When House Church Bog Down by Henri Nouwen

There are many continuing reports of the growing revolution towards smaller, house church gatherings in the US church, with many reports yet to come, and many books to be written. Perhaps one of the most compelling insights comes from a national study on house churches recently released by the Barna Organization (www.barnagroup.org). Based upon an evaluation of the levels of satisfaction of those who attend a house church compared with the views of adults who attend a conventional local church, overall, people attending a house church were significantly more likely to be "completely satisfied" with their experience with the house church than those attending a traditional church.

By definition Barna states that a house church is, "a group of believers that meets regularly in a home or place other than a church building. These groups are not part of a typical church; they meet independently, are self-governed and consider themselves to be a complete church on their own... (They are) sometimes known as a house church or simple church, (and are) not associated in any way with a local, congregational type of church."

But as we hear about the increased satisfaction with people's experience of house churches or simple churches, we also need to hear the corrections, and the concerns of how these smaller relational, organic churches can bog down. Even though we are no longer focused on buildings and budgets, these smaller house church gatherings are not a panacea to all community problems, and in fact, can have their own set of difficulties.

Much of it comes down to a willingness to change what happens when we actually gather, and the ways we live out our faith with each other, rather than a mere fixation on a change of address or some new size of the gathering. After all, moving from one building topped by a steeple to one topped by a chimney is not enough.

To navigate this ever-changing, ever-shifting way of "doing church" requires a decision to be radically relational and different with each other. And it is in the crucible of these smaller, relational church gatherings that some of these new attitudes of relating get flushed out and can get fixed. If we don't change the way we are in these relationships, even these wonderful, smaller, organic-type meetings can bog down.

Relational Church Bogs Down When We Don't Love

Henri Nouwen, with his unique relational writings, suggests that intentional, authentic community requires some hard work. To begin with, in authentic community we must be reminded that each person - no matter what religion, race, age, sexual orientation, handicap, woundedness, or creed - is the beloved of God. This universal vision of the human person offers grounding for a peaceful, lively, and creative relationship with all people. The greatest need in the church is best challenged and thus best responded to when the group is small enough so that you are forced to know one another and to choose to learn to love one another.

We went through a very interesting season in the 1980's and 1990's of doing everything we could to attract people to our traditional church gatherings. The whole seeker-sensitive movement taught us that people need to feel loved and accepted before they will ever be open to the message of the gospel. The attractional church set out to create a new atmosphere where broken people could feel genuinely cared for.

At least that was the goal. Parking slots for the visitors to park near the entrance of the facilities, brightly printed bulletins, power-point presentations on large screens, coffee, muffins and an entire team of perky, upbeat greeters. All of this to make the church gatherings feel more user-friendly and more inclusive.

The question is, how much can you really love someone if you don't know them? And don't they know that? Like the old saying, "God is a true friend, because He knows all about you and loves you anyway." Maybe creative, welcoming meetings in an attractional church setting was a positive beginning on sharing God's love with someone. But nothing seems to say, "I love you," more than when your own brokenness is known and yet you are still loved.

Maybe church has its biggest test here. If we want to convey the Father's heart toward each other, it will come across because we will feel both fully known and fully loved. And I don 't think this can happen adequately in the typical look-at-the-back-of-the-head meetings we have in our larger lecture halls.

Even with the best team of greeters you can train, a warm handshake, or even a good strong hug; will not take the place of spending face-time with each other, getting to know each other and getting to really love each other. When anything gets in the ways of this growing in love, church bogs down.

It has been my privilege for over a dozen years to sit along the boardwalk in Pacific Beach (San Diego, California), listening to my unique friends and observing what I have come to call "the parade of parenting." Because kids come in all sizes, all shapes, all conditions, all circumstances, it has been quite a parade. Parents rollerblading with younger kids, biking with older kids, parents skateboarding that should not be. And then there are those special moments of moms and dads pushing children in wheelchairs, or simply walking along with them holding their feeble hands. It takes all kinds of love for all kinds of kids. This too, is the church on parade. When we don't deeply, consistently and intentional love, church bogs down.

