Bill Easums Observations

I just finished an interview with Craig Henningfield who is the missionary coach for the Church Without Walls in Denver. The Church Without Walls is a growing, loosely networked group of  house churches. Question: Why the House Church?Every day I meet more people who are dissatisfied with the institutional church.  Most of these people have never read the books like Pagan Christianity or the Barna research. I also run into many pastors who have been dissatisfied with the institutional church but still want to serve. We can’t throw the baby out with bathwater just because a churched tradition no longer serves a growing number of people.Question: How do you fund your ministry?Answer: Most of our pastors are bivocational.  Some raise their support from congregations and individual Christians.  Funding and giving are two of our biggest issues.  People come out of the institutional church and join us thinking there is no need to give any longer.  We have to rewire them to give out of grace to a mission rather than support of an institution.Question: What do you think will hold your movement together over the long haul?

Answer: Jesus. I know that is clique, but it is what we think we do it.  We aren’t a church planting movement, we are a disciplining movement. We’re not interested in how many more house churches can we plant, but how many people can we disciple to be like Jesus. The key is longevity is to train leaders so if they move they aren’t lost and can start new groups wherever they go.  America is a churched nation- everyone has some view of what a church looks like. So the house church needs explaining. When they get it, they will talk about it with all of their friends.  

Question: What question haven’t I asked you that I should have?

Answer: I think getting more clarity on the relationship between denominations and the house church movement is essential.  In the beginning our denomination supported our work with some start up money but as the project developed the denomination found it difficult to figure out how to relate to us since we didn’t resemble anything near an institution.  Denominations need to continue thinking through the relationship with the institutional church to avoid the “us” versus “them” problem.

According to Henningfield most of the house churches are still along denominational lines. This fact surprised me.