Epic Vision; Why House Churches?
I have struggled to find the right combination of words to describe this component of what will become Epic Church. On the one hand, I could use the phrase "cell groups" but what we envision is much more than what you typically find happening in cell groups. On the other hand, I use the phrase "house churches" but feel a little uncomfortable with that because there are elements of the house church movement that I percieve as being unhealthy.
I guess what I envision is an amalgam of the two with the lines of definition being a bit blurry.
Many churches today have a small group (cell group) ministry in place. About 20 years ago these churches, after hearing of the huge success of Yoido Full Gospel Fellowship in Korea, added home-based cell group meetings to their format. For the most part, this has been a good move forward. What you typically find in the small group ministry of a church is that they do a really good job with fellowship and relational connection. But most small groups do not have an outreach component. Fifteen people will gather in a home to eat and fellowship and study together but all too often the neighborhood around them and the people living in that neighborhood without Christ never enter into the conversation.
Then there is the house church movement. House churches make up the largest expression of church in countries like China and India, and other places around the world where Christianity is fiercely persecuted. House churches have never played a significant role in the ecclesiology of America, until now. People are disconnecting from church today at alarming rates. The Greco-Roman-Jewish "Cathegogue" expression of church is quickly diminishing from the western scene as the Church begins to emerge and flourish in homes and coffee houses and other public places.
A house church is simply a cell group with a bigger agenda; that agenda being to seek the lost, lead them to faith, disciple them, equip them, and send them out as missionaries to the rest of the city. Rather than simply focusing on fellowship, the house church embodies the fullness of what it means to be the bride of Christ carrying out the Great Commission. In the healthiest of systems, house churches are interconnected in a network that shares a common vision, common praxis, and functions under the leader of house elders who are led by a person or persons who is truly apostolically gifted and all of the house churches in the network gather together regularly for large group worship gatherings.
Why do I want to give myself to creating a house church movement here in Augusta? Look across the panorama of Christian history and you will find that the Church has flourished most and had the greatest impact on culture when two things were in play: The church was scattered. And the lines of demarcation between laity and clergy were erased so that everyone in the church was equipped to engage in the mission.
I believe that house church networks present us with an awesome opportunity to reclaim these two things. Instead of designating a central place (church with a little c) in the hopes that people will come to it, we take the Church into the neighborhoods where people live. We scatter, going where the people are. In a Cathegogue you have one pastor and a few volunteers. In a house church network you have a brotherhood of pastors working together all throughout the city investing themselves in the process of equipping everyone in the house church to be missionaries to the city.
My growing interest in the house church movement isn't so much a reation against anything. I simply see it as becoming a more and more effective way in the coming decades to impact the greater culture around us with the Way of Jesus as the Cathegogue system is already in rapid decline.