“Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.“
William R. Inge

Out of Ur is carrying on a discussion right now about how megachurches are starting to spawn house churches. Megachurches usually succeed after all by getting people into small groups, and it appears that some believers like the small group so much that they’re deciding that they no longer need the mother church. Even Time has done a story on home churching, a fact which makes it a noteworthy trend.

It bothers me when people start touting house churches as a favorable replacement for the larger group. Undoubtly this is true partly because I’m employed by “organized religion” (though ours isn’t all THAT organized).

But it’s also because of this: The easiest way to do church would be to get with six or eight other like-minded people and just enjoy studying the Bible together. There wouldn’t be too much need to deal with people I don’t enjoy being around, and there wouldn’t be many older folks or needy people to take care of and there would be little need to practice the Scriptural command to forebear and forgive and work together for a purpose larger than our own growth.

It interests me that it’s George Barna who is driving this new interest in house churches with his book Revolution. His 1988 book Marketing the Church was the second bible of the megachurch movement, and his User-Friendly Churches from 1991 was important too. THIS is what brings to mind the quote at the start of this article.