Bogus "House Churches" vs the Reality Jesus Desires

8/7/2004

Hello! I have been reading “A Day of Small Beginnings” at the request of some friends who have started a house church in my city, and I feel a strong stirring in my heart about the “rightness” of the home church model.  However, my husband and I want to think carefully before leaving our traditional church, praying and studying about what God would have us do.  There is something undeniably exciting about the house church, and it answers a sense of lack and loneliness we have been feeling in our...church for about two years. Could you send me some more information?  I would be happy to look at anything you can provide, and will share the information with others as opportunities arise.

Thank you...!

Hi : ). Grace and Mercy to you, in the Messiah : ). We will send some things to you right away that will encourage you further, in Jesus, we hope. Actually, there really isn’t any more a “house church model” PER SE in Scripture or God’s Heart, than there is ANY “attend me” model, in a big building, or a home. It’s about DEEP DAILY RELATIONSHIPS, CENTERED IN JESUS, “as we rise up, sit down, and walk along the way” (Deut 6, Deut 11, Heb.3:12-14, Acts 2:42-47, 1Cor.12)—not really anything else. Unfortunately, there are as many bogus “house churches” out there as there are “traditional churches”—since neither is even a “Church” (“Lampstand”—Rev.1, 2) if they are simply “attendance based” and “leaven-filled” (as the natural and only possible result of being “attendance based”). SO, all of that to say, keep your eyes on Jesus and pour out your lives for His lambs, every day, and be “joined and knit together” to as many others as ALSO live that way, as you can. : ) But don’t let anyone convince you that “houses” are better than religious façades of some other kind. It’s either “daily” (according to God) or “the gates of hell” will “prevail” regardless of formality, versus “informality,” and non-participation versus so-called “participation,” at “open” meetings!

In His Love,