A decade ago, nearly to the month, I took my first plunge into the wild and untamed world of house churching – or, as it’s increasingly called today, ‘organic church.’ It took me over a year to fully trade in my sanctuary for a living room, but I was quite happy to leave doctrinal turf wars, membership classes, and monologue-style sermons behind. 10 years later, I’m more ambivalent. I still don’t miss theological in-fighting, bounded-set ‘in and out’ religion, and unreflective bible screeds, but I see a lot more that I appreciate and embrace across the ecclesiological spectrum. That said, I remain quite committed to organic church community as my community of practice – but specificity, for me, no longer equals exclusivity.
That Was Then
10 years ago whenever I’d bring up ideas about open, participatory gatherings, clergy-less church, and taking the direct leadership of God in local fellowships seriously, people looked at me like I had a third eye growing out of my spleen, which was somehow visible through my T-shirt. Maybe it was just the small Southern town I grew up in, or perhaps the Baptist (Southern), Pentecostal (A/G), and Presbyterian (PCA) denominations I participated in just didn’t want to hear that the ordinary friend of Jesus has spiritual competency and drive. Me and the Quakers both, eh?
Friends & Family
2-3 years into my house church journey, I discovered the ‘emerging church conversation‘ before it was ever called that. (Back then it was postmodern Christianity, baby! Stranger Things Magazine, Next Wave, and The Ooze were the places to be. But then, I suppose the latter two still are, with some notable newcomers.) Finally, I thought. Some other Christians I could talk about this stuff with. And I was right. Be they Catholic, Orthodox, Anabaptist or anarchist, in the pomo xian conversation I found friends – which was just as important as finding family in house churching a few years prior. Family is vital for obvious reasons, but friends are crucial when you need to get out of the house and get some fresh air, you know? The problem was, I didn’t know how to introduce my friends to my family; my family’s great but they’re a little quirky, sometimes prone to navel-gazing and/or fundamentalist tendencies, what with the ‘let’s return to the first century church’ and all. And my friends are awesome but sometimes a bit pretentious, like they just pulled an all-nighter with a Thesaurus or something to impress their soy-latte drinking peers. So for the last 7 years or so, I’ve had Family and I’ve had Friends, but seldom the twain did meet.
Frankly Speaking
Enter my ‘family friend’ Frank Viola. I started reading Frank right at the beginning of my house church journey in 1998, my freshman year in college. He was and is one of the most prolific pens in house churchdom (though his relationship with ‘house church’ is as nuanced as Brian McLaren’s is with ’emergent church’). One year later, he crashed on a pallet beside me and three other guys on my parents living room floor! Our church was hosting a men’s conference in ’99 and I got to meet The Man Himself. He was younger and more Italian than I anticipated. And so it began.
Around 2005 Frank discovered what dawned on me in 2001; that these ’emerging church’ folks were valuable friends and conversation partners in discovering the life, meaning and mission of Jesus’ followers in the 21st century. He asked me what he should be reading more of, and who he should be talking to. I introduced him to some friends, and gave him some contacts with the e-zines. After digesting more of ‘the conversation,’ Frank penned an article that went viral, Will the Emerging Church Fully Emerge? Andrew Jones and many others weighed in. My own thoughts were ‘Finally! My friends and family having a first conversation.’ It was perhaps a bit too guns-a-blazin’ for an initial conversation, for my tastes, but at least Frank put all his cards on the table. (And Frank’d probably call me a sissy.) It’s been fun watching folks’ responses to ‘organic church’ praxis evolve over the years, from initial wariness to active engagement.
This Is Now
So these days Pagan Christianity? and Reimagining Church hold their own in faith-based best-seller lists alongside other house church-oriented books (that you may or may not have heard of) like The Shack. Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk himself, thinks that emerging church practitioners should take Frank and his ecclesiology seriously. RTS prof Steve Brown is pleasantly surprised by house church ideas. And Relevant’s newly-launched Neue Ministry discovers that house church folks really can care about the poor.
