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July 19th, 2010
12:51 PM ET
'Megachurch, meet microchurch'The Denver Post has a story up today about the growth of house churches or "simple churches," where worshippers gather in homes, cafes or other cozy locations. Here's a nugget from the article.
You can read the full article here. What do you think? Are house churches growing in your area?
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I am a Primitive Catholic, so my heart is with smaller congregations. I want to be able to know the people I am pastoring well. I want my family and their family to become a Christian family. However, being a from a liturgical/sacramental tradition, people find it odd to have chalices, incense, and altars in a residence. It is incredibly difficult to bring people who are used to large churches and fancy vestments into a house where, perhaps, ten or fifteen are meeting – sometimes with no instruments, no vestments... just people, Bibles, Sacraments, and God.
I pray that the house-church movement will continue to grow and prosper... and that those who are seeking a place to belong would consider a house-church as a possibility. Of course, finding them may be a bit difficult... but there are plenty of clearing-houses on the web where info can be found.
Fr. Rob
Personally, I don't worship anything or anyone. I feel it is debasing and degrading to prostrate oneself and claim that we are "worthy of death" or otherwise imperfect and deserving of punishment. This is sadomasicistic and unworthy of our belief.
I don't know about not worshipping anyone, Toby. There was this girl who danced on a pole in the bar down the street...
@David Johnson
Ahhhhhhhhh David you are continually crackin' me up on your postings..!
I don't know about house churches growing, but I know that we Christians seem to be getting more and more creative in our places and styles of worship. Twenty or thirty years ago the mega churches began gaining in popularity, and now Christians are meeting at coffee shops, in backyards, over the internet, and pretty much everywhere in between. I think it is phenomenal how Christ continues to reach out to his people wherever they are... My only concern for these home churches is that they have quality, Biblically-sound leadership and teaching. Inductive Bible studies are nice, but we need more than that.
mega churches are a complete embarrassement to fundies to atheists.......anyone gullable and narrow minded enough to follow and send funds to mega churchs deserve to see their hard earned money go away. ..........TD Jakes ,Oral Roberts,Pat Robertson Benny Hinn,Jimmy Bakker,David Koresh,Olsteen,Jim Jones all talent scam artist who prey on the weak minded...
This is fantastic that folks are finally realizing that God isn't only within the church walls.
Now, throw off the addiction to the opiate of the masses entirely, because all that it causes is war and violence.
Many of us who follow minority religions have been doing this for years. It is perfectly satisfying, spiritually, but small bodies lack the resources to make large charitable contributions, or to aid their communities in other ways, which larger congregations are able to do.
Often, I have heard my faith minimized for its failure to support or run homeless shelters, soup kitchens, recovery groups, crisis intervention hotlines or nursing homes. Many people in small congregations or tiny minority faiths are invisible in their charity, their presence as a volunteer at some local resource (often hosted by another church) not bringing any visible credit to their faith.
Of COURSE charity isn't about getting credit for being virtuous... but for others to assume small faiths do not do good works – and to dismiss them as somehow unworthy of serious onsideration on those grounds – is disheartening.
Seems like more of same to me. Same believers gathering in smaller clusters.