Dan Kimball offers an interesting "Reality Check" on his blog, Vintage Faith, that describes 10 stages from traditional church to house church back to traditional church. It’s a bit of a downer (perhaps that’s what a reality check is about) but it provides some useful insight and markers. For example, he describes this "house church stage" reality check:
Eventually we find the same disappointments in the smaller house church that we did in the bigger programmed church, but at a different level. We get even more disillusioned, as we realize that even the key leaders (including ourselves) and the people of the house church are just as messed up as the big church leaders and people in those churches.
He goes on to suggest that we may find ourselves going from house church to no church back to some acceptance of traditional church life. I have no problem if people walk through all of these stages, but I certainly do not believe that the cycle back to traditional church is natural nor inevitable.
Now WAIT. If you DO head off right now to read the rest of Kimball’s article, I want to encourage you to come back here.
Why?
Because I want to mention an article written by Alan Creech called "Even Though." He expresses my heart (and, I think, an important perspective) very well when he says:
"Even though it’s not totally what it should be, I’m not willing to give up on it" – referring to our community, our "church" Vine & Branches…
So, I could look at the experience of the people involved in our community, including my own, and say something like, "we still don’t have the level of ‘community’ we need to have" or "are we still just ‘going to church’ but on Tuesday nights?" Many of you probably know what I mean. I think we get weary of this. And I think we sometimes want to buckle under to the weight of the weariness and shut it down and either start over or go back to something else. I was saying to my friend that I see all this, but that I’m willing to live with the tension. I’m willing to live with the tension of what I see that we could or should be as opposed to what we are. No, we’re not what I fully envisioned us being. Sometimes that’s deeply disappointing to me and very discouraging. I said that I was, and I am, willing to live with that, because it is, for all it’s flaws, better than anything else I’ve experienced. I speak for myself…
So, I will keep doing this.
And that is where I am at. Even though my experience with house churches and networks are not causing me to shout "We have made it," and even though we constantly deal with all of the relationship stuff, the messy stuff, the grungy stuff that goes with smaller community life, for me personally, it’s still better than the alternatives. I will also keep doing this.
Comments
8 responses to “Reality Check… Yet Not Giving Up On It”
I am so with you! Preach it. I am not willing to go back unless it is an act of the Almighty.
I believe it is easier going back to a traditional church because then and only then can you not experience God throughout the week and know that you will get your fix on Sunday.
Sure it is easier to “go full circle”. It is harder to continue to live in true community then settle for something less than community. Vintage Church is unique and will gather unique people. It will reach people for Christ as it should. I will let them do their thing and I will do what I believe God has called us to.
God did not give me a spirit of “stick-to-it-tiveness” for nothing.
It reminds me of the Exodus and the several laps around the desert needed to weed out the rebellion and desire to return to bondage in Egypt. Anyone ready to go back to making bricks yet, not me!
Peace, Love, and Light through Jesus the Christ! (John 14:6)
Kevin
klodge@fix.net
http://www.HippieChristian.org
http://www.hippiechristian.blogspot.com
http://www.geocities.com/gathered_in_his_name
While I can relate to the “life-cycle” on Dan’s blog all too well…I do think that we all have a path in life that we are to take and all those experiences (good and bad) prepare us to be the person the Father has called us to be.
The biggest problem that I see in all church circles (traditional, modern contemporary, post-modern, house church…etc.) is that we tend to think that everyone should do church like we do it, or we directly or indirectly look down on them. I know I am guilty of thinking that at times. I think that Bill has the right idea when he stated,
“Vintage Church is unique and will gather unique people. It will reach people for Christ as it should. I will let them do their thing and I will do what I believe God has called us to.”
The thing is none of us are any more important than the other….what part of your body will you choose to cut off from the rest of your body??
I choose to remain whole….even if it means I have to put up with that little pot belly I am growing in my late thirties. We are all parts that make up the whole BODY OF CHRIST! Not to try to over-simplify…if that’s even possible….but why can’t we all just get along? I understand that there are biblical priciples that are universal truths and we need to stand for the TRUTH….but it really is much more simple than we make it to be a Jesus follower sometimes. I really enjoy reading all of your thoughts…keep posting and I will keep reading and learning….who knows maybe we can even discover a few answers from Father along the way.
Thanks for allowing me to be a part!
It reminds me of the Exodus and the several laps around the desert needed to weed out the rebellion and desire to return to bondage in Egypt. Anyone ready to go back to making bricks yet, not me!
I hated living in Egypt, and the desert sucks… My goal is to be doing my fathers work in whatever form he chooses for me to do it in. For me that is living in the promised land.
I’ve pastored traditional church and experienced good and bloody bad. However, in the midst of those churches, I witnessed transformed lives. People who began to live in community, walk with God throughout the week, and experience a gathering on the weekend.
I’ve also planted house churches and probably some of my fondest memories in ministry come from the simplicity experienced in my house church. In the house churches I find people who are walking with God daily, being transformed, and living in community. I also find people who are engaging on a social level and love the house church because they feel they can escape any responsibilty to the larger body of Christ.
Right now, I’m co-leading a community of faith that embraces the best of both elements. We attract some who only want a fix, but I embrace them because step by step I’m pursuing a relationship with them. We also see a lot of transformation.
