I have been reading Houses that changed the world the return of the house churches with mixed impressions. Firstly I really appreciate the author’s grasp on the importance of the five-fold ministry and its place in the Church. I also agree with his emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, and the fact that we are all called to the ministry - traditional ‘ministers’ (read, Pastors, etc.) are called to train, equip and then release believers to do the works of the ministry in extending the Kingdom here on earth.
The issue of apostolic structures and facilitating a return to apostolic and prophetic leadership within the church is also a vital point made very clear in this book.
I am however not very impressed with the impression that he gives that it all boils down to changing the structures of church and ‘New Testament’ life will automatically flow. When we focus on the ‘wineskins’ as being church structures, instead of hearts that receive the new wine of resurrection life, we commit the mistake of focusing on ecclesiology as the key, rather than the guidance of the Comforter. By focusing on structures, many house church books run the risk of becoming what they eschew: an institution; a movement that replaces one structure for another.
Whilst I do appreciate the importance of ecclesiology, and that we should be asking these questions, blogging these posts and examining these issues, I also think that it is far more about the presence of the Holy Spirit in power, renewal and revival within our churches than about whether we meet in a house, or whether we have a church building with a paid senior pastor or not.
Sure, healthy organic church structures can help in providing more accountability, and can help release people into their callings and destinies, but I have seen pastor-led churches do this very effectively as well, and I have also been involved in house churches where all of the spiritual abuse, control and heavy shepherding so disdained in house church circles have happened and many sheep have been spiritually wounded as a result.
In this raging debate, my focus on this tends to be not so much from an ecclesiological angle but rather from a missional one. In missions speak, there are two distinct expressions of “church” - one would be the traditional ‘local church’ overseen by a ‘Pastor’ - this is known as a ‘Modality‘. The other would be a Para-church ministry, missions organisation and such like (or in the Roman Catholic church an ‘order’) - this is known as a ‘sodality‘. The house churches would clearly be closer to the sodality than the modality, providing flexibility adaptability and a nimble pace that cannot be reproduced within more institutional contexts. I always keep coming back to the same blog post that I did when I reviewed Jim Rutz’ book. ‘Megashift’. My comments for that book could well be taken word for word and applied to this one. The blog post cites a study [PDF]by Ralph Winter, where he concludes that where modalities and sodalities complement each other there is more growth and fruit than when they compete against each other.
How do we marry these two expressions within the context of what God is doing here in Gibraltar? I certainly resonate with what Ralph Winter says, and I see a very good example of that happening within the Celtic Monastic movement where monasteries were the modal part of the movement, providing resources, copying manuscripts and so on, whilst also sending out teams of monks as cells (Sodalities) to evangelise entire cities (Much along the lines of the house church model). In a more contemporary example, C. Peter Wagner shows two examples of what he calls ‘apostolic networks’ in action towards the end of an article he wrote on Kingdom Philanthropy.
That is certainly something that I will be praying for with regards Living Waters Tabernacle as I see God establishing “Apostolic Training Centres” throughout the world to equip to send believers to all nations.
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The ecclesiological question is not about structures. It´s about values. Our structures reflects values. Do the traditional church structures reflects biblical values? I´m afraid not.
It´s also about the nature of the church. Traditional churches are corporations. What are biblical churches like? I think they are fellowships. This reflects values, too.
We have to overlook the whole church paradigm, and question what message our church paradigm really are preaching.
Hey Are, thanks for your comments - they are warmly received. My main point within the post was that our focus should be on the underlying DNA (core values) of the fellowship rather than the external church structures, although I do admit that these go a long way to facilitate or encourage certain core values. I have belonged to small house-church type of fellowships and networks for most of my walk with Jesus - so it is from that angle that I write. However I do also believe that there is a place for local churches if and when they act/move apostolically, that is, in equipping, training and sending out small very flexible “fellowships” of house churches, cells or ministries.