Seven Characteristics of House Churches

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And why they are appealing to more and more believers

Elmer Towns, Ed Stetzer, and Warren Bird | posted 6/04/2008

Topics:	Community, House churches, Relationships
Filters:	Group Leader, House churches, Train
Purpose:	Discipleship
References:	Acts 2:46-47
Date Added:	June 04, 2008

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Why do individuals leave the institutional church to join smaller house churches? What brings them to seek the face-to-face community of a Koinos church? Usually they do so in a desire to experience closer fellowship with other believers. Some have left the large megachurch or the urban downtown church; others have left the average neighborhood church. But one of the main reasons they leave is because they are looking for greater spiritual intimacy with others.

The following seven characteristics of a house church describe some of the spiritual dynamics that make a house church appealing to disenfranchised church members, or to those who have never been in a church. This is not to say that all house churches meet these descriptions. On the contrary, there are many streams of the house-church movement—some charismatic, some focused on home school and home birth, some following a specific teacher, and some simply adrift doctrinally and spiritually. However, when we describe house churches, we are describing what we see as a biblically faithful model of such.

1. House Churches Are Communities of Convictions

When people become a part of a Christian community, they usually affirm their faith through an "interacted identity" with the faith-experience of the house-church community. They learn what the others in the group believe and experience the values and attitudes of others. But most important, they open themselves to life-changing situations that others have experienced. They become "one" with the house-church community—often at a greater level than that which occurs in larger facility-based churches.

Most house churches are not held together by written principles, and most do not have detailed standards of conduct or ask new members to sign a covenant or pledge. Rather, people typically become members of the community as they interact with the values and attitudes of other believers in the church. Hence, everyone in a house church grows into a deep commitment to the values and experiences of one another.

In this sense, house churches become communities of conviction. They have a shared sense of how to live for God as they learn it from others. In a broader sense, this community of conviction is what makes a house church attractive to new members.

2. House Churches Are Learning Communities

Those who join a house church find a sense of family or oneness with other people and feel that they're a part of a faith-based community. They may even describe it as a "Christ-centered community."

The very nature of community is a shared experience of oneness by its members. Community is realized when all Christians share and then reciprocate by blessing and being blessed by others. Given the isolated nature of most individuals, those joining a house church open their lives to those in the community as others in the church relationally open up to them.

Oneness, community, is possible because each person has had the same profound experience in that he or she has met Jesus Christ, has become born-again, and understands what is involved in that experience. Because they understand each other's inner life (those experiences they can't necessarily verbalize), they are able to interact with one another and learn from one another.

3. House Churches Are Faith-Formation Communities

Often, American Christians think they must learn faith in a classroom where a teacher communicates or explains a doctrinal statement. They may even imagine a schoolroom practice of students studying such a statement and committing it to memory. However, this educational process does not usually make that doctrine part of their lives.

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