My Relationship with the Traditional Church

Ten years ago, my family and I, along with several other families, launched out in an adventure to start a house church.  Ten years later, we have four house churches spread across our city and I write quite a bit about the phenomenon, actively encouraging other Christians to start house churches. You’d be forgiven if you called me an advocate.

In all of my talking about house churches, there is usually this unspoken elephant in the room when I reference the traditional, legacy church. When I use those phrases, I’m referencing everything from your traditional Lutheran church that meets in a cathedral to your rock out charismatic church that meets in a warehouse and everything in-between. How do I feel about those churches? What kind of relationship can someone who believes the things that I do have with people “haven’t left the building?”

I think it’s important to start here: The universal Church is made up of people who have repented of their sins and decided to follow Christ.  Church is the name of a person, not a building or a meeting. Church is the name Jesus gives to His bride.  And because of this, wherever believing people gather, the church is there in some form.

This is important, because we tend to forget that what makes us church isn’t our doctrine or how meet or our practices. What makes us church is the fact that we have a relationship with Christ.  This Jesus-centered approach will keep us from all sorts of pride and hypocrisy.

Because I believe that Jesus inside of people is what makes us church, I actually have relationships with believers that meet as traditional churches.  I pray with them. I stand with them in times of trouble.  I counsel them. I challenge my pastor friends not to let their ministry be about a paycheck or a building. They challenge me to be a better father, employee, and spokesman for the Gospel.  There is a healthy give-and-take without me having to compromise who I am and this healthy give-and-take is shaping all of us into something better. We all tell the story of a God who loved us enough to become human and take nails for our sins and sometimes we tell it together.

I can do all of this without compromising who I am and what the Lord has shown me through this journey into organic church.  Frankly, the more I believe in radically pursuing Jesus as a spiritual family, participatory meetings, servanthood over hierarchy, simplicity of meeting together, relational discipleship, and incarnational ministry, the better I am for our house churches AND the more useful I become in encouraging my friends in the traditional church.

All of this is to say you can be a part of an organic house church and not have to hate the traditional church that you came from. Continue making disciples. The Lord will build His church. Stop having the argument. Plant Kingdom gardens and let the fruit speak for itself.