Relational Church Bogs Down When We Are Not Honest

In intentional, authentic community every person experiences fear, doubt, insecurity, and brokenness. When we acknowledge our vulnerabilities and discover in them new strengths, we also find ourselves empowered to love and serve others. Community is where the integration of our strengths and weaknesses becomes a sign of hope to the world.

Given the fact that we have all known the risks of transparency and openness in small groups, a growing honesty still must be restored to grow in community. The whole concept of true fellowship is people walking in proximity with a "lighted" path, (The Epistle of First John).

Openness breeds openness, honesty releases honesty, and hiding always short-circuits true community. When we keep our sharing and openness at the politically correct level of just enough to get by, fellowship really does bog down, and gets stuck at that level.

Relational Church Bogs Down When We Are Not Intimate

It almost sounds like a paradox, but Nouwen warns that true, authentic community springs from each member's willingness to spend time alone with God. When we recognize in our solitude that our belovedness is grounded in God, we are not as dependent on others to guarantee our truth or our value as persons. Rather, we become free to give and receive love in response to need rather than in search of acceptance and affirmation. We can learn how to dance creatively between solitude and community.

When I do not maintain the depth of face-time with my Heavenly Poppa in a Sacred Space, I simply will need too much from the group, and need too much from the corporate gathering. This seems to me why so many people continue to be disappointed and continue to vent their frustration about church, as we have known it.

As "God besought lovers," we need to be warned that it is possible to become addicted to certain kinds of corporate meetings that actually compete with the time our Father wants with us personally. Rosalind Rinker once wrote, "prayer is a conversation between two people that love each other." What if our many, high-powered, corporate intercession gatherings actually are in tension with our call to bridal intimacy with the Lord through our alone personal times? Getting together with other believers for corporate worship and intercession is awesome, but not when corporate becomes the enemy of intimate. Following God first and foremost is about 'cultivating the garden of your inner life,' and secondarily feeding a corporate identity.

Christian community it is about people who "know" their God and then come together to build others up in what they "know." Church is not about meeting to get your needs met, but about believers gathering to bring the "surplus" of their life in God to share with each other. It becomes selfish to continue to come to fellowship time after fellowship time with other Christians and maintain that consumer mentality of "what do I get out of this." True community comes out of the wholeness of your alone time with God, and gets bogged down when it is too much about the meetings with others and what you can get from those meetings.

Relational Church Bogs Down When We Are Not Missional

Finally, in taking Henri's lead, authentic community is where we help those who are suffering not merely from a sense of social justice but because we have a deep sense of our interconnectedness with all people. And in the helping, in the giving, in the releasing, and in the being sent to those outside our group, we too are nourished.?God is always "missional." He so loved the world that He gave. Jesus was the "sent one," "the Immanuel, God with us."

When we get to know who we are called to walk with, that includes not only the brothers and sisters in our fellowship times, but also the "oikos," or pre-Christian friends, or circle of influence that has strategically been placed in our path. The pathology of what has been described as "koinonitis," where Christians spend too much time "naval gazing" bogs us down. There must be this dance of the gathered and scattered church, the "coming" and "sending," the being "filled," and being "spilled."

This is a season of enormous revelation about how our relationships, our ways of relating to one another can grow. We have all been in meetings where the love seemed tentative, and the criticisms leaked out. We have all been in meetings where the sharing was superficial and calculated. We have all been in meetings where the sucking sound of "meet my need," was too loud because we were living with an underdeveloped personal history with God. And we have all lived way too long with an "us" and "them" mentality towards the harvest.

Let's make a commitment this time to not just change locations from the institutional building to the organic house gathering, but let's grow in being loving, honest, intimate with the Father and missional to the world we live in so today's church doesn't get bogged down.