How to Start a Home Church (Part 1)

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Reposted courtesy of Randy White Ministries

In my last article, I wrote about the difficulty your church will have finding a pastor in the future, especially if it is a small to medium sized church. In previous articles, I’ve written about why I couldn’t join most churches. With these kinds of problems, now it is time to write about How to Start a Home Church.

A Bible Believer’s Biggest Problem

Without a doubt, the largest number of emails, letters, and phone calls I’ve received over the past few years has been on the topic of finding a local church. I’ve literally received hundreds of these contacts, from all parts of the country. It isn’t just small towns, its big cities also. It isn’t just from secular-minded states, it is the Bible belt as well.

A decade ago, I would have just told these people that they were expecting too much, that there was no perfect church, that they should just join, serve, and make the church better. But a lot has changed in 10 years, both in church society and in my own belief system. I used to be a pragmatist, an “already/not yet” kingdom builder, a “pick and choose your Bible translation to suit your needs” preacher. I never went all-out for secular church-growth methods, but I certainly did my fair share of “whatever it takes” kind of leadership. And it worked. It worked because there are certain principles of group dynamics that attract crowds and keep them.

But now I loath manipulation. I can’t stand soft music that sets the “evangelistic” mood. I groan over yet-another-invitation to the Pastor’s leadership conferences. I get disgusted when churches have book studies that they call Bible studies. And I am so sick and tired of hearing sermons that abuse the Word of God (if they even use the Word of God.) I don’t have a problem with churches teaching about marriage or money or even how to win friends and influence people…but I don’t want the sermon or the Sunday School Bible Study class to be used for those things.

So, in short, I’m now sympathetic when people tell me they can’t find a church.

You might need a home church if …

There are legitimate reasons to start a home church. In fact, while I don’t know the immediate circumstances, my great-grandfather started a church in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1944, a church that still exists today (I am one of 62 great-grandchildren of Frank W. Garber). I am almost certain that he, along with my grandparents and other family members, started the church for doctrinal reasons. They were from the Brethren Church, and doubtless wanted like-minded fellowship in their worship.

Like my great-grandfather, you might need a home church.

  • If doctrine matters to you, you might need a home church.
  • If fellowship with like-minded believers matters to you, you might need a home church.
  • If the study of the Word matters to you, you might need a home church.
  • If yet another “awesome” program of dazzle and glitter makes you roll your eyes, you might need a home church.
  • If you’re not interested in a multi-gazillion dollar building program, you might need a home church.
  • If you’ve grown weary of perfect music by hired musicians or plastic-smiled primadonnas, you might need a home church.
  • If you’ve been kicked out of your church (“Brother, we think you would be more comfortable somewhere else”) because you asked too many questions, you might need a home church.
  • If your pastor doesn’t know your name, and never will, you might need a home church.

Each of these issues is often problematic in today’s show-biz church environment (though almost every church denies that it is a problem, and many of the people in the pew don’t get it).

So, if you need a home church, what should you do?

(Tomorrow: Steps to Starting a Home Church)

Randy White Bio

Randy White Ministries began in 2011 as an online and radio Bible teaching ministry. Today, the ministry is focused on producing verse-by-verse Bible teaching resources for individuals. White has 25 years of pastoral experience—including 12 years at First Baptist Church of Katy, Texas, where he ministered to a large congregation and preached numerous times each week.

Discussion

[Larry Nelson]

A church’s leadership proposes constructing a new auditorium with the following specifications:

“Capacity: 6,000 people, with 5,500 seated, 500 standing room; dimensions: 146’ long, 81’ wide, 68’ high”

Critics express outrage. “Conceit!” some cry. (The young pastor has no objections.)

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Time to leave this church?

Although it was undoubtedly “a multi-gazillion dollar building program” (adjusted for inflation) I would not want to think I had missed a single sermon by Charles Spurgeon due to any recalcitrance on my part.

It strikes me that, given that the Metropolitan Tabernacle is meeting with a few hundred members today, that Spurgeon and the building he preached in also illustrate the benefits and risks of large facilities. Spurgeon’s heirs couldn’t fill that auditorium, just as Clearwaters’ heirs could not have done so. On the flip side, how would the cause of Christ have suffered if these men had been in a little prairie church seating 50 people?

Or, would it have done so? That said, Larry is entirely correct to note that this is far more complex than “small churches are good, and big churches are bad.”

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

[Bert Perry]

It strikes me that, given that the Metropolitan Tabernacle is meeting with a few hundred members today, that Spurgeon and the building he preached in also illustrate the benefits and risks of large facilities. Spurgeon’s heirs couldn’t fill that auditorium, just as Clearwaters’ heirs could not have done so. On the flip side, how would the cause of Christ have suffered if these men had been in a little prairie church seating 50 people?

Or, would it have done so? That said, Larry is entirely correct to note that this is far more complex than “small churches are good, and big churches are bad.”

I was at Fourth Baptist from 1972 - 1981. I vividly recall the first time I (as a 6th-grader) walked into their just-opened 2,000 seat auditorium in 1974, and thinking how big it was. The church moved into it from their 800 seat, circa-1920 auditorium (which remained a part of the building complex, and which served the church in other capacities until the church moved to Plymouth, MN in 1998). I doubt it occurred to anyone there at that time that “smaller is better” as far as churches were concerned. That idea would have seemed like nonsense.

