision for it went over like a lead baloon. I commend to you An Appeal for the Use of House Churches to Extend Sanctuary-Style Churches by Jim Elliff. Beware thinking that when he says “house church” he’s just describing an almost-regular church that has a small/home group ministry… there are some very fundamental differences.
Good followup reading would include Why Do We Meet in Homes? on the same site, as well as an earlier post of mine, with linkage to the highly recommended The Church in the House by Peter Davids and Siegfried Grossmann, which discusses the format of the Early Church.
hey brother,
we recently started a “house church” in our area. we decided to call it simple church instead because we also meet at the pub and other places. i’m just starting this journey as well, but i get more out of our “meetings” than i ever did from sermons and “large/solid/traditional church”. for me the biggest advantage this way of doing church has is the freedom to do ministry without the burden of a budget. you don’t have to deal with salaries or building maintenance which constitutes 90% of most church budgets.
how would the kingdom look different if our churches were freed from financial burdens to simply do ministry and be the church?