Ministry News
Barna Measures House Churches
- Details
- Tuesday, 01 September 2009 11:49
What's in a phrase? When the phrase is house church, a lot—or at least enough to prompt one-third of all adults to say they're a part of one. According to research from George Barna, 33 percent of people responding to a dozen national surveys indicated they have experienced God or shared their faith in the last month with a group meeting in a home environment. But before you assume the simple church movement is spreading like wildfire in the United States as it has in other countries, think again.
Barna's latest multi-survey report shows that the actual number of people involved in house churches varies wildly, depending upon how the question of participation is posed. For instance, when house church is defined in the strictest sense—as a group that meets regularly in a non-church building, is independent of a typical church and considers itself a church—only 3 to 6 percent of respondents said they are involved. When asked if they have "attended a worship service in someone's home, known as a house church," about 10 percent of the adult population has done so in the past month. (Interestingly enough, simply using the words religious service instead of worship service prompted a full 22 to 24 percent of people to agree.)
So where did the one-third figure come from? That's the results from the broadest question asking if respondents had "experienced God or expressed (their) faith in God in a house church or simple church meeting in the past month." Overall, Barna believes the most consistent and reliable assessment is that 5 percent of the population is involved in a house church on a regular basis.
"With growing numbers of conventional churches attempting to incorporate both the house church concept and language into their ministries, it becomes increasingly difficult to get an accurate reading," Barna said. "All research is simply an estimate of reality, but our preference has always been to use conservative measures rather than questionable or exaggerated figures. … Each question is measuring something different; in its own way, each question is accurate and useful. The study shows that it depends on what you want to find out—and how important it is to have a well-defined sense of the element to be measured, and how questions can be crafted to distort our understanding of reality." [barna.org, 8/31/09]
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Comments
I'll try not to offend you, but home groups and churches are not a new way or change. As early as Acts in the New Testament, people were meeting in homes to share the Gospel.
Also, to say that someone prophesied "that the church would change" is like prophesying that the daybreak will come in the morning. The church has had major changes over the last 50 years. They've changed musically. There are now ministries on the internet including my own. The real change may be that missionaries are now coming to the United States to spread the Gospel to us. We, as the Christian base in America, have done a poor job of moving anyone here to even want Christ, much less change their lives.
In Jesus, Trudy
Believers mention the kingdom in passing and then focus on the church - rather than God our Father, King Jesus our Savior and the Holy Spirit our Helper.
Ray Ashmore challenges us to ask ourselves, “Do I really know what I’m talking about when I glibly refer to the Kingdom of God? Have I given myself to a Spirit-led study of God’s word in order to find out just what the kingdom is? Do I really understand how it relates to my day-to-day living and believing?’
Gee, that shouldn't be too hard to prophesy, and it shouldn't be hard to get it to come to pass. Church is always changing. When you said, "Perhaps this is part of what God is doing..." you stretch to see if you can help Bro Kim's word come true. I like what one man said regarding the church - "Let My people think..."
On the subject of house church, its the first century model - but not necessarily the model for all times. This is not a bandwagon, and God is always moving. Make House Church a monument, and God will be gone... Ya' know?
Love you all...
Sincerely,
Mrs. Carol Montgomery
Although I am a member of a traditional group the definition of a "church" continues to be distorted by teachers who take advantage of the misconception to give themselves and their organization a status that only a disciple can have. We tolerate so much scriptural "stuff" to accommodate the way things are. I am generally not very impressed with the level of sincerity and mature spirituality I see in US "churches". The system is designed to keep believers dependent and coming back. I see it as the Gospel distorted into consumerism?
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