House Church Movement

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The house church movement is one of the evangelical traditions of a community of Christians who are close to everyday life and meet in private congregations rather than in institutional church buildings. In reference to the tradition of early Christianity , independent church teachings have developed several times from the tradition of the domestic church .

prehistory

House church movements have their model in the church of the first century, as described in the New Testament and in early church writings. Church fathers like Cyprian explain their rapid expansion as a genealogy of congregations. Congregation life took place in the private environment and in the houses or apartments of Christians, church buildings and community organizations did not yet exist. With the development of the first Christian congregations into an institutional church in the Roman Empire, this changed fundamentally. After the Edict of Tolerance in Milan (312 AD), the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ended and Christians were able to build churches without fear of reprisals.

Historical examples

Nevertheless, there have been such house church movements again and again in church history.

The Nestorians , who emerged from a split in the church in the fourth century, also spread to China and southern India into the 13th century, initially as a house church movement. From the 12th to the 14th centuries it was the Waldensians who developed as a house church movement in Western Europe. There are reports about them that testify to how they as a community consistently practiced their religious life in the homes of the families without priests and without liturgy. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it was the Anabaptist movement that held on to the simplicity and originality of Christian community in homes. That is why they were persecuted to the death not only by the Catholic Church, but even by the churches of the Reformation . The Amish , split off from the Mennonites , still know neither the parish hall nor the church.

In Pietism and Methodism , there was a systematic formation of binding house groups , which met in private homes to deepen the life of faith, in addition to worship and the sacraments, not as a substitute for them. Pietism consciously saw itself as a lay movement.

Current house church movements

In the seventies of the last century many new house churches emerged on the fringes of the charismatic movement in England, but after a few years these were again absorbed into denominational church structures. In Europe there are only a few house churches or house church networks, other churches and denominations are predominant everywhere. One cannot speak of a European or German house church movement at the present time. House church movements are currently known in China, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cuba and Brazil. The largest and oldest of these is certainly the house church movement in China , which has an estimated 50 to 80 million Christians. The house churches in Cuba are also numerous and are already in the second major wave of expansion. What these movements have in common is that they are followed with varying degrees of intensity. Paradoxically, this contributed to their widespread expansion.

Web links

literature

  • Keith Smith: Hauskirchen-Manifest für Deutschland , GloryWorld-Medien, 2009, ISBN 3-936322-38-4
  • David Garrison: Church Planting Movements, Friday Fax Publishing
  • Neil Cole: Organic Church , GloryWorld Media, 2008, ISBN 3-937896-87-2
  • Felicity Dale: A Healthy Start for House Churches , GloryWorld Media, 2006, ISBN 3-936322-24-4
  • Tony & Felicity Dale: Simple Church , GloryWorld Media, 2003, ISBN 3-936322-05-8
  • Wolfgang Simson: Houses that change the world , C&P Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-928093-12-6
  • Frank Viola : Finding Organic Church: A Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Sustaining Authentic Christian Communities , David C. Cook, 2009, ISBN 143476866X
  • Frank Viola: Ur- Congregation : How Jesus actually imagined his congregation , Gloryworld media; 2010, ISBN 3-936322-473
  • Roger Gehring: Hausgemeinde und Mission , 2000, ISBN 3-7655-9438-5
  • Robert Fitts: The Church in the Home - A Return to Simplicity , GloryWorld Media, 2002, ISBN 3-936322-00-7
  • Richard Schutty: The first parish - the early church , TAUBE publishing house, ISBN 3-936764-03-4