Rad Zdero has a book out this year called “The Global House Church Movement.” It’s a relatively brief (140 pages) yet comprehensive look at what is happening today with house churches and house church networks.
Rad’s personal experiences involve planting and coaching an emerging house church network in Canada. He offers a chapter on Biblical foundations, another chapter on historical perspectives of the house church movement, and an interesting chapter on practical considerations including how to get started, grow, multiply, and network with other churches.
Rad embraces most of the values that typify many house churches today: 24/7 shared community life, participatory gatherings, missional and reproducible churches. I like his network’s slogan: “Every Church, Start a Church Every Year.”
Rad is very intentional and, some might say, overly organized when it comes to leadership training and development. However, even if you feel this way, his approach is worth reading.
He makes a strong case for churches being networked within regions, cities, and nations: “So long as house churches choose isolation, independence, and inwardness, so long will they remain a mere novelty, a trend, a fad, without ever becoming a real movement that deeply impacts their city, region, or nation with the gospel of Christ.”
Finally, Rad acknowledges that while the house church movement has made a significant impact in countries like China and India, it remains more of a “trend” than a “movement” in the rest of the world. Nevertheless he, like many of us, believe that the simple organic church is the key to reaching our world. It’s Biblical, simple, able to saturate every neighborhood and apartment complex, easily reproduced, and led primarily by volunteers.
This is definitely a valuable read: much information and insight yet very readable.
Comments
2 responses to “New Book: The Global House Church Movement”
I agree – it was a good read. The only thing I wished would have been included was more experience-based insight into the regional networking aspect. I felt like the book was more theoretical at that point (not Rad’s fault at all – at the time of writing, I think they were just starting out on the regional networking part).
In our area of the world (Santa Cruz, CA), we have a couple of house churches (that I know of) but very little networking, it seems to me. Seems to me that without the networking, a house church is in danger of being introverted rather than working to reach the lost. Of course, that’s theoretical too since I have very little experience with it myself!
Frank
I too found the book a good read. What stood out with this particular book for me was the 3rd chapter: “Biblical Foundations: Church, First-Century Style”. I appreciated all the footnoted references used to support his statements. One could easily turn it into a good Bible study.