Leaving the Comfort of Home
Yesterday I was asked to share about our house churches’ approach to mission with some leaders at a local congregation here in my city. And this opportunity has had me mulling over what has helped us as we’ve followed Jesus into the harvest.
But one of the ideas that I’m having trouble shaking is the idea of how comfortable a Christian subculture can be. It’s a common thing–I’ve seen it in my life and the lives of others–that when we give our lives to Christ we often also join a church. And each church often desires to draw us into its influence–sometimes for good and sometimes for poor reasons.
Whether it was for good reasons or bad reasons, this can have the effect of limiting our influence among the lost. We can spend time building relationships, practicing disciplines, and enjoying the benefits of being the church…and all of these things are good in their place. But all of this can also steal us away from spending time with those who need us the most–the lost.
I’ve also seen believers in the pursuit of holiness and closeness to Jesus pull away from the world. They want purity and distance from temptation–and again, this is good. However, we can develop our own little Christian ghettos–places so secluded from the world–that we become judgemental toward the sin of the world. We aren’t able to lovingly interact with a world that is just as lost as we were. In fact, we look down on it.
Enjoying relationships and pursuing holiness aren’t bad things in the right context. But we have to be willing to “leave the comforts of home” so to speak. We have to be willing to forsake the benefits of Christian culture in order to reach a non-Christian one. All cross-cultural missionaries know the pain and power of this vital step. As part of a church you love, you have greatly benefited. But because of the call of Jesus to a particular mission field, you have to leave the church that you’ve benefited from in order to start a church where there is none.
I believe God is calling more than just a handful of people to cross the ocean and live out this reality. Instead, God is calling His entire church to take on the identity of a missionary and that will mean having to leave the culture of Western Christianity and crossing into the worlds of the inner city, the business world, and even suburban soccer moms. Not all of us will cross oceans, but all of us can re-arrange our schedules, change how we spend money, and change how we relate to the unsaved.
There’s nothing wrong with home. It’s just that unbelievers don’t live there. The world by and large has stopped coming to our doors for answers. And the ones who truly, really need the gospel certainly aren’t swinging by for another meeting. So you’ll have to go to them and get used to living near them. But take heart, you’re in good company. God has already gone ahead of you.
More on that tomorrow…
Reason #2 We Started a House Church
Editors Note: This is my second post in my ongoing series describing why we started meeting as organic house churches. You can find the first post in the series here.
Yesterday started off like any other Sunday. A buddy of mine and I usually begin the day doing some one on one discipleship at a local McDonald’s. Before we had even begun to pray, we were talking with the store manager about her boys, some of the struggles she has with them, and how the gospel fits into that equation.
But one thing became quite clear during our conversation: Our neighborhood lacks men to help raise the boys in this neighborhood. After the manager went on to her normal duties, the idea lingered with us. We talked about how much more need there is than what we ourselves can handle. We prayed that God would raise up more guys to invest in the kids in our neighborhood. Then, we moved on to our normal discipleship topics.
The next step in our Sunday routine was to join our families as we met as a church. One of the newest families that has started to come is a single mom from our neighborhood and her three boys. Out of the ordinary for yesterday, though, was the addition of two boys from another family in our house church network. They were friends of my oldest son who were wanting to spend some time with us for the day. Our plan for the day after we met as a church was to take my kids and the two boys two a local play area (think Chuck E. Cheese, but on steroids).
But my buddy and I, after talking throughout our meeting, decided the single mom that had joined us could use a break. So, he loaded her three boys in his car, I loaded my four kids and their two friends into my van, and we hit the trail to the play place. It was a fun day. The kids broke up into different groups. I intermittently got to talk to my friend in between chasing after one kid or another or waiting in line for face painting. Everyone had fun. Most importantly, it was our chance to practice what he and I were talking about earlier that morning.
Which brings me to the reason we do house church: Spiritual family. Our afternoon yesterday was full of activity, but it wasn’t just “ministry.” It was pouring into different kids and families that fills holes that the world has left in their lives. These holes can’t be plugged by another program. They are only plugged by flesh and blood humans who have been touched by the Spirit of God.
We’re able to do this not just because we don’t have programs. We’re able to be spiritual family to others who need it because spiritual family is the “program.” We’ve decided to make relationships around Jesus–even ones that don’t always focus on “spiritual” activity–the point of what we do. And this practice of family is exactly what the world, in all of its brokenness, needs.
