The most common thing we are asked by people checking out our website, blog and discussion group is 'Is there a House Church in our area which we can check out or attend'. This is not surprising for three reasons.

1. The first is that people who are thinking through faith and church issues are often no longer connected with other believers and feel very isolated, which can be crippling at times. Naturally there desire is to belong to a community of like minded people which can help them in there journey, and stop the isolation they are experiencing.

2. When thinking about something new, the natural impulse is to ‘check it out’.

3. In Institutional Church we are conditioned to think that we make a change by changing church. Those who have recently left a normal church carry this thinking with them. There paradigm dictates to them that they leave the Organised congregational church they belong to and join an organised House Church down the road. It does not take long for most people to discover this does happen very often.

I think there are a couple of practical and spiritual issues why this happens.

a) The majority of people I know who are meeting in ‘House Churches’ would say that the first one they ever attended is the one they started with friends or family. Both David Allis (of www.edgenet.org.nz) and I both say that the first House church we ever attended was the one’s we started in our homes. It is very hard for a visitor to ‘check out’ a House Church in the same way they can with an Institutional Church. When a House Church is usually under 10 adults, having a complete stranger come and watch them and make a judgement on the group obviously can create a lot of awkwardness and a loss of intimacy and openness. Usually the only way to join or visit a House Church is if you already have developed friendships with a member or members of the group.

HOUSE CHURCHES USUALLY GROW BY RELATIONSHIP CONNECTION UNLIKE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCHES WHICH GROW BY CHURCHED CHRISTIAN VISITORS

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