If you’re a house churcher or emerging churcher (or baffled onlooker), what do you think of this confluence of HC and EC?
Tomorrow (or thereabouts), I bring some attention to two of the most significant recent diaologues between house church folks and high church/liturgical folks – two segments of the church that I have enormous respect for.
zoecarnate 
Mike – I knew our journeys were somewhat parallel but this is kind of scary. I also started college (Baylor) in 1998 and soon after was introduced to house church ideas/books (first through Gene Edwards, and later through Frank Viola). Through these influences (and others) a group of people in Waco started a house church I have been part of ever since – 8 or 9 years. It’s a truly wonderful community of 50+ people.
Somewhere along the line I also started reading emerging church ideas (books and blogs, etc), probably around 2002 or 2003. My experience was just like yours in that I didn’t know how to introduce my “family” and “friends.” And like you, I have broadened my understanding of church over the years, moving past a rigid fixation on the house church model.
Anyways, to get to your question. I think house church and emerging church can greatly benefit from interaction. However, I see and foresee most of the interaction via ecclesiological influence on emerging church by house church. I see less influence from emerging church to house church. I think house church is by nature too exclusive to accept much from emerging – at least that is my experience and perspective. Of course, this might just be because my house church background is around Gene Edwards – hopefully house churchers who haven’t been exposed to him too much are in a better situation. But I do see it in Viola’s work as well – an exclusivity that seems somewhat inherent in house church. The idea that this is the one right way to do church – I think this is the fatal flaw in Viola’s “Pagan Christianity” and other related works (I’ve read them all). Of course he has and will continue to refute this, but I still feel that way. Also, with Viola, I think his “Christ in you” theology (from Watchman Nee) can be exclusive and arrogant. I don’t think many emerging folks know about the huge Watchman Nee influence on Viola. That’s my background (Nee, etc.) and I’m still working my way out of it in a lot of ways (not that it’s entirely bad).
Of course, there are plenty of flaws in emerging as well. My point here is not to bash house church. I am still greatly in debt to my exposure to house church thinking, and Viola in particular. I just think that as emerging church thinkers are more exposed to house church thinking, these flaws will be more evident and the current excitement around Viola’s work will decrease within most emerging church settings. But at the same time, some people within emerging may be drawn over to house church discussions instead. I just think the overlap and interaction will be limited due to the exclusivity that is at least somewhat inherent in house church thinking.
What do you think Mike?
I actually have a non-ecclesiastical background. That is, we rejected the idea of doing church altogether. Back in the old days, we used to criticize house churches because they were just “big church” writ small.
Is there a place for a non-ecclesiastical community, groups of people who aren’t just drop-outs, but are actively engaged in their religion, AND are actively non-churchers?
Micah – I am more in your camp nowadays. I hope there is a place – but I’m not sure if there is. I think it remains to be seen.
Reading Alan Jamieson and Peter Rollins has been very helpful for me in this area.
I have the distinct feeling there’s good stuff here, but I’m having trouble translating. As Mike knows, I’m a Quaker (Friend), and so while some of this discussion feels quite familiar I don’t really know the cultural nuances between “house church” and “emerging church” and “organic church.” I followed the link over to Internetmonk’s Frank Viola review, though, and it really resonated with me. In my blogging I spend way too much time talking about church and not just spreading Jesus’s teachings.
In the Quaker world, it seems like some new synthesis between talk and action is on the way and that it will entail some new relationship between established denominational churches vs. organic start-up worship groups. What that will look like I’m not at all sure and I also don’t know how it reflects shifts going on in the more mainstream Christian world. But I’ll keep reading… Thanks for pointing to these links.
