House Churches Won’t Organize, Big Churches Won’t Multiply

When it comes to the contentious issue of whether to plant house churches or “big” churches, we’ve long advocated for both. True, our particular corner of Central Asia needs both because of its own issues – half our locals are afraid of family persecution and feel they can’t risk getting caught in a public church service, the other half are afraid of government persecution and feel they can’t risk getting caught in an illegal house meeting. But though these particular issues might be unique to our region, I would advocate that most contexts around the world would be helped to have both kinds of churches operating in a complementary relationship. There are tremendous strengths as well as weaknesses to house churches. The same goes for “big” churches, churches that meet in their own facility or another third space.

To account for these accompanying weaknesses, wise intentionality is needed so that churches can mature and become truly healthy. This intentionality will look a little different for each, due to the particular size cultures of these two main types of churches. In short, house churches will need intentional organizing and big churches will need intentional multiplying. Left to themselves, most house churches will naturally multiply, but will not naturally organize. And most big churches will naturally organize, but not naturally multiply.

Here it may be helpful to refer to a tool we’ve used in our ministry in the past, the 12 characteristics of a healthy church, broken down into three typical stages.

This diagram is simply a visual summary of what the Bible teaches about the local church’s necessary components. It also demonstrates the typical three-stage order in which these components tend to develop – and the two places of common roadblocks. Many house churches do not progress from stage one (Formative church) to stage two (Organized church). Many big churches do not progress from stage two to stage three (Sending church). When you consider what is most natural given their different size cultures, these roadblocks make a lot of sense.

House churches don’t have difficulty feeling the need to multiply. It becomes painfully clear to most present when a house group has grown too large for its space. There’s no more room to sit, the hallways are clogged, there’s no place for members to park their cars, the children are overrunning the meetings, the neighbors are complaining. House churches do have difficulty, however, in organizing. The small size of their group means that those present don’t often feel the need for intentional systems of giving, leadership, covenant membership, and accountability and discipline. The sense is that if these things are necessary, then they can happen organically, by group consensus.

This is why house churches need wise leadership that calls them to organize. By failing to intentionally organize, house churches miss out on the spiritual power that comes from biblical church order as well as leave themselves vulnerable to attack. Each of the characteristics in the organized church stage can sometimes happen organically. But wise organization means they will happen – and in a thought-out biblical way. When the church faithfully applies scripture to its own structure, when it does what the church is meant to do, spiritual power follows.

On the other hand, house churches that don’t organize are leaving themselves vulnerable to strongman, domineering leadership. If the church is not intentional about things like plural leadership, membership, giving, and discipline, the most likely outcome is that one man will fill that vacuum. He will be the sole leader. He will control the money. Membership and discipline will be simply whoever is in his good graces or not.

In addition to these points, organizing well means better relationships with any big churches that are in the area, who are often suspicious of house churches and their aversion to organize in ways that signal trustworthiness. This is very true in Central Asia and the Middle East, but it’s a dynamic present in the West as well.

Big churches, on the other hand, need wise leaders who will call them to multiply. Organizing happens more readily because big churches have met the size threshold where members and leaders naturally sense the need for better systems and structures. One hairy members meeting is all that is required for this revelation to occur. But because of the size culture of big churches, the most natural thing to do is not to multiply, but to simply keep growing. Without the physical stimulus provided by an overly-packed house, big churches will not naturally feel the need and the goodness of multiplying. Instead, as the church grows, the needs grow, and the felt sense that more people are needed to fill important roles.

Even in big churches that do believe the importance of multiplying through church planting, many will not know how to do this. So, intentional efforts will need to be made to teach and model what it looks like to raise up qualified leaders and send them out. When this happens well, the church will know the costly joy of sending away their best. Counterintuitively, this “loss,” this self-giving of multiplying makes a church healthier, as well as more obedient to the great commission. On the other hand, when church multiplication is not done, the church risks growing inward and stagnating.

It’s important to realize that house churches can organize just as faithfully as big churches. Big church advocates tend to doubt this. And big churches can multiply just as faithfully as house churches. House church advocates, in turn, doubt this. The actual organization and multiplication can and should look different, reflecting the different needs and abilities of these different models. But the principles underneath these forms should be the same. The key conviction here is that the local church can be fully expressed in both models. It’s not about the model, it’s about the intentionality of the leadership and members to pursue a biblical ecclesiology.

On the ground, many house churches won’t organize and many big churches won’t multiply. We need to be those able to help them do so, and thereby help them step into the fulness of the Bible’s vision for the local church.

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