In class recently, a student serving in a Chinese church in the GTA asked a question about the significance of the house church model for ministry. This is a class in an MDiv program at Tyndale Seminary where all the students have to be engaged in ministry already, to get into the program. The program is framed around the "missional church." [One 2nd year student the other day, said, "when I came into this program I thought missional church was just another model, but now I can't find any other kind of church in Scripture."] but I digress...
I had mentioned that I am part of a house church community here in Hamilton, and this brought to her mind the explosive growth of house churches in mainland China in the second half of the 20th century. I said, I'm not a "house church" advocate, I am a "make disciples" advocate. I suggested that the Chinese house church movement wasn't just "a ministry option" for possible consideration in China.
At a certain moment it became a matter of life and death as Christians moved underground in Mao's communist society. Interestly, forced movement into small groups, in geographic neighbourhoods, with limited spiritual materials, and where members had to deeply trust each other and help each other understand the meaning of Christian life and practice -- became the exact requirements necessary for explosive Christian growth throughout China.
I turned this around to suggest to my student that I had not come across another approach so significant for "making disciples" as Christian community formed around small groupings of networked households (families) living in reasonable proximity to one another. Call it 'house church' if you will. I suggested that if churches paid attention to "making disciples" rather than presenting spiritual consumer goods we might have a different story to tell in Canada too.
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