A different look at house churches

Steve Bremner, a missionary to Peru, is writing a two part series on the "house church movement", one looking at what he sees they are doing right and the other on what he thinks they are not. His first post is up, 5 Things The House Church Movement Is Getting Right and I think he makes some good points. It is a tough thing to make blanket statement about because there is such a wide variety of groups and streams in the "house church movement". I don't even like the term! I did like what he had to say though and am looking forward to his follow-up post, especially since he has a somewhat different viewpoint as a foreign missionary. I especially liked his fifth point:

5) Foundations


While my other four points may be more along the lines of what’s good about house churches, the recent house church movement itself (loosely so-called) is doing one thing in particular right that is worth noting: people are re-evaluating why they’ve been doing what they’re doing, and searching the Scriptures for understanding about why meeting in homes matters at all, or finding out what people did in the early church era and trying to follow that pattern. Whatever the exact results and conclusions some of us will come to, it’s getting many to dig into the Scriptures themselves. And THAT is a good thing.

That is so important. Asking the hard questions, examining our most cherished traditions, giving sacred cows a good old fashioned tipping. Anything that gets people searching the Scripture and asking good question is indeed a good thing! Check out his post!