Simple Church Networks in Europe (And What it Means for the United States)
Simple Church Europe just released its findings of its latest survey. The survey is an attempt by the leaders of the organization to uncover meaningful trends in the house church movement in Europe. You can get the full survey by following by jumping to their website here.
I won’t quote much of the 21 page report because, though it won’t cost you any money, Simple Church Europe does want you to download the report straight from their site. It’s important to look at their conclusions because the United States is quickly becoming a post-Christian nation, much like Europe. Their findings will greatly help us in the future.
The report actually breaks down three types of house church networks that exist in Europe:
- (a) Apostolic networks: simple church groups started by an apostolic worker ‘straight in the harvest’, mostly along the lines of the instructions Jesus gave his disciples in Luke 10 (planting a new simple church group in a household/social circle instead of inviting people to an existing church meeting). These networks are primarily made up of new believers who just heard about Jesus, are being discipled, and win others to plant new groups.
- (b) Bridge networks: simple church groups made up of existing Christians who intentionally seek to be ‘missional’. They try to build relationships with non-believers, often using conventional forms of evangelism and a ‘come to us’ approach.
- (c) Christian networks: simple church groups formed by existing Christians who mainly seek a more relational and participatory alternative for conventional church. These groups tend to be inward-focused and sometimes reactionary: seeing their way of church as more biblical and healthy than the churches they come from.”
Not surprisingly, apostolic networks grew at a faster rate than Bridge networks and Christian Networks (which as best as I can determine are more like small groups that have a larger meeting once a week). Apostolic networks see house church groups dissolve at a slightly higher rate as well. The most encouraging finding, however, is that apostolic networks see the highest number of conversions among people from previously non-Christian backgrounds.
What this points to is that fact that Luke 10-style church planting (Person of Peace, building on relationships around that person of peace, etc.) is both risky and incredibly rewarding for the Kingdom. Not surprisingly, the authors of the study suggest that bridge networks and Christian networks learn from the apostolic networks in a way that causes Kingdom expansion.
What does that mean for us? No research of this kind has been done in the United States, but these stories seem familiar from what I’ve seen in the house church movement in the United states. All three types of networks exist here and are growing. The major difference between our context and Europe is Europe’s population is much more secular than ours.
I think one of the major points this report emphasizes is the need to learn from apostolic workers who are building house church networks accoridng to the Luke 10 principle. Everywhere I see significant Kingdom expansion happening in the house church movement, this seems to be the model.
I think this report also highlights the tendency of churches that are not started out of the harvest to draw on already existing relationships with believers or those with a Christian background to fill our churches. We definitely want a place for everyone to belong and be equipped. But if our concern is for the harvest then those starting house churches among primarily Christians (myself included) need to adjust our models and strategies for church planting in the future. We want to avoid doing ministry that only attracts Christians and focus on those activities that are bringing lost individuals to Jesus.
This also highlights a great need however in the house church-community-at-large. That need is for those with apostolic and evangelistic giftings to seriously consider training and equipping others. Without more apostolic and evangelistic giftings functioning in and training our house churches, we will continue to draw people but we may not impact the Kingdom significantly. This will also require a significant amount of humility on the part of existing house churches, because until now many house churches have been reluctant to accept this kind of help.
I would love to know what you think. Does this survey reflect your experience with house churches in the United States? If you are participating in a non-apostolic house church network, are there changes that need to be made to grow in apostolic methods? What are the hindrances to that? Jump to the survey here, read it, and come back and let me know your thoughts.
If you’re looking for more information on the house church movement in the United States you can check out my previous post on house church stats here or pick up the book Missional House Churches, by J.D. Payne (Amazon Affiliate Link).
Photo Credit: Floating Networks by WebWizzard
Leaders For The Harvest
Tonight I was on the phone with one of my good friends from Kansas City that I haven’t had a chance to chat with in a while. I was describing some of the wins we are experiencing and some of the challenges that are occurring at the same time. After two or three minutes, my friend gently broke into the conversation and challenged me. “You know what you should be spending your time doing right now is developing leaders for your third and fourth house church right now, right?”