Mike,
Great post. I have come to think we need many conversation partners. I tread in one of your old denominational stomping grounds. My lifeline has been the friends I have come to know over the years in both our (Baptist) wider family and in the emerging/post-emerging church turn. Include the missional church and some of my high church liturgical friends and, well, the mash-up has been healthy for me. I am wading slowly into some of the house/organic church dialogue as it has seemed as totalizing/universalizing a conversation as any other. I look forward to more of your thoughts.
Hey I posted some of my own musings that your own thoughts encouraged over at http://www.sensualjesus.com
Brittian’s post is here to be exact.
I’ll get to more of y’all’s thoughts tomorrow (how’s that for being Southern of me?)
i have been in both camps for more than a decade and still have problems with separating the two.
franks books are great and i highly recommend them.
look forward to the conversation.
Hey Adam! Thanks for writing. Yeah, I never heard your story this fully, nor did I connect that your church was birthed out of/augmented by the 2000 Waco conference. Wild! I still remember those flyers. And you’re still at 50+ people? Wow!
I’m curious: Have many people in your church made the spiritual/ideological progression you have? You say it was awkward at first having your ‘friends’ and your ‘family’ – has it gotten any easier?
I think house church is by nature too exclusive to accept much from emerging – at least that is my experience and perspective. Of course, this might just be because my house church background is around Gene Edwards – hopefully house churchers who haven’t been exposed to him too much are in a better situation.
Yeah, that’s a great question. Gene is by his own admission quite proudly exclusive; others like the House2House folks, not so much in my experience. They seem to mingle well with bricks-and-mortar church folks and others.
As far as where Frank stands in this mix, it’s difficult to say. I can’t speak for him, but I think there was a time in his ministry where he was more strongly influenced by Edwards than he is today. These days, I see Frank self-consciously moving away from an elitist mentality, and trying to take others with him. To be sure in early printings of Rethinking the Wineskin and Who Is Your Covering? one could come away with a ‘my way or the highway’ feeling, but early in Reimagining Church Frank tries to drive the point home:
“In addition, I would never claim that there is one “right” way of doing church. And I certainly do not claim that I’ve found it. This book reimagines church in some fresh ways—ways that I believe are in harmony with the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. And for me and scores of other believers, we have found these ways to match our deepest longings as Christians.”
That said, I share your curiosity about what the house church movement will, ultimately, take away from the emerging church conversation. Like Brittian says, there seems to be a basic generational difference between the average house church member and emerging conversator, with the former skewing older and from a different paradigm. It’s one thing to say “there’s no one ‘right’ way of doing church” and quite another to actively relativize all forms of church or even the if of church, like our friend Pete would. I doubt the average contemporary North American (or Chinese) house churcher will be as ecumenical as we emergers would like. At the same time, the average modernistic Baptist or Anglican or Orthodox or Presbyterian church has no better track record.
I share your hope that some of the best insights and practices of house church reflection influence the emerging conversation. I agree with the essential Quaker and house church impulse to abolish the clergy caste. Leadership is real and undeniable, and I don’t even have beef with paid ministry per se, but when it becomes regularized and enthroned, it tends to hold people back. I like the idea of taking the Spirit’s direct leadership seriously. I love the idea of having at least some gatherings completely open and participatory. But on the other hand, I appreciate many aspects of ‘high church’ faith expressions too…but more on this in the next post.
I’d love to hear what of ‘Christ in you’ theology (a la Nee) comes across as arrogant. I think I know what you mean, but I’d like to hear what you think. I personally have a love-hate relationship with Watchman Nee. On the love side, he’s a Chinese mystic who courageously planted indigenous churches in his homeland – more, in fact, that even John and Charles Wesley did in their day. And in his early years, he valued and respected female ministers. My critiques of Nee’s methodology and theology would extend to many denominational structures and groups, particularly, of course, to the Brethren and their sectarian ways. Nee and Sparks fought valiantly to extricate themselves from Brethren influence, but it can still be felt in their work. Nonetheless, I still revisit portions (usually very small!) of both from time to time. As far as ‘Christ in you’ teaching I can more fully get behind, I highly recommend listening to messages from British missionary and mystic Norman Grubb. He still holds up quite well post-emergence.
