This is a collection of related thoughts written at different times.
When I was a pastor, I eventually came to see that there was a disconnect between the Bible and the church – not just my church, but all 21st century churches. The disconnect was that no modern church looked like the one in the New Testament; neither did any modern church operate according to the instructions that Jesus and the apostles gave for the churches in the New Testament. As I continued to ponder and study this disconnect, I came to realize that the reason for it was simple: Jesus and the apostles established churches as temporary gatherings until the kingdom of God came. And they made clear that this kingdom would come in that generation – that is, in the 1st century.
What do you do when you realize that an institution is operating in violation of its charter? In my case, I told the people I was pastoring that they didn’t need to come any more, resigned as pastor, and walked away. Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” It doesn’t say seek first church.
Church in our day exists for the purpose of self-preservation. It may quote 2 Corinthians 4:5 – “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake” – but it doesn’t practice this. Church consumes the time and money of families so it can survive. In most cases, a church tries to help families – but the church’s needs come first, and families suffer the consequences.
What then should you and your family do? Homechurch! That is, devote yourselves to the apostles’ teaching just as it says in Acts 2:42-47. The institutional church doesn’t believe what the apostles taught about the coming of the kingdom of God. That’s why you and your family have to read the Bible for yourselves. But don’t worry – that’s been Jesus’ plan all along.
Why do some people who believe in homeschooling struggle with the idea of homechurching? Is the need not the same for both?
My wife and I homechurch. Our children are grown and long gone with children and homes of their own, but my wife and I, even at our advanced ages, still homechurch because we still need the wisdom of God. Before the Lord, the two of us “are like little children, not knowing how to go out or come in” (1 Kings 3:7). It’s not that we haven’t learned anything from the Lord over the years; on the contrary, it’s that we’ve learned that maintaining the posture of “a humble child” (Matt 18:1-4) is the way that we can continue to learn from Him. Therefore, the two of us “continually devote ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42).
We’re glad we homechurch; we wish everybody did! (That is, we feel about homechurching the way this young fellow feels about the soap he uses – it’s an old Dial soap commercial with its memorable tagline.)
My prayer to the Lord is that homechurching will grow like homeschooling has grown.
The New Testament church was designed to hand over its members to the Lord at the coming of His kingdom, but the modern church keeps people in bondage to itself by denying the Lord’s coming. Modern church is like the proverbial Hotel California: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!” A homeschool that never graduated its students would be a sick and dysfunctional place.
There are companies that provide curricula (curriculums) to homeschooling families. I am like one of them, only for homechurching families. That is, such companies provide lesson plans and related material that map out a way for parents to teach their children reading, writing, and arithmetic; similarly, I provide BRP’s and related material that map out a way for parents to teach themselves and their children about Jesus Christ, His kingdom, and His righteousness.
Where is the ark like Noah’s that you and your family can enter for protection and survival through difficult times? It’s in your PDT’s and FDT’s; those daily devotional times are the planks in the ark that you construct. (ODT’s are valuable, too, but the PDT’s and FDT’s are more foundational.) Thus homechurching is your ark. How important is this ark? Listen to this 30-second video clip of a successful pastor, in effect, admitting that the men in his church – even the men of churches in general – don’t do the very thing that you are doing and the difference he thinks it would make if they did.
When I was a boy, my parents would take my brothers and me on rides in the car. We’d just ride around exploring different neighborhoods and sightseeing, wherever my parents wanted to go. When it would take place in the twilight or evening, there’d be lights on in the houses we’d pass and I found that very peaceful to witness. That sense has stuck with me all my life. To this day, whenever I see a home set against the darkness with the lights on inside, it always comforts me. The painter Thomas Kinkade must have felt similarly because he painted so many pictures of houses with light emanating from the inside. Lately, I have been thinking of that light as homechurching – families having the light of Christ on in their homes by daily following Christ-centered Bible Reading Plans individually and collecting.
This vision is all the more relevant because of the storms clouds now gathering in our nation. The darkness is becoming darker as the sense of impending crises grows stronger, but this vision of lights being on in homes gives me great encouragement and hope. For me, that light coming from homes will shine through whatever darkness overhangs. Whether through me or through others, may more and more families turn to homechurching as the biblical way to live in the 21st century. Jesus Christ is the light, and following the apostles’ teaching in the Bible (Acts 2:42-47) is the way we see it.
Homeschooling is for a season, but homechurching is for a lifetime.
Not everyone can homeschool, but everyone can – and should – homechurch.
Abraham did not go to church – he homechurched. He led his family in the worship of God without dependence on any outside institution. (He had no tabernacle, temple, synagogue, or church to go to.) All Abraham had was an angel providing him limited information, but you have a big Bible telling you all about Jesus Christ. And you do not have to leave home to find out what it says. Are you not therefore much better equipped for homechurching than Abraham was? If the Lord could build a nation and save the world through Abraham’s homechurching, what can He do through yours?
When you’re a homechurcher, you’re sooner or later going to be asked “Do you have a church?” or “Where do you go to church?” It’s better to say, “We homechurch” than to say “we don’t go to church” for the same reason it’s better to say “We homeschool” than to say “our kids don’t go to school.”
As women have led the homeschooling movement, so men must lead the homechurching movement.
Some church people have used the term “home church” to refer to the place they regularly go to church. Other church people have decided to have their church meetings in homes, which they call “house churches.” These terms sound very similar to the terms I’ve been using, which are: homechurch, homechurchers, and homechurching (all three intentionally imitating the terms homeschool, homeschoolers, and homeschooling). But there is a big difference between what the church people have been talking about and what I’m talking about.
Having a “home church” or meeting in “house churches” have just been new ways for church people to refer to or preserve the institutional church. It’s as if public school teachers started talking about their “home school” or started holding their classes in “house schools” – this would not be the same thing as homeschooling even though the words may sound the same. Homeschooling is parents taking back the responsibility for educating their children that they had previously outsourced to others. Like homeschooling, homechurching is a radical change – it’s parents teaching the kingdom of God to their children because the institutional church is more interested in teaching itself than it is in teaching the kingdom of God. And we know the kingdom of God has come, so we should be pursuing it – not trying to go back and revive the church. That would be like the Lord trying to make ancient Israel a better nation instead of building His church.
As the Pharisees preserved the Old Testament but didn’t live according to it, so the institutional church has preserved the New Testament but not lived according to it. The New Testament church was the one true church. It was the bridge that connected the nation of ancient Israel to the kingdom of God. But now that we know the kingdom has come, we should stop acting like it hasn’t. For a family to become homechurchers is an implicit but profound statement of faith in Jesus as King of all creation. We wouldn’t have the New Testament without the institutional church just as Jesus wouldn’t have had the Old Testament without the Pharisees; but just as Jesus didn’t become a Pharisee, neither should we become church people.
Pollsters typically measure devotion to Christ by frequency of church attendance. Wouldn’t frequency of Bible reading be a more accurate measurement? For one thing, it would capture data for both churchgoers and homechurchers. For another, it would reveal that the percentage of churchgoers reading the Bible daily is much lower than that of homechurchers – and therefore that devotion to (zeal for) Christ is much lower among churchgoers than among homechurchers.
Will there actually be a homechurching movement like there came to be a homeschooling movement…and, if so, will it survive me? “If this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow it” (Acts 5:38-39).
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