I was dumbfounded (for a couple of reasons). I was shocked by how quickly he saw straight into the heart of some of the problems I’ve been facing. But more than that, I was shocked at how obvious what he was saying was and how clearly I had missed that fact. It seems that in preparing a church for the harvest, I had totally neglected leadership development in our midst.
But the conversation gets right to the heart of a problem that I believe we face in the West. Our ability to reach further into the harvest depends significantly on our ability to raise up new, harvest-minded leaders in our midst. We think finding the harvest is our biggest issue. We often forget that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
Join me today in praying that God would raise up workers for His harvest here and where you are.
Photo Credit: Bosworth Battlefield (2) by Jams_123
The Apostolic Pattern (Why Are Multiplying Churches Necessary? Part 3)
This is Part 3 in the Series “Why Are Multiplying Churches Necessary?” It would be helpful to read Part 1 and Part 2.
“Jesus lives on in an apostolic mission that advances by church multiplication.” – Wolfgang Simson
If you’re familiar with the New Testament, you know Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke as a historical account of Jesus before, during, and immediately after the cross. What some don’t realize is the book of Acts is Luke’s historical account of the resurrected Jesus’ activity as He leads and guides the church into the very activities that characterized His ministry on Earth (cf. John 14:12-14, Acts 1:1-3). The heart of the matter is this: Jesus’ post resurrection ministry was lived out through the church in the book of Acts in the form of a multiplying church movement.
Let’s look at some quick facts. The Church Jesus left was insubstantial compared to the crowds who had followed Him before His death. Paul speaks of Christ appearing to 500 people after His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). Since this is the highest number of post-resurrection numbers spoken of and Paul refers to these men as brothers, my assumption is they were the lump some of Jesus’ followers. Yet, by the early third century, this relatively obscure band of five hundred had become somewhere between 5 and 10% of the Roman Empire and up to 30% of some major cities.
The book of Acts records the harvest in language that should both stun us and move us to action. When Peter preaches at Pentecost in Acts Chapter 2, a massive harvest of 3,000 new believers come to the Lord. Luke describes it this way: and there were added that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:41). This continued on for a season in the life of the early church (Acts 2:47, 5:14) and the results were significant growth that all of us would love to have.
However, eventually the church began to feel the burden of it’s growth. The result was a decision to multiply leadership beyond the apostles to the men we refer to as deacons in Acts 6. When this multiplication of ministry happened, a small but significant shift occurs in Luke’s story. Instead of the church having new members added to them, the church begins to multiply (Acts 6:7). The church didn’t just multiply one time. It multiplied several times (Acts 9:31, 12:24)
This is more than just semantics. The shift in language represents the fact that instead of just a few people doing much of the work, many people were embracing the mission of God. See, addition works like this: 2+2+2+2+2+2=12. Multiplication works like this: 2x2x2x2x2x2=64. The more multiplication you have happening the bigger the results. This is why Paul would tell Timothy to take what he had taught him and teach it to faithful men who would teach it to other faithful men (2 Timothy 2:2). It was a God-sized idea to expand the Kingdom.
And you couldn’t stop this multiplying church. Its multiplication made it hard to know where it started or ended. Before you knew it, this little group of Jesus followers became a multitude that had no visible leader. You could kill one of the leaders, but another would rise in its place. It’s why human’s hate viruses: they multiply out of control. This is what allowed the first century church to reach an unprecedented amount of people in such a short period of time.
Beloved we find ourselves in a season of history where we must recapture the spirit of evangelism and multiplication that gripped the early church. This isn’t a call to return to only first century practices, but to capture those elements that made them vital and caused the Gospel to spread like a virus throughout earth. Jesus is worthy of His name going forth and redeeming many in this hour. May we, like them, be consumed for His name’s sake and see the church multiply in the Earth.
Photo Credit: Onion Cells by Kaibara87
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 