Micah, I hear you. The eschatological outlook that you and I are both drawn to would seem to lead one to conclude that ‘the church’ proper, as conceived in the first century, was a called-out firstfruits body that sanctified the entire harvest of humanity. Thus we’re living in a fulfilled New Covenant world, a new heavens and earth where God’s places of dwelling is with all of us – thanks to the interim first century church.
This makes sense to me on a number of levels, and can change the way people of faith live their lives. At the same time I have to wonder if there are some more timeless aspects of wisdom from Jesus, Paul, and the other New Testament writers, peculiar genius that speaks to your desire for “a place for a non-ecclesiastical community, groups of people who aren’t just drop-outs, but are actively engaged in their religion, AND are actively non-churchers.”
Practically speaking, what would active faith-engagement look like in a post-ecclesiastical world? Would it involve people sharing songs, insights, meals, and agree-upon meaningful rituals? If so, you’ve just described a good house church gathering. 🙂 Though there are plenty that are simply ‘mega-church writ small,’ sadly.
But seriously, I want to hear more about the kind of community you long for, and how it makes sense (or doesn’t) within a fulfilled covenantal framework.
Martin, if these ideas resonate with you I’d highly recommend checking out Frank’s Reimagining Church as well as my friend Neil Carter’s Christ In Y’all, which is presently available as a free eBook download. I think there are a TON of mutually-enriching places between the best of organic church and the best of Quakerism.
On that note, I’d LOVE to have a talk with you off-blog regarding more of the specifics of “In the Quaker world, it seems like some new synthesis between talk and action is on the way and that it will entail some new relationship between established denominational churches vs. organic start-up worship groups.”
I’ve been re-reading some Fox and Fell and Trueblood of late and falling back in love with Quakerism in all her intricacies; I’ve been having a daydream of helping start up a pomo Trinitarian Quaker worship group in Atlanta when we move back. So we should talk indeed….
Todd, Brittian, and Andrew – thanks for your thoughts and contributions! We need our lifelines, we need friends and family, we need to keep asking questions and holding the creative tension as we seek to embody God’s dreams for God’s world.
Embody on..!
So much to respond to here! Good thoughts from everyone.
I’m curious: Have many people in your church made the spiritual/ideological progression you have? You say it was awkward at first having your ‘friends’ and your ‘family’ – has it gotten any easier?
It has gotten a little easier but more and more it seems that my wife and I do not fit in this church. It pains me to say this because I think our church is really wonderful. We are just on increasingly different spiritual/ideological pages. That’s not to say we are the only ones who have taken this path, but we have certainly taken this path more than any others in our church. With all that being said, I have more and more come to the place where I do not feel a need for the others in our church to follow the same path as us (my wife and I). I love them dearly and want to remain connected, whatever that might look like.
I’m right with you on the house church thoughts you expressed in your comment. I am particularly glad to see Frank going the direction he seems to be going – even though I do struggle with some skepticism in that area…I haven’t read his new book. I need to find someone to borrow it from.
I’m right with you on clergy/leadership issues. I hope this is the biggest influence house churchers have on emergers. And I think this is happening some. I think that’s great. But I’m also open to paid ministry (as you expressed) – I could go on quite a bit about this seeming contradiction.
As for Nee, I share your appreciation for him. My problem with the whole “Christ in you” perspective is that it can lead to a hyper-spirituality that can prove exclusive. With many who focus on the “Christ in you” message, I sense a superiority complex and a kind of division between the “real” Christians (those who are living by the Spirit in them) and the lesser Christians who just don’t get the simplicity of Christ in you, etc. I could go on, but this is the gist.