My point is that if God has called you and/or you have the freedom to choose follow your heart. Let’s be careful how we talk about Jesus’ bride. I know that if you ever insult my bride even if you are simply stating the obvious…well let’s just say that someone will probably wake up in jail.
I seriously doubt that when God unites his family that he will segregate us into house church vs traditional church communities. Just a few random thoughts from a passionate follower of Christ who is jacked up on cold medicine.
Good thoughts. Having read Kimball’s blog I realized that I’ve been right at or close to nine steps, though I never had a real, long-term house church experience to be precise. The place where I and most of my other friends (20 somethings) diverge from Kimball’s reality check is step ten.
I think that a lot of people in my age group could be described as “drifters,” but that is not necessarily a bad thing (drifting in the sense of occasionally attending church(es) and seeking fellowship informally as well). Step one is to read up on Joe Meyer’s book, The Search to Belong. If we can open new ways for people to belong, we may find that we have a lot of Christian community. It just may not look like traditional church.
Most 20 somethings I know of are not happy with church and are seeking something else. Though not all of them are doing things that I agree with, I think it is safe to say that God is doing something new here and we need to be watching and listening so that we can jump on when it becomes clear. That may involve going back to church or it may involve loosely belonging to a lot of groups in a lot of ways. Or it may be something else.
As for me personally, I’ve given up on trying to figure out what God has in store for me with church. I take it week by week.
Hi Roger,
I met you at the House Church conference.
When reading Dan Kimball’s post and the comments, he makes a very valid point about the necessity of house churches reaching the lost. How has your experiences been in this regard? Dan seems to have a pretty jaded view of house churches as being inward and non growing. Is this a pretty valid perspective? I am pretty new in the house church arena, having transitioned from a traditional church to a house church format 5 months ago. Also, living in Hawaii, I am not exposed to what is going on in the mainland very much.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter.
I was raised in the institutional church setting (both Baptist and Methodist) and joined a cell based church in my first year of college back in 1973 because of the intimate fellowship and sense of being real that I discovered there. Unfortunately, that church was part of the “Shepherding Movement” which became very cultic in nature. Plenty to read on the net, so won’t go into detail here, but the emotional damage to my wife and I was extreme.
We left in 1983 and have “wandered” in the truest sense of the word – never spending more than 2 or 3 years in a church at a time. I have served in some of those churches in both paid and non-paid capacity as a youth and music minister. But we have never been able to “land” on our feet with a sense of “this is where we belong.”
While our commitment to Christ and the study of His word only increased along with our hunger to discover something that resembled the New Testament Church, we too have struggled with the “inward” approach of some of today’s House churches. It strongly resembles the same things that led toward a cult status for those churches that were part of the shepherding movement – namely strong pressure to “conform” based on a usually gifted teacher’s interpretation of scripture in that cell/church and a tendancy to become judgemental in the sense that one has a greater truth than one’s peers.
I read the post on “Detoxing” from church, and it affirmed what I decided in December of 2004. I decided to take a 1 year sabbatical from church to focus on study of the word with an emphasis toward ecclesiology, asking God to remove all from my perspective that had been put in me by others and not Him. I readily confess that I struggle and do not have all of the answers. I am also prepared in 2006 to go back and give it another effort, with a new perspective.
I am grateful that God has not allowed me to discover the church or church leader(s) that is so perfect that my relationship with them could fill a void in my life intended only to be filled by God. I continue to discover and agree with the concept that “the church is NOT the work” and would expand to say that it has tended to take some away from the work – myself included.
Please keep us in your prayers.
Hi Mark… Good to hear from you.
In regards to house churches reaching the lost… I continue to learn myself… but I would like to say that churches do not reach the lost. Followers of Jesus reach the lost. Whether we gather in churches or in buildings, the gatherings themselves are not the focal point for outreach (in my opinion). I doubt if few unbelievers were reached, in the New Testament, while the believers were sharing meals house to house. However, MANY unbelievers were reached when the believers took the love and power of the Gospel out into the world.
So, yes, our house churches can easily become inward… if we are merely transplanting Christians from church buildings to house buildings. For me, the challenge is not to do church differently, but to learn, as Christians, what it means to BE the church all day, every day, taking Kingdom life, love, and power wherever we go. House churches, hopefully, are just a simple way to facilitate community life for those going-Kingdom-minded Christians.
Is that happening for us? Yes and no. No, not as much as I would love to see. Yes, it is happening to some extent and growing. I always start with myself… Am I reaching out the way that I want and feel called to be? That is the first question. Let me consider it… I currently go to a small restaurant that locals hang out at in which I am well known and through which God gives me opportunities to minister to the lost. I have recently been invited to join an “investment group” (long story–believe me, I am not some major “investor”) through which I am building relationships and sharing my spiritual story. I am also, currently, praying about the next Person of Peace that God will show me to start a new church alongside. In fact, I realized today that one of those guys in that investment group could well be a person of peace.
So… that’s my input on the subject of reaching out. Like I said, we are still learning… and I love to hear others tell their stories of living kingdom in the marketplace. This is really the heart of BEING the church, much more so than how or where we gather.
I appreciate ALL the comments made on this post.
Roger