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renewing the church united methodist church

Micro Church: Home (2 of 5)

I believe that over the next several years, micro churches will become an important part of renewal within The United Methodist Church.

I believe that homes have great potential to be a place where micro churches will flourish. It may be easier to invite someone that is new to faith into one’s home rather than to an existing church building. Micro churches can spread through neighborhoods and small towns as a result of the existing relationships between neighbors and friends. The home is a place where it may be easy to practice hospitality and make others feel welcome. Homes were where Christians in the early centuries met.

I believe that homes will again become an important place of worship for The United Methodist Church.

How do you respond to this idea?

This is part of a series of posts about micro churches. You can read more in the next several days at these posts:

By Andrew Conard

Christian, husband, son, brother, homeowner

8 replies on “Micro Church: Home (2 of 5)”

I am wondering about possible shifts in the concept of “home” from other eras when this worked in the past, like the early church or even early Methodism. Seems like we have a great many more public places to gather; resturants, coffee shops, movie theatres, etc than might have been available in the past. “Home” seemes even more private, intimate, vulnerable to me becuase of this.

I assume your concept is that it is easier to invite someone to one’s home than elsewhere, but isn’t it possible that it is also harder?

I also think the concept requires a tremendous amount of leadership, so a key component will be equipping, training and supporting the laity who make this work. Seems very possible, but again it will be a great shift from the haphazard way many churches currently employ and equip “non-professional” leadership.

AEL – Good critique about inviting people into the home. One of the reasons I was thinking was that it is low cost and there may be a cost associated with other locations. It certainly may make it harder – my sense is that as a culture we are less hospitable than a generation ago.
Leadership is key. It will be difficult but not impossible. Now exactly how that will happen is another question, but I believe that it will be figured out…

By Post Author

Have you read “The Tangible Kingdom”? Shares some good thoughts on this topic.

What may become more and more important with micro/home churches are that they are more welcoming to those who aren’t just new to faith… but who have no faith background at all. In our culture, it’s becoming less and less likely that people are all that familiar with Christianity. These folks may never consider setting foot in a church building… but hanging at someone’s house? Or the coffee shop? That’s imaginable to them.

This is another place where the church OUTSIDE of the United States is light years ahead of the church here. In many countries, churches have been growing this way for years, called ‘house churches’ or ‘cell churches’. We have much to learn from our Methodist brothers and sisters in Cuba, Brazil, Mozambique, Mexico, and all over the world.

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