People leave the church as turtles or skunks. This is what Brother Thomas
Wolf told me. Turtles crawl quietly out the back door, without bringing
attention to the protest of their silent withdrawl. Skunks leave at the

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front, where everyone can see them, where they can let everyone know how
badly they will be missed, how they should have been listened to. They leave
a smell behind that lasts a lifetime. A stinky reminder of the decision that
divided.

And the Sanctuary of the Wineskin sees the light of day. Opens to the
elements. Wine spills. Through the cracks. Runs in the streets like blood,
searching for a new home. Is God happy?

Despite the vocal crowd who worship at the Cult of the New, Jesus is not
infatuated with new wineskins. He likes both. But He is a connosseur of
vintage wine. Mature wine. Wine that has sat under time, ripened, grown,
perfected under the conditions. Wine like this is acheived only by
permitting the new containers and preserving the old ones. Let the old
wineskins be preserved. If you squirt fresh wine into them, they will burst.
Spill. Jesus doesnt like spillage. Jesus likes mature wine. So we need new
wineskins also. Old wine in the old wineskins. New wine in the new
wineskins. Whatever. Whatever keeps it. Contains it. Preserves it. Gives it
room to move and expand. Grow into what it is destined to be and securing it
from disease. Both. Freedom and safety. Creativity and security. Bubbly and
still. The heights of exploding taste and the depths of softened character.
Flavor and body. Cherries and oak. Cheekiness and gracefulness. The wabi and
the sabi. The vigor of youth and the wisdom of age. Both, says Jesus. Both.
Both will be preserved.

But here is the challenge: To allow the new without threatening the old. To
preserve the old without hindering the new. Those without wisdom choose one
but not both. And the result is skunks and turtles.

I visited a House Church in the early 90's. It was run by skunks. A group of
disgruntleds whose happiness came from the fact they met on Thursday and not
Sunday. In a living room and not a sanctuary. On a sofa and not a pew. They
were like kids staying away from school, hiding out, proud of their
boldness to leave. And yet in all their freedom they managed only to move
the church service from a building to a house. Not much else had changed.
Only the location. They had the smirks of naughty boys on their faces. They
were a church service on the run. An escaped meeting captured by a living
room. One that built its identity from rebellion, defined themselves by what
they were not. This was the Revenge of the Skunks.
I didn't go back to that church. But I have been hanging out with turtles.

"They're not organised" insists the Owner in the movie "Chicken Run". But
she is wrong. The chickens have been cooped up long enough. They build a
plane and fly over the fence. To a new world. An island. To set up a new
existance away from tyranny. To become Free Range Chickens.
Free Range Turtles, on the other hand, left quietly and by themselves. No
machinery. No noises. Just a quiet withdrawl. A velvet revolution.
Pilgrimage. A solitary exodus. Their tithes first and then their attendance.
Their protest was in their feet. They choose not to come back but still kept
up relationships with those who stayed. Lest they be like the skunks.

But on their journey outside the institution, some of them discovered each
other. Ate meals with each other. Prayed with each other. More often. More
regular. Sometimes weekly. Those with gifts gave them. Those with abilities
used them. Those with leadership led. Those with wisdom taught. Those who
liked the way things were going told others. New churches emerged in places
where Turtles lived. This was now the Time of The Turtles.
Neighbors and friends got caught up. Church people thought it peculiar. New
believers thought it quite normal. The kind of thing they would do if they
had to make a church. Why not in a home? A coffee shop? Wherever people
live? Isn't that how the first church did it in the Bible?

These were another group. Not skunks or turtles. Another. Butterflies,
perhaps. No rebellion. No scars. No issues with ecclesiastical entities.
Just people who liked to live with each other in each others context.
Environments with wallpaper and photos and TV magazines. Lives located
somewhere. Homes where people live and children pick their noses and dogs
annoy. Real people who want to see deeply into each other's lives. To
delight in the beauty. To heal what is broken. To be healed. Touched.
Appreciated but not used.
Perhaps these people are the third wave. People who church together without
contrasting. Part of a church without an address. A movement without a
label . For they do not always call what they do "house church". Sometimes
there is no house. Even "home church" does not contain their experience of
God and each other in this covenanted journey.
Maybe it is just church?

But back to the Pastor-man who is about to rupture his church. He has
probably heard the current criticisms " about the house church movement. No
leadership, they say. Prone to heresy, they say. An incubator for cults.
They dont last. No leadership. They say.

