Some background

I hope that everyone who read the journaling of my trip to Africa enjoyed it. I know sometimes I probably got into a little more detail than I needed but I hope I was able to describe the trip in ways that made it easy to imagine.

While I will remember visiting Africa, the first time, forever, it is now time to move this blog on to a discussion of house church, organic church, or simple church. There are plenty of other blogs out there that talk about house church and I will try to put links to some of those in a list on this blog. But for now, I’ll try to introduce where I am coming from as far as church is concerned.

For the last 2 years, the church fellowship that I have been a part of for a very long time, East Valley Grace (EVG) has been meeting as a house church expression. I almost hate using the word “expression” because it is used so much by the post-modern church movement these days. While a lot of what the post-modern church movement has done interests me, I’m not a proponent of some of the ideas I read from blogs and websites out there. But many times, there will be interesting discussions of house, organic, or simple church on websites that are aimed at the post-modern church movement.

By “expression”, I simply mean that the small group or fellowship that I am part of “expresses” our worship and faith in a small, interactive, home setting. We see the “church” as each of us and all of us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ. We don’t see the “church” as having anything to do with a location or building. We practice our faith in a small group that meets in a home, park, or wherever we decide. We see the first century church as our pattern of meeting. Therefore, we always have a meal and communion each time we meet. The rest of our time together we focus on Jesus with the goal of letting the Holy Spirit guide our time of study, worship, and prayer.

This is quite different that the EVG prior to 2003. We were very traditional and small. The fellowship was founded in 1993 by a church planter sent out by the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches (FGBC). During the 10 years of meeting as a traditional, institutional church, we had three pastors, went one year without a pastor altogether, met mostly in rented facilities like a day care center but met one year in a house. We never had more than about 25 official members, and the leadership was always discussing buying our own property although we never really had enough resources to even come up with a down payment because of our struggle to pay rent and salary. For 10 years, I served as the financial secretary and moderator for the institutional EVG.

EVG was the first pastor job for two of the pastors we had. Unfortunately, both of them are now not involved in any ministry. While this personally saddens me, I’m sure that they would say they are following God’s will for their lives at this time. I pray that both of them will use their gifts for the Kingdom again one day.

When our last pastor resigned in 2003, many of the core group of members decided to find other institutional churches to attend. A small group of us decided to continue meeting in a house church expression. I had read much about the house, organic, simple church movement and in 2003 attended the House2house Labor Day National House Church Conference in Dallas, TX. I became convinced and convicted that this was the true New Testament church lived out in small groups meeting at homes, work, parks, wherever.

We still stay in touch with many of the former members of the institutional EVG. For example, Vernie from the trip to Africa was an elder with EVG. Because of his close ties with the FGBC, he and his wife, Amy, still retain membership in EVG. That’s because even though we are meeting as a house church, EVG still is a member of the FGBC. Four of the current members of house church EVG became members of the institutional EVG. So we have an unusual situation in that EVG is a non-profit corporation in Arizona, recognized by the FGBC as a member church, but with no officially FGBC-ordained pastor. Personally, I don't think membership in an institutional church is important although there are many people that do. As far as having an official pastor, those days are definitely past for EVG. Next year, we will decide whether to continue membership in the FGBC.

Last year, through a sequence of events, God brought EVG into fellowship with another house church expression named Living Hope Christian Fellowship (LHCF). We started meeting together and have sort of become a single house church.

LHCF was started by Henry Staggs and John Rowden with the original intent of becoming an institutional church. It wasn’t long before they discovered other small groups meeting in homes. Through their own study, and some other events in their lives, they too became convinced that this was what God was calling them to.

Henry really has the heart of a pastor-shepherd. He is working almost fulltime as a volunteer chaplain at Banner Desert Hospital in Mesa. He faces death and heartbreak almost daily. But God has uniquely equipped him to minister to the people experiencing these life-changing crises. John worked many years in the behavior health area. Because of a severe back injury on the job, John has been out of work for quite a while. He is looking to become employed again in this field. John is also uniquely equipped to work in this field. You have to know him to see this in his compassion and caring nature.

So currently, EVG and LHCF meet in combined meetings rotating between four different homes. For now, it appears that God is strengthening our relationships and presenting unique opportunities for service. I created a website for a network of house churches in the East Valley to help house churches in our area connect. I was extremely blessed to be able to go to Africa for ICDI. We are looking at ways to reach out to the homeless community in our community and city. I am currently reading and sharing the new book by Neil Cole of Church Multiplication Associates (CMA) called Organic Church. I will talk more of the future direction of EVG and LHCF in the next post.