What About Home Churches?

Q

I’ve been reading your blog for a year and enjoy it much. I would be interested in your opinion of house churches. I have read several popular books on home churches and feel that the Holy Spirit is telling me that what I’m reading is good and true. Care to comment?

A

I can’t comment on the books you’ve read, but I can say that the Church started out meeting in homes, and I don’t think the Lord ever intended for it to become anything different. The idea that a church is a big building with a paid pastor and a congregation is man made.

In my opinion the mega-church phenomenon is more a function of economics than theology. In other words they generate huge amounts of revenue and nourish our “success in numbers” mentality. But I don’t care how many professionals there are on staff and how many programs are offered, you can’t have spiritually meaningful Christian fellowship with 10 or 20 thousand people.

So what do the mega-churches do to meet the spiritual needs of their people? They start a bunch of small groups with volunteer leaders that get together in people’s homes. That’s where the real work of the Church is done, just like it was at the beginning.