Question: Are house churches more likely than conventional churches to become isolationist and cult-like?
Apparently at least one blogger thinks so, and had the guts to quote George Barna’s research to support his assertion! Author and researcher George Barna responds to this assertion in a recent blog post of his own.
First, I found the alleged bloggers perspective offensive and mis-informed based upon personal experience.
Second, I find George’s response and perspective enlightening, especially as it relates to the potential of conventional churches to become “cult-like” – but in a different way than what many would admit is all too common.
I also appreciate George’s perspective on the tendency of people to see what they want to see in research data, and to manipulate it to support their view – as did the alleged blogger. I have read several of the books where Barna reports on his research related to house churches, and nowhere does his data suggest anything close to what this blogger alleges. In fact, just the opposite is the case, which perhaps explains why more and more Americans are finding their spiritual needs and Christian growth experience better met through smaller, in-home meetings or “house churches.” In my opinion, it is a trend that will increase if the conventional church continues to resist making the gospel relevant to a postmodern, post-Christian culture.
George Barna's Blog Website
Click on the banner above to read George Barna’s blog post on this topic.
Want to learn more about the history of the house church, its biblical basis in the New Testament and how it is a viable structure today? Visit The House Church Book website to learn more.
The House Church Book - Cover
Church houses in my opinion are creepy. Enough said
TeaCast,
Thanks for your comment. That might be “enough said” for an emotional response, but there is a lot more to it than that. If you are a student of the New Testament, you would realize that every “church” mentioned there met in someone’s home. What we know as modern day “church” did not exist in the first century. It is largely a cultural construct we have invented. So, perhaps after we allow our minds to understand this, our emotional reaction to modern day “church” would become more “creepy.”