The following is from Dr. Ralph Winters from the Center of World Missions (via John White again):
"…the trend to house churches is a phenomenon which runs counter to the long and slow drift of American churches away from extended families. The American church today is strikingly more and more a place for family fragments, and even seeks to replace natural families!
The New Testament ‘church’ was a worshipping household like that of Cornelius, Lydia, or Crispus, and was called an eklesia, a word that does not mean what we understand ‘church’ to mean.
What happened to us (slowly)? Modern age-stratified, highly specialized society has become Satan’s Weapon of Mass Destruction of the family – precisely where worship and accountability are supposed to be primary! The church has mindlessly followed the world’s pattern: a family driving up to a church door is instantly chopped into pieces.
…Three- and four-generation households, which once joined churches together, and had family-level worship, are now almost universally reduced to ‘nuclear’ families (e.g., family fragments). The grand-parent generation is no longer a stabilizing factor, divorce has skyrocketed, wives are abused, children go wrong, etc. This happened slowly, over 300 years. Thus, today we are blind to what has happened – but must deal with the consequences.
Those of us who have lived overseas, where most societies have not yet been ‘Westernized’ and stacked against normal marriage, may be among the only ones who can even perceive – much less unravel – the reality of this tragedy.
…Unfortunately, many congregations today have the idea that getting people into small groups is all that is necessary. However, extended families can be small groups, but small groups cannot readily become extended families.
Pastors, frantic to do more than preach generalities to crowds on Sunday, may hope to get most of their congregations into small groups. Sure, those family fragments out there in the pews desperately need to rise above their individualism and isolation. Thus, a non-family, artificial small group is better than nothing.
In such churches you may never hear a word about what could and should go on at the family level. I myself, in Evangelical churches all my life, have never heard a sermon on how or why families ought to have family devotions.
But it is clearly better – as well as more important – to make every real family a small group than to try to make small groups into artificial families.
…All over the world it is gradually becoming clear that you can build a big church out of small groups, but big churches without families remaining intact aren’t worth much.
…The house church phenomenon could be revolutionary. It just may be that the most valuable gift missions can give back to the American church is a renewed sense of the family as God intended it to be."
Comments
5 responses to “Church as Extended Family”
Wow Dr. Winters! He is one of the “Big Boys” on missions. I love his comments about family. Our American idea of family has taken some hard hits. The current mainstreams churches response has been to “serve” this family by reinforcing its current condition by offering to train the kids spiritually for the parents. I believe the whole youth emphasis in the mainstream church today is weakening the family. If parents are not the primary disciplers of their children then the children will mostly likely not know how to disciple their children. God instructed fathers to take the prime role in disciplining their children so that God’s name would be praised from one generation to the next. I love how the house church naturally, effectively, and lovingly restores families to God’s natural order. Parents are restored as the spiritual authorities in the family. Family once again becomes the master disciple-making tool God intended.
Great Blog, thanks!
Home churching and home schooling SO go together. We have been hs’ing since 1998 and just began attending a home church in January. We are enjoying it very much. 🙂
Great post. Another excellent issue surrounding what we are doing as church. I’m moved by the statement that “you can build a big church out of small groups, but big churches without intact families aren’t worth much.” Community is based in families. There is a generational element that must happen. today we have torn the generational ties that bound families. I was in a young, hip church for a while with the hope that some of us older folks would be able to make bonds with the younger. Eventually most all of the older people left because it was obvious the focus was on ‘young’, edgy and all that. We were simply dead wood. I experienced another church that was predominately older, very gray, that had a hard time accepting new, younger styles of worship for their teens and young families. They were putting the brakes on their future… Can we all just put away what “pleases me” and do what we can to restore the generations before our Lord. this is the path to discovering the fullness of Christ and bringing glory to God.
How sad, John! As a young person myself, I can’t tell how invaluable the elders in my life have been to me. We definitely need their wisdom, so don’t give up on trying to close the generation gap. Reading some books on the subject might help each generation understand the other better as well . . .
One of the things that I noticed when we first became involved with house churches is the difference in my family. My children were able to see me worship, they heard me ask questions, they saw me wrestle with difficult issues, they saw my frustrations, they saw my giftedness, they saw my weakness…they grasped it and ran with it in their own lives. My son, now 7 years old, knows what/how the church is really supposed to be.
Not only that, but to see whole families encouraging, supporting and challenging one another is incredible. The thing that I grabbed onto the most is that it is my responsibility to disciple (not just discipline) my children. It is my responsibility to teach my children. It is my responsibility to train my children. If I let them be ushered off into some classroom for a kids bible story and “craft time,” how on earth am I going to influence what they experience?
I have maintained these thoughts and practices…and I have seen the frutifulness of it. Almost anywhere we go we are told how well behaved our children are, how polite, how respectful, how helpful, how courteous, how much others enjoy their company. In a room full of people, they stand out, relationally, above most. I do not think this is mere coicidence. I believe it is the working of the Spirit with they way they have been trained and influenced.