I think there are a couple things in particular I have gained from my house church experience that I hope can interact with emerging thought. 1) The whole leadership/clergy/hierarchy thing. I think there is so much to gain from this perspective. 2) A reduced emphasis on church meetings and an increased emphasis on living the Christian life together. 3) Greater appreciation of the priesthood of all believers. Or to use different terminology (I think “POAB” has losts its value as a term), there is a greater emphasis on the equal value of each person in the church – a desire to be open to receiving from each one what they can uniquely offer.
Thanks for the props, bro! I’ll try to interact with your post later 🙂
Mike,
Actually, before I ever came to covenant eschatology, I was non-ecclesiastical. I was part of a loose online collection of people who eschewed church structures altogether. We called it “non-church” or “non-institutional” Christianity.
What we did back then was to undertake a radical re-evaluation of what Paul and Peter and the apostles were actually doing.
For example, looking closely, “preaching” disappears from the text and is replaced with discussion, “speaking in song” was a one-on-one activity to be done in your kitchen (like in Disney’s Cinderella :)), communion was a potluck, “elders” were just the older people, “deacons” the people who volunteered to feed the poor, and “overseers” were the people who took on the job of caring for (“overseeing”) orphans and widows.
Thus, for us, church evaporated.
Discovering eschatology actually served to relativize my former anti-ecclesiastical stance. After all, if we’re not called to establish first-century Christianity, then I’m not obligated to tear down everything else.
For me, ideal community exists on many levels.
On one level, I want to hang out in coffeeshops with friends and talk about interesting things, and laugh, and discuss politics and music and the bible.
On another level, I want these friends to be able to relate to where I am deeply, so that these relationships aren’t parts of a segmented life – but involve shared values and ambitions and perspectives.
On another level, I want to create things that spread out into the world, and provoke responses – other creations that reflect back to me and inspire me to greater heights of creativity. This is my “big community” ideal – taking my work and making it communal, rather than just performance-based.
There’s much more to be discussed here. Hopefully this gives you a good basis for sharing your insight into this issue.
“church is about creating an environment in which God can do what He most wants to do in the moment.” Graham Cooke
Graham’s got some interesting ideas that are really where I lean these days. http://prophetic.tv/watch.php?e=5
Thanks Jason! It’s good to hear what you’re into and up to these days. I’ve always liked Cooke; probably one of my favorite of those well-known ‘prophetic’ guys. I think you and I talked once about my professor Jay Gary’s encounter with Cooke…
Adam and Micah, stay tuned..!
I think what sticks out to in this interview is fluidity/creative of every believer. keep in mind “prophetic” or not this is radical stuff for this branch of the church. His take on it is also very fresh and different that most of what the hc or ec are saying. I really suggest listening to the interview. I wouldn’t really say this is what I DO or this is my CREED. I just heard the interview and read this post and was like wow! That speaks for me in the moment in a lot of ways (certainly not all)
Gosh – after reading all this, I feel so unable to communicate with the mess of emotions flooding through me in response to all you guys have said. But I have to try! I feel like I’ve been suffocating with so much of my journey unprocessed and unshared. So if you would indulge me here –
Here’s my pedigree, and my places of intersection with all that has been previously written (which, by the way, makes me feel on this one blog entry that I have suddenly found true fellows in my journeyings):
Starting from the beginning, I am –
-Born Jewish. (albeit secular)
-Went to a Quaker school briefly in elementary school.
-Met Jesus at 11, and since I had never been to “church” before, asked Him, “Lord, of all the churches out there, which is the one that You started?” (insert chuckling here)
– Got loosely involved with local Mennonite church; did Mennonite Youth Bible Quizzing.
– Then joined a legalistic elder-led cessationist house church cult. (didn’t know any better)
– Hungered for a deeper experience with God; heard about Christ being in me and wanted to get to the bottom of that. Left cult with fear and trembling that I was doomed to hell for forsaking them to find more of Christ (sheesh.)
– Went to a charismatic church where people were on an amazing corporate journey to really know Christ together. Came face to face with the supernatural, and with Christ in me for the first time. A year later, this church connected with Gene Edwards and became a flagship of his movement. At this point though, no one had yet mentioned the term “housechurch..” It was always just “ekklesia” and “bride.” Read books by Watchman Nee and Sparks and Edwards.
