Is it I?
As I wrote recently, a shift from big church to house church may not be a stair way to heaven. The problem may be US. We are born with a drive to have our own way. Some grow out of it. Others of us remain baby’s all our lives. If we are a baby in adult body, and a christian, we will be driven to attempt to bend the church to our will (gudda, gudda). And so baby buntings who couldn’t get their own way in the institutional church will move on to alternative churches, then house churches in pursuit of a place that will sate their infernal selves. Wherever they are, the enfant terrible brings into their orbit, infernal life rather than eternal life.
I’ve been in standard institutional churches and simple churches. You can find peace or strife in both – that’s if Jesus is worshiped and not some version of Self. Sir or Madam Self, either individual or collective like attention. I remember weaning my infant son off his baby bottle. There were a few tantrums before he was free. But some of us, infants in adult bodies, bring with us to a group a lack of peace; an unsettled mien; an agitated, moody spirit. We sit there glowering and fuming. All of this is code for, ‘I’m put out. This group is not focused around me and my agenda.’
Jesus brings peace, but not so Self.
I’ve been in places where the only agenda is to worship Jesus and sit at His feet. Such places brim with freshness, peace and healing – not to mention uncontrived community. The manifest Presence of Jesus unveils the faces of the worshipers and they become known as they really are, rather than as the function of someone’s ‘self agenda.’
Baby Buntings may initiate house church gatherings in the belief that finally they will get to realize their agendas and so to speak ‘suck their dummies.’ That’s if they don’t spit it. If they don’t give up and run away when they are thwarted, the house church can serve as a useful discipline – the slicing off of self in large chunks in the discipline of living for others.
Keith Allen