"I Wish I Could Home-Church My Kids"

I'm a bit alarmed at seeing churches which must have cost millions of dollars to construct. I am not a Christian but I suspect that luxury is not a core tenet of worship nor is it a necessity to doing so successfully.

Spot on, Brian.

Well, if you believe that the church is the house of God (and if not, why would you build a church?), then certainly you'd want to make a nice place for Him.

Also, to paraphrase Lenny Bruce, if I live in a dump, why would I want to go worship in a dump? ;-)

Any spiritual ideals you wish to impart to your child can be accomplished just as easily at home.

Bang on. Anyone who expects an institution alone to give their children a sense of morals is being shortsighted. Your kids will pick it up better if you not only practice your faith, but talk with them about it.

Spiritual training can and should happen at home, but I think Sam's article goes beyond that. Sam can correct me if I missed it (I don't want to misrepresent him or his article), but my interpretation of the article follows.

The Bible calls the church to be a community. This is often difficult and it may sometimes be easier to "home-church" our families than deal with the problems and failings of our churches. But if we make the effort to reach out to each other and commit ourselves to creating the community that God has called us to there will be a beautiful result which will eliminate the distinction between home-churching and churching because we will be the church.

I don't see Sam's article saying we should abandon the church in favor of home-churching. I read it as an encouragement to bring true community to the church and eliminate the need for a distinction.

wow... the story ... I love it. :)

Here is another kind of new ministry - Shekinah Studio. These women are Disciples of Christ ministers who began a post-modern church in Louisville. They were nested in an established church but have recently moved into their own space - it's an old house that had been turned into a business and now into a spiritual gathering place. Covenant Community Church (mentioned above) uses the upstairs of Shekinah to house the Center for Integral Spirituality (heavily informed by the work of Ken Wilbur). It is a yoga and meditation studio with some meeting space and a place to host gatherings.

There are some many things happening with "the Church" these days -- it's a great time to be seeking a better understanding of faith and mystery.

Sam, I was particularly excited to see that you are pursuing an mdiv with a social justice focus. So many of the new churches out there lack a 'justice critique' in their approach to mission and evangelism (but that may be a conversation for another evening).

@ noah

I have been exploring various models of church leadership and I am interested to know more about your role in 'starting a church' if you are not the pastor. Do you serve more of an administrative function? Do people take turns leading discussion and hosting? Does anyone get paid? Do you use additional texts besides the Bible?

The flexibility of what you are doing is incredibly appealing and I would like to know more about your structure.

Glad to see some interest in it, merrydeath.

My role? I called up some people and told 'em to come to my house every week. :) That's about all I've done. The first time, just to educate everyone, I did more talking than usual just so everyone would understand the concept of housechurchs and how they operate. So honestly, I'm not exactly a "leader." No one is, really. So nobody gets paid, either.

As for leading discussion: if someone wants to bring a scripture that they've been reading, or maybe make some cool connections between different scriptures, we welcome/encourage that. It's not really that they would lead the discussion neccessarily, but more that they would share what's on their hearts and stir up a discussion among the group allowing everyone to participate and get something out of it.

But that's just one of the many things we do. Say someone feels like doing some worship, then we could stick in a CD and do some songs, or maybe someone brings a guitar, or maybe (just maybe) some has a good enough singing voice to start us off in song. It's all about a spirit-lead meeting where everyone is welcome to participate.

If you're really interested in doing this, I'd say pick up Megashift. It's a book that's been going around churches lately and is one of the more well-known books advocating house-churches. I'll admit that I haven't read it all, but it has a nice listing of the "19 things that can happen in a house church meeting." Helped my group get the mindset. If you'd like more reading, there's one other book that really good... can't remember the name right now, though.

Hope this helps.

Noah,

What you describe as house-churches sound very similar to what I've always referred to as small groups. The difference being that small groups supplement rather than replace traditional church services. Are you familiar with small group ministries? If so, can you explain the differences/similarities? I'm curious why you left your church vs. doing both.

If you'd like more reading, there's one other book that really good... can't remember the name right now, though.

Noah, I think the name of the book you're referring to is "The Bible".

(A little joke, with a background of truth to it :-)

Dangitall... replied to the wrong thread, and I forgot to answer your last question. Oops. :) Simply, the reason I left the church was because it wasn't benefiting me at all. It has turned into for too political of a church where certain people had all the power. I wanted to participate in church, and house churches looked like they gave me that chance.