Larry Kreider - Starting a House Church

T here are over three billion people on our planet who have never heard the name of Jesus one time, and there are thousands of people groups that have not been reached with the good news of Gods love. Poverty, corruption, preventable diseases and famine have turned entire countries and continents to ruin. As followers of Christ, we are stirred to face these challenges with both faith in Gods goodness and obedience to His commands.

We believe the Church is the hope of the world. Some would say this statement leaves out Jesus, that He alone is the hope of the world. Not at all! Jesus Himself chose the Church to be His answer to the worlds needs.

We also believe that the Church has been commissioned to respond with Jesus compassion and the good news of the Cross to both the physical and spiritual challenges the world faces. We believe in sharing Gods love with two hands-one hand with food, medicine and clean water, and the other hand with the message of Gods love.

Because we love the Church and have served her for a total of 70 years, we are in no way prepared to give up on her. She has needs. She has weaknesses. And yes, she is hopeless without Jesus. But she is His bride-His family-and we love her because of that. We love the whole Church, big and small, black and white, rich and poor, young and old. So neither one of us is writing this book to present the one answer to the Churchs problems.

We are excited about house churches, but not to the exclusion of the rest of the Body of Christ. If you are looking for a book that hammers and criticizes the institutional Church or denominations or mega-churches, this is the wrong book for you. Rather, we are excited about how Gods Spirit is moving through house churches to touch our planet. Most of the people who have never heard the good news about Jesus live in countries that are closed to traditional expressions of Sunday-oriented, building-driven churches. What is happening around the world right now through house-church movements is spectacular. Already, tens of millions of people are coming to Christ through hundreds of thousands of small, simple churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We pray that our own nation and the nations of the developing world begin to experience the same blessing.

If we are going to reach the three billion unreached people of our planet who live in small villages and crowded cities, it will not be through program-driven, professional-clergy models of Western church. There is probably no more significant factor in the growth of the Church worldwide than the recently rediscovered power of small, simple, easily reproducible churches.

The principles that make small, simple churches work well are not only fueling worldwide church growth but are also helping people grow spiritually. Home churches produce ownership, accountability, spontaneity, involvement, responsibility and growth among attendees. We will explain more about these principles later on in the book.

We believe that God has a big dream for the Church-but He builds His Church one life, one family and one small church community at a time. We, too, should dream big dreams while we build small. The maturity and effectiveness of any movement of lasting impact can be measured by how effective it is in fostering a culture of small groups that can function as a church for the people.

To clarify, it is not a particular model of church that motivates us, but what the Spirit of God does in peoples lives when they discover the New Testament principles of doing Church in small communities. It is those principles that form the engine that powers the house-church model, not the model itself. These principles are not complicated, and figuring them out doesnt require a seminary education. The New Testament principles are woven throughout the story of the Church in the book of Acts, and they continue today to permeate the house-church movement worldwide.

With this in mind, we offer you our stories, our experiences and the lessons we have learned, with the hope that they will guide and inspire you to see what God does when you open your home, your office or your classroom to a few other people.

Larry Kreider

www.dcfi.org; www.startingahousechurch.com

Floyd McClung
www.floydandsally.com