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 read  (popular books on home churches)  and feel that the Holy Spirit is telling me that what I’m reading is good and true.

A. I haven’t read either book, so I can’t comment on them.  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 problem started when someone decided that a church was a building with a paid pastor and a congregation.

In my opinion all this mega-church and church growth stuff we hear about is more a matter of economics than theology.  I don’t care how many professionals there are on staff and how many programs are offered, you can’t have Christian fellowship with 10,000 people.

So what do the mega-churches do?  They start a bunch of small groups with volunteer leaders that meet in people’s homes.  That’s where the real work of the Church is done.  The mega church provides administrative oversight and collects the money required to pay the staff salaries and maintain the buildings, none of which would be necessary if the small groups were independent home churches.