In 1969 when Elmer Towns issued a list of the 10 highest-attended Sunday schools in America, 8 were at IFB churches. (Nobody in fundamentalism raised an eyebrow.)

I’m also old enough to remember when fundamentalism boasted that “A Fundamental Baptist church is the largest in XX of the 50 states!” (I forget the exact number, but it was over half.)

Going back just a few decades, big churches were considered a good thing by fundamentalists.

That seems to no longer be true, now that fundamentalism can rarely boast of its own relative bigness.

[Bert Perry]

It strikes me that, given that the Metropolitan Tabernacle is meeting with a few hundred members today, that Spurgeon and the building he preached in also illustrate the benefits and risks of large facilities. Spurgeon’s heirs couldn’t fill that auditorium, just as Clearwaters’ heirs could not have done so. On the flip side, how would the cause of Christ have suffered if these men had been in a little prairie church seating 50 people?

Actually, all that is left of the building Spurgeon built is the facade. The rest came down after the Nazi bombing during WW2. I’ve been at a Wednesday night service there. There was probably around 500 for a Wednesday night (rough estimate). I think Peter Masters has done a commendable job in maintaining/rebuilding what was there.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

It’s worth noting that Spurgeon died in 1892, and the Blitz started in 1940. On the bright side, people presumably did come to Christ, and presumably were edified by Spurgeon’s preaching, in that edifice. On the down side, it stood mostly empty (or burned for a few years after 1898) from 1892-ish to then, mostly siphoning off tithes to pay utility bills.

It’s a trade-off we ought to heed, no?

Larry’s right that we didn’t worry about bigness previously, and maybe we’re overreacting now, but it strikes me that a great portion of fundamentalism’s biggest embarrassments are from pastors who strive for bigness at the price of good theology—Hyles, Schaap, Gray, etc.. We might wonder whether this is a natural “Solomon effect”, or whether it’s random, no?

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Perhaps, but more likely that big name preachers get wider publicity with their scandals. I’ve observed many “small” pastors involved in similar scandals, but theirs were largely unknown outside their local community. Perhaps we could say that the Solomon Effect affects smaller ministries as much as larger ones, and because there are more smaller ones, the tally is no doubt much larger. I’ve learned that any ministry, no matter how small, can produce carelessness in pastors as they experience the heady position of leadership. We must all be careful and prayerful.

G. N. Barkman

[Bert Perry]

It strikes me that, given that the Metropolitan Tabernacle is meeting with a few hundred members today, that Spurgeon and the building he preached in also illustrate the benefits and risks of large facilities. Spurgeon’s heirs couldn’t fill that auditorium, just as Clearwaters’ heirs could not have done so. On the flip side, how would the cause of Christ have suffered if these men had been in a little prairie church seating 50 people?

Or, would it have done so? That said, Larry is entirely correct to note that this is far more complex than “small churches are good, and big churches are bad.”

Most, but not all, fundamentalist churches operate with the mindset that the entire church body must be able to meet all at one time in their auditorium. In contrast, evangelical churches seem to have largely dropped that mindset, and are open to the idea of holding multiple services to increase their attendance capacity without needing a larger facility.

In the case of Fourth Baptist (mentioned above), when they began to regularly overflow their existing 800 seat auditorium on Sunday mornings, they chose (perhaps over-optimistically) to build a 2,000 seat auditorium. After the new auditorium opened in 1974, attendance eventually peaked at around 1,300 I believe, but it began a gradual decline after Pastor Clearwater’s retirement (alluded to in Bert’s comments above). Would the church have been better off if they had chosen to instead increase their seating capacity to 1,600 by conducting dual Sunday services in their 800 seat auditorium? Maybe; maybe not. At the church at that time, it probably was not even an option deemed worthy of consideration.

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Today, churches approach the issue of seating capacity differently. At my church, we have a normal maximum seating capacity of 980 per service time. We have a regular schedule of four weekend services: one on Saturday evening, and three on Sunday mornings. Our typical total attendance at the four service times is currently around 3,000. At Easter and Christmas, we added a second Saturday service time last year, and we had total attendance at the five service times of around 4,000 (with plenty of guests & visitors joining our regular attendees). Do the math: we can have at times at least four times our seating capacity attend services on peak weekends. Even with five service times, due to unequal attendance patterns, we can be FULL at one or more of those service times. And yet we’re still growing…..

So we’ve decided to build. We break ground on a building expansion next month that will increase our seating capacity to over 1,600. (The author of the OP article would call it, “a multi-gazillion dollar building program,” and he’s right: it will cost several million dollars.) Nevertheless, we’ll still require multiple services to accommodate the number of people we have attending right now.

What are other alternatives? Well, we’ve planted seven other (independent) churches since 1971. Each time, we had a group of members & attendees depart us. Last Fall, we launched a second campus of our church, and about 250 from our main site switched to attending the second campus (which is also growing).

My ultimate point is that in the past, a church would have felt an obligation to have a large enough auditorium to hold its entire congregation all at once. Today, it’s likely that most churches don’t assume this (not to mention the proportionately greater cost it would require). Growing churches should perhaps look to scheduling additional service times before even thinking of building, if nothing else.