EMQ » October–December 2018 » Volume 54 Issue 4
[memberonly folder=”Members, EMQ2YearFolder, EMQ1YearFolder”]Leanne M. Dzubinski, Jacqueline Parke, and Christa L. McKirland
Recent decades have seen the increase of two trends in American evangelical Christianity. The first is the growth of house churches as a new forum for small groups of believers to practice their faith together. The second is an increase in the church-based sending of missionaries. Each trend seems to reflect some of the defining characteristics of believers in a post-modern era. However, the two strands are rarely brought into conversation with each other. The house church literature primarily views mission as the task of local, community evangelism. The church-based sending literature primarily looks at the sending patterns of large churches. The purpose of this article is to bridge the gap between those two fields by presenting the findings of a study of one house church in Southern California, where members had significant participation in world mission in the three years of the church’s existence.
House Churches
Parallel to the growth of mega-churches in the US, there has been a resurgence of the house-church model.[1] House churches are independent congregations rather than small groups from a larger church.[2] They tend to focus on relationship over programming, thus functioning in a family-like manner.[3]
Although this model has long been established as a viable form of church in some parts of the world where Christianity is illegal or persecuted, the trend in North America originated for different reasons. Christians are returning to this model as representative of the New Testament church (e.g., Col 4:15). House churches appeal to a millennial generation desirous of authenticity and being known, since a house church can offer close relationships built on knowing and loving one another. The house church model encourages high levels of participation and shared leadership that is appealing to those who want an active role in their church community.[4] Such a model can also be an effective site for evangelism in a 21st century, post-modern world, where authentic community is attractive for those who do not have a relationship with Jesus.[5] Finally, house churches express a value of sharing the gospel in cross-cultural ways. However, there is little empirical research on such missionary activity,[6] or on house churches in general.[7] Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand how the participants of one house church in Southern California perceive their participation in world mission.
Methodology
The research question guiding this study was: How do participants of one house church in Southern California perceive their participation in world mission? The methodology we chose to investigate this question was case study because we investigated a bounded system.[8] All participants in this study were members of the same house church. Case study was also suitable because the primary investigators in the research were three members of the house church with insider knowledge of the church. The church was only two years old at the time of the study. Approximately two-thirds of the members were millennials. Approximately 25% of the group had gone on some type of mission trip during those two years, and each chose to connect directly with a ministry in the host location, rather than working through a sending body. We believed that this high level of participation was significant and wanted to better understand the dynamics occurring in the group that created this involvement. We also believe that our study may resonate with other house churches and be useful for them as well as for mission agencies.
Our data collection methods included three focus groups and two individual interviews. One focus group was conducted with four house church members who went on mission trips in the past two years, or “goers.” The second group was conducted with four members who were strongly involved as “senders.” The third focus group brought all participants together, to share and review our findings. We also conducted two individual interviews with house church participants who had mission experience but no longer lived near the church community. The central understanding to emerge from this study is that the family-like, relational nature of the house church community had both positive and negative effects on senders as well as goers.
House Church as Family
A number of participants described the house church community as family. A conversation in the senders’ focus group illustrated this clearly. John said, “For me it’s just this is our family, and so we love them and care about them.” Beth responded, “I like that you used the word family.” When one of the goers was having a hard time, the house church used FaceTime to communicate. Susan explained, “That was really powerful when we could FaceTime with Sally, how that personal connection felt like we were loving on a family member and especially when she was having some dark days there on that long term trip. We felt very emotionally connected.”
The main aspect of family that house church members described was relational. Beth said, “We were able to take on that empathy in a very personal way. The longevity of our relationship really facilitates a deep empathy.” House church was also a kind of surrogate family for those who are not from the area and thus didn’t have biological family living locally. Beth described how the community supported Sally as she got ready for her trip: “Being a part of her family here in this area and that was like bouncing her off to her next phase.” Because the house church has deep, familial relationships, these have distinct impact when church members go on short-term or long-term trips.
Positive Effects for Senders
One strong positive effect was that senders believed strongly in the person. John explained, “The nature of the trip wasn’t as relevant as the nature of their relationship to us. We supported the trip because we support them and we love them.” Where missionaries in a large church may have to develop credibility, house church members were invested immediately because they knew the person.
