In September my good friend Robin Corner who currently is instigating Micro Churches in Hong King (originally from Wellington N.Z) attended the U.S House Church Conference. Below are the notes from the debrief he sent me.

Have a great week

Philip and Kim

Impressions of the National House Church Conference, Denver, Sept 2005

– Robin Corner

I attended the US National House Church Conference in September, along with four other friends from Hong Kong, where I am helping to start a house church network, and Tony Collis, my friend from New Zealand, who God used to introduce me to this incredible roller-coaster ride that some call house churches! I’ve finally found some time to reflect on the conference – so here are some thoughts.

The most impacting speaker of the conference for me was Rolland Baker, who is obviously being used in a major way to impact a number of countries in Africa, most notably Mozambique, where he and his wife Heidi live. Six thousand churches have grown out of the Bakers’ ministry in the past five or so years, and Jesus has worked many notable miracles among the churches. According to Rolland, at least fifty three people have been raised from the dead so far. The churches in the movement would more accurately be described as mud hut churches than house churches! But in common with house churches in more developed nations, the people meet wherever it’s convenient and it’s people centred, not building centred.

Rolland had a resounding challenge for the house church movement in the developed world. He emphasized that God will not manifest himself just because we meet in houses. Do we really hunger for the presence of God in our meetings? He said his over-riding passion is to relate with Jesus in an intimate manner. He facilitated two sessions of “soaking in prayer” – where many who came forward experienced the presence of God in tangible ways.

Some of Roland’s memorable points:

C S Lewis, in his Christian allegorical writings, wrote “Aslan is not a tame lion”. We don’t know what is going to happen when God actually shows up – the result may not fit into the little boxes we have manufactured by our religious thinking.
Some people say we should experience God by “faith alone” without any emotional experience. Roland challenged us to apply this thinking to marriage – how would marriage “by faith alone” be? The Bakers exude passion for God.
The life of Rolland and Heidi exemplify ministry to the poor as a key to the move of God – read the Bakers’ book “There is Always Enough”, or get the DVD “Mama Heidi”.

This type of ministry, with its “Toronto” flavour, was difficult for many of the delegates, who may have come from an evangelical / fundamentalist background, to receive. I personally felt quite grieved in the spirit when I perceived many delegates’ rejection of Roland’s message. Though a died-in-the-wool, chandelier-swinging Pentecostal / charismatic, I myself was initially a bit wary. I have historically maintained some distance from the “Toronto blessing”, feeling some discomfort with some of the manifestations, and wanting to see an emphasis on repentance. However, it’s not really possible to argue with 53 people raised from the dead, undeniable phenomenal revival, and 6000 churches amongst the poorest and most disadvantaged people in the world. Carefully weighing up the ministry and the message, and admitting to myself that I have not yet seen even one person raised from the dead in anything that could be said to have grown from my own ministry, I resolved to absorb all I could from Rolland. After thaqt decision, I personally was deeply blessed and refreshed during his times of ministry, and they remain my most precious memory of the conference.

The difficulties over his ministry highlight what, in my opinion, is bound to be a major issue facing the house church movement as it gathers momentum (which it obviously is doing). In spite of all we say about “the Word and not particular people being in authority” (which I agree with), there are bound to be divisions over deeply held doctrines. There was a useful session on dealing with doctrinal divisions within a house church or network, where Tony Dale (charismatic background) discussed with Neil Cole (evangelical background) their reactions to Rolland’s ministry – Neil made the memorable (for me) statement that it would be a tragedy if next year there were two national house church conferences – a “charismatic” one and an “evangelical” one. What a tightrope we walk on! The only answer is prayer, prayer, prayer. Let’s pray that God will bring forth a movement unified by his demonstrable truth, that will mightily impact nations and the world.

Which brings me on to other memorable presentations of the conference. Particularly valuable for me was John White’s presentation of the “Luke 10:2b virus” – if you haven’t caught up with this one I suggest you go to http://www.house2house.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=116 – it’s a God given strategy we can all lock into and see great results. Tom Black from the Barna organization was also brilliant – there is now a massive trend of Americans dropping out of traditionally organized church and becoming involved in house churches and other “alternative faith communities” as Barna styles them. If you need to catch up with this visit www.barna.org and buy “Revolution” – a great read and very informative. Wolfgang Simson shared some further pithy insights and laid out some great goals. His emphasis was that we need to recognize that every Christian belongs lock, stock and barrel to God – we don’t own our lives any more – they belong to him – and we should all jolly well get our instructions and follow them. Also a mention of the role of deliverance from demons in Biblical ministry, along with some pointers. Hmmm…. I think we are going to hear more on this. Talk of finance – in Acts all the non-believers handed over everything to the church when they joined, and this was how the ministry was financed. Radical! Felicity Dale gave a great workshop session on how to run participatory Bible study.

To cap off my trip, at the end of the conference, I spent some days with members of a local Denver house church I met at the conference. In addition to fantastic fellowship, one particular lady lent me her car for four days, in which we visited the awesome Rocky Mountains. She also fed us and accommodated two of us at her house for a night, where we had a tremendous prayer meeting for America. I thought this was real house church living. Another brother took two days to guide us round nearby Colorado Springs and we were treated to a spiritual journey to the main offices of the Navigators, Focus on the Family, World Prayer Centre and other Christian landmarks in addition to some of the most spectacular natural scenery in the world.

It was a historic time to be in the US, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (two days before the start of the conference), which also cast it’s shadow over the conference. A number of initiatives were started at the conference to minister to the people affected by the hurricane. God gave me a sobering prophetic word about the hurricane …. But that will have to wait for another blog.