New Forms of Church?

Several months ago I led a workshop at a national organic church conference. Most of the leaders had been, or were committed to house church forms. The increasing disinterest away from traditional or contemporary ways of church has given thousands of US leaders enough curiosity to look for alternative ways to worship, do church, and engage the world. As Missio has been focusing on incarnational ways of church, we’ve seen an increasing number of people ask us, “what do you think about this trend toward house church or simple church?”

To be honest, we’ve reserved the right to make any judgments at this point. We hold our tongue for several reasons. One, if there’s ever a time to experiment, deconstruct, and reconstruct, it’s NOW! When you know your cruise liner is taking on water, it doesn’t make much sense to judge those who are strapping on their life preservers and hopping in the little dinghy’s! To those who blindly disregard this new direction, we would ask, “on what grounds does the attractional church have to judge any other form of church at this point in our history?” When we’re losing approximately 2% of our present churched population every year, and we’re not reclaiming much new conversion growth, I believe the responsibility to prove or defend certain methods of ministry fall not on the experimenters or research and developers, but on the present forms to prove “why they should get to keep doing the same thing, if it’s not working.”

Yet, to those who blindly accept new forms as the next great thing…BEWARE. It’s not as easy or “simple” as they say, and it is causing as much tension in the lives of these leaders as we see in the lives of existing church pastors.

I chose to entitle our session, “Incarnational Community…what if it works?” I did so because of the over-optimistic stance many young and old leaders take when the shove off from the dock to sail these new “simple” seas.

To begin the session, I asked, “why did you come to this session?” There were a few moments of silence, and then one young man, said, “I left a normal church a few years ago because I just couldn’t take it anymore, but after three years of house church, it just doesn’t seem much better.” Once he chimed in, others shared the same pain.

Over the last five years, we’ve heard this same tension over and over. From house church, to simple church, to mega-church.

There are a lot of issues all webbed together that are causing this global tension, but let me highlight two important observations were making.

First, IT AIN’T ABOUT WHAT FORM OF CHURCH YOU DO! To try to reproduce mega-churches is as dumb a notion as trying to reproduce house churches. Why? Because people outside of our churchdom aren’t looking a for ANY type of church. The systemic issue of why something works or not (working = people coming to faith and re-orienting their lives around the mission of god) is about how God’s people embed themselves into the muck of the world to influence hearts towards God’s alternative kingdom. That’s it! House church people can be as exclusive and non-missional and non-incarnational as any other form of church.  Add to that the painful fact that many of these leaders have now given up their salary and now have to work 50 hours a week at Home Depot and then try to be incarnational. It’s just not that simple.

Secondly, “It” working has almost nothing to do with gathering people together in corporate times together.

It was interesting that even in this organic church conference, they invited a worship team to lead the 250 people in corporate worship. Yep, the reality is that believers love to worship and be together as long as they’re committed to a cause together. Some said, “It seems to go against the values of house church people to have corporate worship.” But why? Does having a gathering of Christians relegate those people to living non-missionally? Sure, it can, if it’s communicated that it’s the main thing. But what if corporate gatherings aren’t the main thing? What if corporate gatherings are so people can gather? That doesn’t seem so bad does it? We don’t think so.

Again, it’s not about how you gather or when you gather, or what you do when you gather. It’s about who’s in the room when you gather and how they found their way to the gathering. Believe me, if they find you through a website, door-hanger or because you offer free donuts, then you’re probably missing it. But if they have stumbled and bumbled their way in through the long term relational networks of community and benevolent action they experience through your people on their street, then it will not only be okay to gather them, but beneficial to the entire mission.

I pray that house church takes off as a legitimate form of mission, and I hope the leaders of these movements allow for as much flexibility and creativity as they deserve.  But I also hope they don’t fixate on the form of gathering at the expense of mission.   I hope mega-churches can find ways to be more incarnational. I hope millions will gather someday on Sundays, Monday, and whatever days make sense to them. But I pray that we as leaders finally realize that church working has nothing to do with “church” but how the people of God live an alternative story on main street usa.

Hugh Halter

Comments

[Lon]

great post Hugh. I especially liked the part about how people 'out there' aren't looking for any type of church. so often we're fixated fantasies of church for ourselves...