New take on old practice: Some Christians find worshiping in homes, rather than church, suits their needs

By Mary Owen

Many Christians today are on the move – from church buildings to homes.

They are leaving the traditional church behind in search of more intimate relationships with fellow believers and with Jesus Christ.

“The home group is perfect for what stressed 21st-century Christians need the most – friends and listening ears,” said Julia Duin, author of Quitting Church, a book that looks at the growing trend of home churches, and religion editor for The Washington Times. Duin has family in Oregon.

For Bob and Sherrill Hawley, who attend a home church in the Silverton/Mt. Angel area, the home church is more akin to their idea of serving God.

“God is happy with something so much more simple, more intimate, smaller, more honest and vulnerable,” Sherrill Hawley believes. “Something more like the churches described in the New Testament. My heart has been searching for this for many years.”

Nate Krupp attends a Salem home church with his wife, Joanne. The couple discovered the “depth of relationship, transparency and discussions” that they were missing in the traditional church setting.

“We could never go back to sitting in a pew,” Krupp said.

Krupp believes so strongly in the home church concept that he authored a book on the subject, God’s Simple Plan for His Church – and Your Place In It. He wrote that the move to home churches is not new, rather is returning to what God ordained in the first place.

“If God wanted us to be gathered in church buildings, would not Jesus have said something about this?” he wrote. “Today God is leading his people back to the simple practice of gathering in their homes.”

Bob and Cathy Boudreau joined a Salem home church after their traditional church folded and they failed to find what they were seeking in their visits to other local churches.

“I get a sense that I am in the flow of what God is doing in his church at this time,” Bob Boudreau said.

For all three couples, home church provides them opportunities to share in each other’s lives, a place where they say they can be honest and authentic.

“I feel valued,” Sherrill Hawley said. “People get to know me as a person. Not only what I say, but who I am, with God’s presence working through me to touch others.”

Bob Hawley added, “We can build each other up, support each other with encouragement, prayer, finances or other types of help. It’s good quality fellowship!”

The desire to come together is echoed by parishioners who attend traditional churches, and many find the same fulfillment in small groups, whether study or social.

And Hawley cautions it may take time to find the right home church and it might not be the right step for everyone to take. He advises joining one only “if that’s the direction you feel God is taking you.”

Some home churchgoers also attend a traditional church. Both venues recognize the need for small-group interaction as a means of building relationship with God and with other Christians. Both strive to teach biblical principles and believe “church” is to be lived every minute of life.

“Church is who I am … not just board and nails, bricks and mortar,” Sherrill Hawley said. “It’s a living organism that breathes, moves, cries, laughs, helps and prays 24/7. I believe that ‘church’ can break out anywhere – restaurant, grocery store, traffic jam.”

Pastor Brian Knutson with Silverton’s Immanuel Lutheran Church agrees, and although he acknowledges the move to home churches, he believes the traditional church can and is working effectively to bring the message of “Good news and hope” to communities.

“I sincerely believe in the dualistic message of ‘both/and’, striving to move away from “either/or,’” said Pastor Knutson. “We are all loved by God, whether we know it or not, whether we can accept it or not.”

Both church venues offer much of the same opportunities: prayer, encouragement, giving, learning, worship sharing testimony, embracing faith, and reaching out to others in need with spiritual and physical assistance. And members of each church type are passionate about their way of believing.

Knutson told of an Internet blogger who said, “Just because we in the traditional churches aren’t abandoning the liturgy or tearing down our walls in the physical building does not mean we are not doing anything to advance the invisible church.”

Yet not everyone likes the church to be so “Wal-Mart,” and some opt for home church even when traditional components are employed, another noted.

“My experience has been that traditional four-wall denominations do not recognize house church as a viable experience with God,” Sherrill Hawley said. “And if that’s not where God has led them to be, it makes sense. On the other hand, if their walk with God demands four walls and a denomination with specific behavior standards and rituals, then who is really being followed?”

But the home church environment may not be for everyone, Bob Hawley cautions.

“Many who are used to the structure of a traditional church may feel uncomfortable with the lack of structure in house churches,” he said. For some, he added, “Staying in the traditional church is probably best.”

Yet with about 1,600 home churches on the Internet alone, according to American pollster George Barna, and thousands of home churches nationally, Krupp said the home church movement is exploding. It has its own magazine, House to House, and a yearly relational conference.

“In times past, Christians related to others primarily on the basis of similar organizational connections,” Krupp said. “As we draw toward the close of this age, God is causing major transitions to take place in his church. We need to be very open to hear what the Spirit is saying, flexible and willing to obey at any cost.”

Pastor Knutson believes the question to be answered is how and where people can do their best so that others can do better?

“Our entrance into heaven is to stumble, trip and fall, and we are unsteady on our feet,” Knutson said. “We are all at the grace and mercy of God, who loves us, dearly and desperately, in the midst of our resistance and stubborn willfulness to believe we can do it on our own.”

That applies all Christians, no matter what type of church they are attending, he said.

“We need one another in mutual support and love,” Knutson said.