“God places the lonely in families…” is a truth we’ve come to live by. And it’s one of the reasons we’ve continued to start and meet as house churches.
Photo Credit: Cracked Ball by Earls37a
You Don’t Need an Apostle to Start A House Church
I’ve had a lot of conversations with people who are considering joining or starting house churches. One of the odd realities of the house church movement in the United States is the belief that apostles (sometimes also referred to as “workers”) are needed to start legitimate house churches. I hear this a lot, but I believe it’s harmful.
So I will fairly often get a question that goes something like this: “I live in ___________ City. I don’t have a group believers who want to start a house church and no apostle will come help me. What should I do?”
I understand why people would look at the Scriptures and think that apostles are the only ones who start churches. But it’s a fairly odd belief for a movement that has based much of its identity around the idea that Jesus shows up wherever “two or three are gathered.” If Jesus meant this, and I believe He did, then church begins when two or three legitimate believers gather in his name, not when an apostle shows up to pronounce them a church.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think apostles are incredibly important, essential really, to the building up of the body of Christ. I also think that apostles do plant churches and probably plant more churches than people with other giftings in the body. It’s part of their nature. But to say that an organic church must be started by an apostolic worker is a great way to get less house churches started.
An argument could be made here that more house churches could be started without apostles, but they would be of lesser quality, less focused on the glory of God and more prone to be outside of what the Lord intended. Except the Scripture doesn’t paint that picture. Here a few places where it seems that Scripture shows us hints of non-apostolicly founded churches:
- Acts 2:42-47- This is the Jerusalem church that was birthed after the Holy Spirit fell on the 120 in the upper room. Now I won’t argue that the apostles didn’t help form the house churches described in this passage, obviously they were a vital part of the community. But they were 12 men out of 3000 people. There was no way the apostles could have spent a significant amount of quality time with each house church there, especially not in the way many understand the modern apostle/worker starting a house church.
- Acts 11:19-21- Here is a church or a number of churches (“a large number of people”) that was formed by “those who were scattered because of the persecution.” We know that this doesn’t include the apostles, because Acts 8:3 tells us the only people who stayed in Jerusalem were the apostles. Now, apostles were eventually involved. I think apostolic input into any church is important. But this church started when believers scattered by the persecution started preaching the gospel and people came to the Lord.
- Colossians 1:7- The church in Colossae was started not by Paul, but by Epaphras. Paul had never been to Colossae but wrote his letter to them to encourage them in their walk. I would actually argue Epaphras was an apostolic worker, but if you want to get super technical about it, Paul never calls him that.
- Revelation 2 & 3- Again, we don’t know a lot about most of the churches mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3 other than the church in Ephesus. What we do know is that Paul started the church in Ephesus, but other unnamed believers started the churches in Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philladelphia, and Laodecia. These were most likely churches that were established as the Gospel went out from Ephesus into all of the region. These were all affirmed as churches by Jesus himself, even though Paul only planted the church in Ephesus.
I say all of this to make the following point: If you can’t find an apostolic worker to help you start a house church, you are not abandoned by God. Quite the contrary, you could be a vessel the Lord uses to lead unbelievers to Christ and see a church formed. This is why I want you to plant a house church.
And given what we see in many of these Scriptures, I think it’s very appropriate for apostles to help with the ongoing maturing and equipping of house churches they didn’t start. Part of their role as a bond-servant of Christ is to serve churches in just such a manner. Paul tells us explicitly in Ephesians 4 that God “gave some as apostles…for…the building up of the body of Christ.” So to say we don’t need apostles would be silly.
But to despair, to give up hope, to stop believing God for the formation of churches without an apostle ready and willing to help is just not what I see in the New Testament. I see a whole people learning to follow Christ and willing to risk even their physical lives to share the gospel with those who have never heard it. And when those souls come to Christ, there should be no wringing of hands because no apostle is present. There is simply a confidence that the God who has led them this far would continue to empower and sustain them.
And in this way, we don’t just gain apostles, but we embody the kind of apostolic Christianity I believe God wants to restore in the Earth. May it be so, even for those who are reading this today.
Photo Credit: &Koeln6b1StAposteln by Olaf Peuss
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 