Introduction
In the May 1984 premier issue of First Fruits magazine, John Wimber described a vision for church planting that God gave him shortly after the Vineyard movement was founded:
Several years ago God spoke to me in a vision concerning the planting of 10,000 fellowships. In this vision I saw a map of the United States with thousands of little lights all across the country… Thousands of little flashing lights! I asked God what this meant. He told me that each light represented a new fellowship that He wanted to start. I thought I had gone berserk. It must be me, I'm only making this up. As usual, God was persistent and patient and I was slow and resistant. I am now convinced that God has called me to encourage the planting of these 10,000 fellowships.
I believe Wimber's vision includes not just planting new churches but also starting new home fellowships. These fellowships can be small groups of believers who belong to a larger congregation and meet together during the week in someone's house or apartment, in which case they're often known as homegroups or housegroups. Or they can be a group of believers who meet in a home on Sundays and consider themselves a church—a house church in other words, which may or may not be affiliated with a larger congregation, denomination or movement. Or they can even be believers from different churches who meet periodically to "do church" together in a more intimate setting than they are experiencing in their home churches.
It doesn't matter which of these different approaches your own home fellowship follows. The bottom line is that home fellowships are often the place where church really happens—where people get saved, healed, encouraged, equipped and discipled. They're places where the phrase "body of Christ" becomes an experiential reality instead of just a theological concept. And they're on the front line where the kingdom of God is advancing in the world.
Not that I'm trying to denigrate the value of traditional churches or the role of those who pastor them. This book isn't an attempt to prove that home fellowships are the right way of doing church, or the most authentic way—although I believe one can make a strong case for that from the New Testament. My goal is simply to get you thinking about what "church" really is and what "doing church" should actually look like—and then show you how you can do it through home fellowships.
How the book is organized
The book is organized into chapters that cover the following topics:
Chapter 1 makes use of my own personal testimony to illustrate some of the difficulties new believers face trying to fit into church life when they had no previous exposure to church prior to conversion.
Chapter 2 presents the theory side of what "doing church" is all about. Foundational principles concerning home fellowships are presented and supported from Scripture.
Chapter 3 shares stories illustrating what God can do in home fellowships when room is made for His Spirit to work. From these stories we can infer some important values concerning home fellowships.
Chapter 4 summarizes the mechanics of doing home fellowships and how they are different from Bible studies, Growth Groups, Life Groups and other popular forms of small group ministry.
Chapter 5 looks at some of the kinds of problems that can arise in home fellowships and various challenges you may face when leading them.
Finally the Afterword concludes by asking the question of where to go from here if you're thinking of starting a home fellowship.
A note concerning the stories in this book. These stories really happened and are used to illustrate important points about doing church in home settings. Some of the stories are my own while others are from contributors with extensive experience leading or participating in home fellowships. In some instances certain details of a story have been changed to safeguard the privacy of those involved.
Finally a brief word about myself and why you may want to consider listening to what I have to say on this subject. Over a period of about three decades I've started, led, co-led or been an active participant in more than a dozen different home fellowships including both church-affiliated homegroups and independent house churches. More importantly, as a leader of such fellowships I've probably made every mistake in the book! I've built fellowships and I've blown them up, I've gathered and I've scattered. So I think that makes me something of an expert on the subject, but I'll let you decide after you've finished reading the book.
Acknowledgments
Writing this book would not have been possible without the substantial help and support I received from others. First and foremost I want to thank my wife Ingrid who helped extensively by framing concepts, reviewing drafts and bringing to remembrance key stories from our past to illustrate important points. I also want to thank her for her longsuffering in putting up with the constant sound of me tapping away on my keyboard during the Christmas holiday season when most of the previous version of this book was written.
Readers who are familiar with John Wimber's teachings may also notice that my approach in this book is similar to how Wimber approached the subject of healing ministry in his book Power Healing (HarperCollins, 1987). Like John did for healing ministry, I've tried to present an integrated model for how home fellowships should function by starting from principles (chapter 2) and values (chapter 3) and then building out practices, programs and personnel (chapter 4).
Like John too I've tried to illustrate key points by including "God stories" of things that actually happened in home fellowships. In this regard I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the following individuals who shared their personal stories: Ken and Bonnie Lewis our long-time friends and co-workers in God's kingdom; Josiah and Vanessa Koppanyi who provided a much-needed young person's perspective on certain topics; and Rick Morton who together with his wife Sharon were formerly part of the Pastoral Care Team at Yorba Linda Vineyard.
I'm also grateful for the encouragement I received from the following international Vineyard leaders who expressed their support for this book by sharing its previous version, now herein revised, with their respective leadership teams: Martin Buehlmann, Leader Emeritus of the Vineyard Movement in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; and Dave Pedersen, National Director of the Association of Vineyard Churches in South Africa.
Finally my thanks to Bonnie, Vanessa and Ingrid for uncovering numerous grammatical and typographical errors in my draft chapters and for mercilessly correcting them, much to my chagrin.
BuildPlant.org
Copies of this book in digital format (PDF) are freely available online at buildplant.org where you can also find other free resources for building and planting churches. Copies of this book in print form may be requested by emailing me at info@buildplant.org.
Cheers,
Mitch Tulloch
Winnipeg, Canada
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