A second positive effect was the contagious nature of the goer’s passion. Both Jennifer and Susan talked about their passion for the mission work they do. Jennifer explained that getting involved in mission “changed the trajectory of my life and I think it woke me up to certain things that I had forgotten I loved.” As she prepared to go back, she shared that love and passion with the house church.
Similarly, Susan was quite passionate about her mission work. She described herself as “passionate about the refugee movements that are going on in Europe” and described how that passion led her to get involved in four trips. House church members found themselves drawn into this passion and actively participating in it. David commented about “the number of people in the house church who have gone to get training on how to work with refugees. That does seem to be a continuation of that [passion]. That’s really superb.” The impact lasted after Susan’s trips, as Beth explained: “Those trips tend to be so potent in the spiritual walk. When someone has gone through that extreme setting for a period of time and comes back it spreads.” Thus, passion was contagious and easily communicated to the members of the house church community.
Senders also felt highly invested in the work that fellow house church members were doing on their trips. John explained, “Being close to the people that we helped send on these trips, it was almost as though we were going with them.” That closeness also affected financial support. In the combined focus group, John reflected: “You can support an organization like World Vision or Red Cross. They do good work. But having that member of our own family that we got to send was a great way to make a difference.” The close personal connection helped senders feel highly invested in these mission trips.
Positive Effects for Goers
The goers also described some positive effects from going on their mission trips. For one goer, the relational support of the house church created a strong sense of belonging. Sally explained, “I was still pretty new to house church when I left. I definitely felt like I was sent by the house church community, and when I came back I felt like I was more a part of it, like I belonged.” This sense of belonging was fostered by the community having a send-off party for her, writing notes in a journal, and sending it with her on the trip.
A second positive effect described by goers was honesty. Jennifer talked about this at length. “Really, what you guys have provided is just a space to be very honest about what’s going on in our work.” Then she reflected on what it was like to report on her ministry to larger churches, where she was expected to keep to a short timeline and give a few highlights. In contrast, when she came to house church, it felt like, “you’re a person, I’m a person, let’s talk about what’s actually happening.” Jennifer expressed appreciation for this honest, personalized conversation about her work.
A third positive effect for goers was having a space to debrief when they returned from a trip. Susan talked about that benefit. “So after the second trip I had a gathering of people from house church and we ate Chinese food and processed and debriefed the trip together and that was helpful.” Similarly, after a trip that Susan, David, and Tom took together, the house church gathered over a meal to hear about the trip. The house church also participated when Susan presented a report of her trip at a larger church; about half of the house church went with her. Susan commented, “That was beautiful. I loved that. It meant a lot to me to have people from my house church come.”
Sally also commented on the opportunity to process trip experiences. “It was nice to have David and Patricia there when I got back, with their perspective. David is super pastoring, you know. It was good to have people listen to me and help me process.” The family nature of house church facilitated this processing.
Negative Effects for Senders
Interestingly, senders also described some negative impact from sending house church members on mission trips. First, they experienced a sense of loss when one of the group was away on a trip. Kelly explained, “The good part was knowing she [Sally] was making a difference there in the lives of those young women but the hard part was I missed her. Six months was a long time.” Since the house church rotated meeting in various homes, senders lost a meeting place if a goer had also been a host. John commented, “We didn’t meet at their house and we met somewhere else.”
At one point three house church members, Tom, Susan, and David, went on a trip together. David commented, “When the three of us went that was like, 10%–15% of the entire community went at once.” The absence of three people from the group was immediately noticeable at Sunday gatherings. Patricia expressed the sense of concern having three of them in a dangerous area created. “I remember when you three were on that last trip, and [country] bombed [country].” Not knowing enough about the situation and having three members in a volatile region had a strong emotional impact on the senders.
Negative Effects for Goers
Those who went on mission trips also reported negative effects. Sally explained, “That’s the thing about short-term missions. You think you’re going to run away from all of your problems, but you end up experiencing them more profoundly.” Susan described it as “spiritual battles” and “going down into a pit.” Both of them described exhaustion. In those times they experienced a high expectation for support and communication from the house church community, much as one would expect high levels of communication from family members while going through a difficult situation.
