I want to continue the discussion Cory brought up about house churches and whether we will be one or not. The answer to that question is yes--and no--it kind of depends on your perspective.
The primary place of connection and growth for people will be their cell group. These are groups that will often meet in homes, but will also meet in office buildings, bars, coffee shops, libraries, or wherever the group decides. That will largely be determined by the way the group approaches reaching out to people and out of which subculture the group is formed. For instance, if a group forms at a workplace it would make sense for them to meet at that workplace, at least for their regular meetings.
These groups will develop their own rhythm for what they do and when they do it (with the help of a leader and in accord with some core practices). They will determine what they study, how they will serve their communities, how to care for each other, to whom the will reach out and how, etc. The freedom each cell group will have would move it toward the house church category.
But these cell groups will maintain a consciousness of a larger affiliation. By having all the cell groups come together on a regular basis we will reinforce the vision of the network, its diversity, and visually remind people that God is up to something much larger than any of us.
The cell groups will also be guided and held accountable by the network leadership. But this won't be done in a "fill out this report and turn it in once a month" kind of way. We hope to do this in the way the apostles checked in on and encouraged the churches they started. To stay informed about what is going on and then encourage, guide, and challenge based on that, at the same time maintaining that the network leadership doesn't control a given cell group.
So this network will be a church of churches. The cell groups will share many characteristics with house churches, but they will move in the same direction as a larger movement rather than placing themselves on an island.
3 comments:
Good summary, Trevor. I think it helps lay out some of the differences and helps people through some of the confusions and skepticisms of this type of ministry approach.
Innovative and exciting possibilities! To help avoid pitfalls of what we know about the natural progression & development of groups (including this vision), I would encourage you to read about the church-sect continuum (can be found in any good sociology of religion text). God's best wishes and blessings.
this is the most refreshing thing I've read in the last 2 months brother... Neil Cole wrote a book called "Organic Church"... very similar in thought process... This has more implications for racial reconciliation than I think you have addressed as well... speaking through the lense of my presuppositions about South African churches, it appears predominately that white positional leader hands the lowly blacks and coloureds their shot of Jesus for the week... this model you're talking through makes it very clear that with the resurrection of Christ, we've all been given power to play into the whole of the kingdom
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