They say wrong! Tyranny thrives in a vacuum of passivity. Finds its voice
inside an intimidated silence. It cannot live under the lively chatter of
dinner-table conversation. Dictators cannot bully themselves to the front
when leadership is valued by character instead of rank, and is distributed
out to the right people for the right moment. Like ducks flying in
formation, until the change, when another duck takes the lead for the
present direction. Ducks have leadership. Just not the One Leader who leads
all the time. And for every thing. And every direction.
My pastor friend has the answers for the wrong complaints. He should listen
to what is really wrong with the House Church movement. From people within
it. From those road-testing the new models. Kicking the tires. He should
listen to me. Because I have some gripes about the House church movement. I
need to vent them. And he needs to hear them. Here they are.

My Gripes About House Church
First and foremost, house churches have no sex appeal. There is nothing to
look at. No big event. No climactic happening that makes people snap
pictures. Except people crying on each other. Hugging on each other.
Although some people would say that those personal victories ARE the story.
Wolfgang Simson said that to me last month.
I remember the good old days of church planting the old fashioned way. The
glory days of toys and more toys. Picking out mega-wattage sound systems.
Shopping for electronics. Designing kick-butt graphics for the invitation.
Discovering the building. Raising the money. The gut-twisting suspense of
Opening Service. The relief of the big crowd that came. Those lovely, dear
people that came. God bless'em, everyone! And then the disappointment of the
smaller crowd the following week. And the week after. And the week after
that. The grief of losing steam. The guilt of swiping people from other
churches to replace those horrible, spiteful deserters who came the first
week to see the big fuss and then left forever. Stood us up. Not caring for
our feelings. Or our budget. And after all we did for them . . .
OK. Maybe the memories are not all fond. But I do miss the
hormone-triggering excitement of pulling off a big service. And then on the
other hand, if I am really honest with myself, some house church people are
beginning to host large city-wide celebrations and be more involved in the
week long festivals. In fact I have been to some really good ones . . . All
right. My first gripe is not going the way I wanted it to.

But the following gripes are actual real-life insufficiencies that need to
be addressed if house church spokes-people are to offer a viable
alternative to pastors leaving the Pyramids Of Egypt for The Good Land
Flowing With Milk And Coffee.

1. Orientation is backwards.
The focus needs to change from "Our House" to "Their House" Much of the
present house church movement is still an attempt to contain and control the
meetings in their own camp, in this case OUR HOUSE. The full gains that are
available will not be realised until we can begin to let the movement flow
into THEIR HOUSES. The church in Lydia's house was just that - in Lydia's
house. Matthew's party was in Matthew's house. Not the more convenient house
of Simon Peter's mother-in-law. And dont tell me it was her stomach
complaints that kept them away. It was strategy, not dysentry, that led them
to Matthew's house. Jesus told his missionaries to put peace on THEIR (those
other people, the ones they were sent to) HOUSE, enter their house, live in
their house, eat in their house, heal someone or something in their house.
Right there is the base of a new church and it is in THEIR house. Think of
the benefits.
Financial, because if the party is in their house then they pay for it.
Security, because if the party is in their house then they will guarantee
every one is safe.
Culture, because the friends of the host already appreciate the culture of
their style of music and culture so there is no culture barrier
Convenience, because they already have that house. Etc.
I could go on. I could also say that this principle needs to be applied on
the civic level as well as the domestic level. That the city offers a gift
to those who receive it.

2. Communication is misleading.
The label needs to change from house church to something that better
describes it. The house church network in Prague started 6 months ago.
People meet in many different venues but none meet in a house. People there
cannot afford a house. "Home church" is better but they dont always meet in
homes. Clubs? Yes. Dunkin' Donuts? Yes. Apartments? Sometimes.
Neil Cole called them Simple Churches. I like that. Organic Church. Micro
church. . . More work needs to be done here
And what about the rapid movement of monastic structures in the evangelical
church in UK and USA? These intentional residential communities are more
house-based than the house churches and yet we dont call them house
churches. Do we include them under the umbrella term or allow them to define
themselves under a whole new ecclesiastic framework?
Another spanner in the works. I visited a "traditional"church in Minneapolis
called Solomons Porch. 200 people meet in a large loungy space with couches,
carpets, and sprawling kids. Their service is more housechurch-like than
some house churches. What is wrong with this picture? Probably the words
being used to describe it.
Hey, look at me, I'm griping.

3. Authentication has not yet arrived.
House churches are not recognised by the mainstream. "They are not real
churches", a well-known American pastor told me. He was basing his judgement
on the old way of valuation, the "Cold War" mindset Thomas Friedman called
it, where people value weight, size and longevity. In the information age,
people value things by "Speed". Bill Gates said it was "Velocity". If this
is correct, then house churches make a lot of sense. And if 9-11 has moved
us out of the Information Age and into the Security Age, then house churches
make even more sense. Time for a little Rodney Dangerfield Respect to flow
towards house church.
In the meantime, dont expect authentication from the mainstream. The house
church movement is basically overlooked and downgraded. Denominational
executives are threatened by the idea of housewives starting churches in
their own homes rather than their trained professionals in the buildings
that were designed for this purpose.
Yes, there are exceptions. The Baptist General Convention of Texas, for
example, when they discovered that a house church network in their own
backyard had grown into 250 churches within 6 years, decided to take what
they had learned and release it all over Latin America. Fantastic. But the
mainstream American church is either not ready or not that interested at the
moment. "Call back later when you start some real churches."
Yeah. I'm really griping now. Stand back. I have some more.