– Went to college. Begged the Lord to help me find more of the “Bride.” Connected with Frank Viola, HCDL, and lots of other housechurchers (like Mike Morrell 🙂 Decided to “start a housechurch” at college. Fun experiment, but didn’t really last.
– Met some really interesting preterist brothers at a diner and took on a lot of dispensational ideas like Micah was mentioning, above…
– Graduated. Moved. Found a huge youth meeting in my new area where hundreds of young people came together to repent and worship God each week. I thought it was institutional and everyone there was terribly shallow – until week after week the presence of God would accost me everytime I walked into the room and I couldn’t even lift my voice to sing with the crowd because of the weight of God’s glory in them all. I spent week after week eating carpet when I wanted to be Ms. Housechurch know-it-all, and learning that these institutional shallow folks were putting me in my place and carrying the Lord’s approval… didn’t know what to make of this, but it intrigued me enough that I kept going, and kept getting dealt with by God every week. Truly I was getting really confused about the whole housechurch vs. institutional church thing.
– Moved again. Ended up in a city filled with lots of young calvinists and an emergent church. Heard from Piper several times. Had my world rocked at OneDay by Louie Giglio and the Passion crew.
– Got invited to come to Kansas City and stumbled into IHOP’s conference, OneThing. Was attracted by the idea of communal prayer and fasting and joined The Cause with Lou Engle doing 24/7 prayer and fasting from a completely right wing political perspective. Was totally encouraged to see a group where truly, “everyone had a word, everyone had a song, everyone had a tongue” etc etc…had the time of my life…Yet was condemned by housechurch friends for participating in an “institutional” prayer gathering. The political thing also totally rattled my Mennonite non-political mindsets and left me really wondering. Then I got kicked out of the group because I didn’t have a year of ministry school and they were changing some of their policies… so that left me realing. Housechurch friends condemning me for being part of the institutional prayer group; institutional prayer group ousting me for not having enough ministry experience.
– Social justice also started becoming a real concern…. blame this one on Sarah I guess: http://www.worldsonfire.ca
– Started having dreams about the local emergent church and the prayer movement melding. Didn’t know what to think about this, as the pastor of the emergent church was completely opposed.
– Went to an emergent church conference, Soliton. Absolutely loved the freedom to create, imagine, discuss, think outside the box, leadership acting as discussion sparkers and facilitators rather than sermonizers, etc. Found the emerging conversation as a whole to be really resonating with me.
– Participated in the hippie homeless thing at the Rainbow gathering…..
– Came back to my home area, found an intentional christian community centered around 24/7 prayer. This group had been rejected by the local institutional churches because of their refusal to be “covered” by local pastors, yet for my anarchist church mindset, this group had way too much authority and leadership. I found the Lord asking me to receive this group anyway and be part of it, and so I did – and had the year of my life. God and I spent a bit of time dealing with the dreaded “s” word – structure. Then my beloved community disbanded.
– And now I’m just sorta floating again. I’ve spent years in between all of this and even in the midst of it just loving any believer I meet, figuring the church is wherever me and another believer intersect. To some degree I still believe that is true and live that way. But I also think there is something important and powerful about groups of believers expressing Christ cohesively and TOGETHER to the world around them, making a testimony to Him in a city visibly through their love for one another and their good deeds to all … I’ve now journeyed through groups with liturgy, groups with charismatica, groups with leaders, groups with no leaders, groups with structure and no structure, right-wing political groups, left-wing political groups, and yes, I’m even currently slowly reconnecting with my long lost Quaker intersection through the young quaker association.
Oh gosh I have no idea where to put my plow in this Kingdom.
I can’t even hardly keep my blog anymore.
Thanks for letting me share.
(or at least not flaming me for the length.)
Heather
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