The main form of communication for the house church community was a closed group Facebook page. David explained, “The Facebook page for the house church in general is kind of the central repository of people sharing things and prayer requests and general communication. So yeah, it makes sense so that’s kind of the place where we put trip things as well.” Members used the page to comment on photos and communicate support.
However, in some situations it proved insufficient. Tom described feeling isolated when he could not post a prayer request during a flight: “it was a difficult time in the air and both Susan and I felt like we couldn’t share that with anyone because [the plane] was up in the air. [We] couldn’t post anything. [We felt] so cosmically alone.” Susan also used a blog about her trips to communicate with house church while she was away. She explained, “I did it for all four trips.” However, the blog did not really live up to her hopes as being a source of support. “If I’m really candid, there wasn’t a whole lot of engagement. I think people were reading it but weren’t necessarily posting because everybody thinks that everybody else is doing it.” That was her first trip; as the community realized that the blog was important to her, they attempted to be more supportive on subsequent trips. Tom summed it up, saying the perceived need for relational support was “mission critical” and could lead to disappointment or frustration if expectations were unmet.
Conclusions and Implications
This case study of a house church in southern California revealed how one church’s strong family bond expressed itself in engagement with global missions. Findings also revealed corresponding relational consequences, both positive and negative, for senders and goers. This data is important because it could help house church communities anticipate potential relational consequences of mission initiatives and perhaps prepare for them ahead of time.
It also makes sense that the house church culture would yield an ethos of ongoing ministry involvement. House church communities emphasize that each person will be given opportunity to use their unique gifts as a member of the body of Christ, and the non-hierarchical structure more easily allows for participation of all group members. If each person has the freedom to actively participate during church gatherings, this may render these members more willing to experiment and step into new ventures, including mission-related initiatives. It is also interesting that a disproportionate number of goers in this church were women, all of whom demonstrated a confidence and competence in how they approached their opportunities for mission. Birkey[9] argued that house churches were a powerful place for women to develop their gifts; the results of this study appear to confirm his position.
Mission agencies could also learn from this study. They could consider intentionally inviting house church members to engage in mission initiatives that are highly relational. Mission agencies could even consider recruiting entire house churches. For instance, this could mean inviting members to longer-term trips, offering opportunities to partner with nationals to support the work they already have in place, or providing contexts for house church members to form strong relationships with mission teams and with the people they are serving in a cross-cultural context. Given the growth of intimate, participatory, and authentically dynamic house churches, both house church communities and mission agencies would benefit from intentionally leveraging the strengths of this expression of the body of Christ for the sake of world mission.
Leanne M. Dzubinski is an Assistant Professor of Intercultural Education at Biola University. Previously she worked as a missionary in Europe for twenty years.
Jacqueline Parke is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Vanguard University. She has participated in multiple short-term mission trips since 2010.
Christa L. McKirland is a PhD candidate at the University of St. Andrews. She has participated in multiple short-term mission trips since 1997.
Endnotes
[1] Henning, J. (2000) The growing house-church movement. Ministry Today. Retreived Aug 9, 2018, from https://ministrytodaymag.com/index.php/ministry-today-archives/66-unorganized/720-the-growing-house-church-movement
[2] Birkey, D. (1991) The house church: A missional model. Missiology: An International Review 19(1), 69-80.
[3] Hellerman, J. (2001) The ancient church as family, MInneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
[4] Viola, F. (2008) Reimagining church: Pursuing the dream of organic Christianity. Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook.
[5] Arias, M. (1982) Centripetal mission or evangelization by hospitality. Missiology: An International Review 10, 69-81.
[6] Lyzenga, S. S. (2009) Assessing the state of simple churches in the USA regarding releasing resources toward finishing the great commission. Regent University.
[7] Durbin, J. I. (2016) Reframing worship in Ukrainian simple churches. Cook School of Intercultural Studies. Los Angeles, CA: Biola University.
[8] Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
[9] Birkey, D. (1991) The house church: A missional model. Missiology: An International Review 19(1), 69-80.