4. A decent support structure is years away.
House churches are the cookie dough of the new ecclesiology. They are tasty
and soft and very tempting. But they have not yet hardened into something
permanent. We might be 5 years away from seeing a complete ecosystem of
organic ministries that work together to enable a healthy, reproducing,
movement of house churches. The movement in USA and Europe is not ready for
franchising or exporting, It is not looking for entreprenuers to multiply it
but rather for pioneers to beta test it. For engineers who can tinker with
it while it is moving. To make it workable and efficient. To get the bugs
out of the system. To see what missing elements need to be included.
Perhaps God is not allowing recognition from the mainstream so that there
can be a window of time to create the protoypes away from the spotlight. If
this is correct, someone needs to get busy working on a decent support
system.
There is not a whole lot of support for the movement right now. Not enough,
perhaps, for most pastors to seriously consider a leap of faith into a new
and way-more-organic paradigm. A few good books have appeared. Some helpful
conferences started up in 2001. The launch of House 2 House magazine is a
good start. But the house church movement in Western countries is still a
few tuna cassaroles short of the Pot-Luck. The five-fold ministry teams are
not yet in place. City-wide gatherings are still in the idea phase. The
apostles and prophets are still learning how to put up with each other, let
alone minister together. Travelling teams are more novelty than staple. The
heroes of house church planting are somewhere in Asia.
What about resources from the mainstream church?
Sorry. Wrong number. Their conference speakers have not written any books on
how to ignite house church movements of the Spirit. Seminaries are not
training students to plant house churches. Churches train their youth to
"find" a church when they leave for college rather than "start" a church,
since the existing structure is too complex for students to replicate.
There is also a tragic seperation between traditional church and house
church. Which leads to my last gripe.

5. Integration is not a commonly held value.
House Church Utopia is still painted as being pure and contaminent-free. As
if you leave one model of church and adopt another with no reference to what
you came out of. The truth is that there is compromise. There are house
church people that miss the worship service so much that they create one.
There are people that go back monthly to visit friends. There are house
churches that are more structured than some "traditional" churches. There
are large churches that have house churches and large worship services
inside their structure and they are very happy with it. This is not a case
of MacOS versus Windows. It is not always either/or. It is more of a
progressive evolution. And fish with legs are a reality of this new
movement.
Backwash happens. And its OK.
If we dont allow more fluidity into what we promote as house church, then a
whooooole lot of wine is gonna get spilled as pastors move their churches
towards Housopia and discover along the way that 100% Organic certification
is just not attainable.

Somebody, somewhere, needs to give people a little slack. Some space to be pluralistic. Someone needs to integrate the new history and the new structure with the previous generation of churches. To stand on their shoulders rather than slap their cheeks. The Holy Spirit utilized the old-school Festival of Pentecost to kick off something new. The disciples launched out from the Temple. Paul started in synagogues. Why can't the house church leaders be players in the wider picture of what God is doing among the old AND new wineskins?

OK. Thanks for letting me vent. Final thoughts? Lets all just get along. Lets be honest about where we are in this transition. Lets not spill any wine. Lets not spoil the fun of pastors surfing the previous wave. Lets preserve the old wineskins and birth the new ones. Lets watch the return of the Turtles. Lets work towards House Church 1.2. Or 2.0. Or 3.5 And then I can stop griping.

Andrew Jones, who incidentally loves being part of a house church movement in Prague, Czech Republic, web logs daily at http://tallskinnykiwi.blogspot.com

House Church: What's Cool ?

Seating - comfortable
Bathroom Proximity - always close
Music - if its a multi-room party
No sermon - teaching is interactive
DIY Potential - anyone can do it
Size - small is intimate
Cuisine - bring on the love feast
Freedom of Movement - room-floating encouraged
Security - less likely a bomb target
Speed - It could happen tonight

What's Lame ?
Seating - no back pew to hide on
Bathroom Proximity - everyone notices
Music - if its an attempt at Kum-By-Ya
No sermon - if you're are a preacher
DIY Potential - if you want to be a paid professional
Size - small is bad for babe-scouting
Cuisine - No more pot-lucks in the church hall
Freedom of Movement - expect to be interrupted by the dog
Security - who took my CD's?
Speed - it could happen tonight in your house

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