Tim is a Lutheran pastor in the ELCA, currently serving as the Interim Associate Pastor at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Maplewood, MN. His primary interest is in small expressions of Church, typically called house or cell churches. He's working to transition out of conventional parish ministry into... something that he thinks will be a kind of coaching or church-planting ministry for those who want to be Church and be missional in a house-church mode.
On his blog, FeralPastor.blogspot.com he had posted an interesting about house churches. Now I love House Concerts so I read on:
Most of the people I talk with about house churches are Lutherans. One of my favorite things to do is to find out whether they know that Luther himself proposed house churches as the natural, even preferred context for people who were serious about following Jesus. (He calls these people the ones who are "desirous of being Christians in earnest and are ready to profess the Gospel with hand and mouth.") It's great fun to see the look of surprise on their faces - especially the ones who went to seminary and, amazingly, somehow never encountered this fact!
I've got the relevant section from Luther's writings uploaded in my "document vault" but I've neglected to post it here so now's the time to fix that. Here is the key excerpt, with citations at the end. Friends, and Lutherans especially, you'll want to take note of the following:
Self-organized
Home-based
Lay led
Full sacramental life
Stewardship and social ministry
Simple catechetical instruction
Ideal context for loving accountability after Matthew 18
"Form and Order" are not imported but emerge spontaneously from community life.
He goes on to have Martin's words on the subject.... Click here to stop over and finish reading the blog.
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