Today a bright idea struck me. If people home school because public education is lacking, do they home church if public Christian churches are lacking? Quick, to the Googlecave!
Norville Tucker, who moved his family to the woods outside Shelby, AL in 1998 to “escape the damaging cultural influences of urban Mobile,” is widely credited with pioneering the home-churching movement. Tucker said he was inspired to home-church when his 10-year-old son Macon returned from Sunday school singing a lighthearted song about Zacchaeus, a tax collector befriended by Christ, and then later recited the parable of the Good Samaritan.
“I couldn’t believe that the liberal elite had infiltrated even the study of our Holy Scriptures,” Tucker said. “It was bad enough that my youngsters were being taught evolution in public schools, but when I discovered they were learning to embrace foreigners and Big Government in Sunday school, I drew the line.”
It’s pretty silly, but yeah, we as Christians all know that it’s not the same, and church is different. We are commanded not to neglect gathering together as Christians, and there are many reasons why we should do so.
Except, well, some people think different.
Robert Fitts suggests that we begin with the simplest possible expression of church: two or three gathered in Christ’s name (Matthew 18:20):
What Is A Church? If we take away all the non-essentials, we would have Jesus and at least two people who have come together in His name. Two people, who have been born again, meeting together anywhere, at anytime, with Jesus in the midst, is church at its most basic, most informal level. (The Church in the House).
This is a good starting point for looking at how church is expressed. It’s simple. It can be two or three. When a husband and wife gather at home (two or more), it is church.
There’s surprisingly a fair amount of writing on this. There’s even a collective movement which tries to take the ethos of homeschooling and apply it to normal church, the Family Integrated Church movement. In other words, not only is secular education done by the parents without the kids going off to a separate school to be taught, religious worship and education is done without children going off to a separate youth minister or kids service to be taught. This post sums up the benefits and problems of it:
We have had several negative experiences with other churches and families who would call themselves “family integrated.” As a result, and after much reflection on the issues, we have coined the terms “ecclesiastical family integration” vs. “patriarchal family integration” to discuss our position on the matter. The one is oriented toward the church, while the latter finds its frame of reference in the family.
So even in church worship, the kids can’t get away from under the parent’s thumb. Some parents refuse to even let YOUTH MINISTERS deal with their kids for fear of ill spiritual effects. They even have a documentary about it!
So to my chagrin a rather silly idea suddenly has introduced me to the fact that my fellow believers are into some strange things. Truth is far stranger than fiction, sadly.
Jan 27, 2013 @ 20:49:30
I am really not one for legalism when it comes to matters that aren’t expressly moral or immoral. Life should be more fluid than a lot of people make it. There have been times in my married life when going to church on Sunday wasn’t an option due to work schedules, and so we would meet with other Christians for home services/Bible studies. Now that the schedule allows for it, we attend church. But some people are simplly idealists (or legalists) who think they can create a Utopian way of life. More power to them, I guess, so long as they leave me alone and don’t force their ideals on me.
Jan 27, 2013 @ 22:14:09
Yeah, fluidity isn’t bad. It’s just odd though to find people seriously justifying this on either long-term grounds, or a collective form as a way to protect kids from leaving the church. I mean, I was raised in Word of Faith Pentecostalism, and when I find something that makes that upbringing feel liberal, it’s an unusual feeling to say the least.
Jan 28, 2013 @ 02:53:14
I’m a Mennonite. Home congregations are not only normal to us, they’re often preferable.
I don’t see why it’s so laughable that folks believe in spending God’s money on the poor and hungry instead of bricks and shingles.
Jan 28, 2013 @ 06:25:18
There’s several reasons I can think of. Zoning laws, accountability, and inability for lay leaders to be up to the standard of pastors especially when it comes to life counseling are a few of the reasons I can think of. This is just normal house churches, but these I’ve listed really aren’t like that. They are using non-traditional models for isolation and control, and it’s not healthy.
Jan 29, 2013 @ 13:36:07
Yep. I know some people who tried the home church route. I don’t think it’s intrinsically bad, but comes with it’s own set of inherent drawbacks.
In some areas of the world, home churches are the only way to hear and study the true gospel. The U.S. could come to that. Let’s hope not.
Feb 10, 2013 @ 19:45:30
Good article.
That documentary…my skin crawled. It went to this conspiracy theory-esque crap somewhere in the middle about how youth ministry is inherently wrong because it is based on a structure founded by people who did not believe in God. Furthermore, I feel highly disappointed by the documentary since it wasted a perfectly good chance to take a sociological look at the decline in church attendance in recent years; that could’ve actually shed some light on a potential explanation for the phenomenon.