New leaders are emerging to represent and guide house churches – people whose names are unfamiliar to the bulk of the country, but whose ministries will become more mainstream and well-known as time goes on. A new body of spiritual resources is being developed and utilized by the expanding house church community. House church adherents make greater use of Christian radio, Christian books and online faith experiences than do people engaged solely in a conventional church. In addition, new patterns of faith participation are being implemented. The traditional ways of thinking about and experiencing ‘church’ are rapidly being revolutionized by a form of ‘religious choice’ in which people are taking greater personal responsibility for their spiritual experience and development.”
I feel very drawn to church in this way, but I'm also keen to keep the links with the tradition and wider church -the catholic dimension. I feel that the house-church movement in the UK in the 70's was blown off course by the seductions of big church and the raft of issues around neo-pentecostal experience. I hope we can learn from the experience and not repeat the secessionist and numbers-game mistakes of the past.
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Filed in: church, participation, USA, housechurch, research, Barna
2 comments:
Interesting!
I hadn't really thought about it and probably would have put it down to simply not being in touch with the right kinds of network. But I'm assuming that you have looked into this and that there are only a few bloggers of the phenomenon. I wonder if it may have demographic reasons. It would be something to research, please drop by and let me know more if you discover more. I'll do the same again if I find out more.
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