The House Church Movement

Rating:
Summary: Right Between The Eyes
Review: Blunt. Straight Talk. Probably will be rejected by most house churchers who like their stuff mostly shallow, thickly candy-coated and polite ad nauseum (House Churchers have their own, weird brand of "political correctness").
These authors lack that modern-day pastoral tact and "Christian" veneer and write in a more gritty, thundering, prophetic style, like the men of old. And, yes, while their claim to be leading the radical wing of house churching is brash, it is also clear that they are passionate men--I found that more refreshing than offensive. And their critics must ask themselves if they are truly pioneering more radically than these men are.
These men write in a raw, unpolished form, but man are their words and thoughts badly needed to be heard by house churchers the world over. Most people I've met are too focused on the messengers of this book, their style, tone, their affiliation, and not enough on the real issue---the sad and sorry state of what is passing for "house church" around the world. House Churchers need to be less sensitive to the coarseness these men write with and more sensitive their timely message.

Rating:
Summary: Right Between The Eyes
Review: I have left the Institutional Church, but this book about the House Church (HC) "movement" is dangerous. It proclaims a certain brand of HC which embraces the "church planter" or "worker". Such HC's view themselves as superior and really the only TRUE or biblical churches in the world (since they were "planeted" or "birthed" by a "worker" - namely themselves).

There are MANY subtle teachings found in this book that are not only elitest in its mentality, but by actual definition - cultic. The authors claim that the HC's that they "plant" are free from any type of control or hierarchical type leadership (since once they give "birth" to the HC the "worker" leaves). But this is very false. The authors transform the type of leadership control from "overt" (like institutional church "pastors") to "co-vert". They "plant" the HC through all their teaching and doctrine and practical advice, but even though they may leave that HC, they still are there, controlling everything through all they have "planted" (i.e. Thought-Reform or Mind Control). If that HC leaves its "worker's" teaching and does something different, then they "fail" to become a true New Testament church.

This book has some points, especially on the institutional church, but should NOT be bought or followed, unless you want to end up being indoctrinated by and following a man, and not Jesus Christ ALONE.

Rating:
Summary: Right Between the Eyes? The blind leading the blind.
Review: The House Church Movement? I thought only bowels have "movements." And that is how I felt after finishing this book. There are some good points regarding the Institutional Church and the shallowness of some home churches (HCs)not centering and trutsting on Jesus Christ alone, but the whole of the book is deceitfully dangerous. These "planters" or "workers" "plant" HCs that claim to be the only TRUE or biblical HCs in existance and any HC that wants to be truly Christ-centered needs to be taught by the "God-ordained worker" to lead us in the "right" path. So they say in subtle words. In actuality, they have switched from the OVERT control of Institutional Churches to the CO-VERT control of House Churches.

If anyone really wants to know more about Body-life and real, relational Christianity, and a balanced view of Home Churches, you won't find it here. You'll find instead a group of men proclaiming that "their way" is really the only right way. To be a valid HC you need to be "planted" - and planted by whom? You guessed it, one of them. Their elitest attitude and their shallow descriptions of other HCs are repulsive. They certainly had an agenda with this book, an agenda, in my opinion, much more sly than the IC ever came up with.

If you want to truly know more about "Home church" subscribe to a balanced HC discussion list like New-Wineskin on yahoogroups.com. You'll learn more about "Home churching" from a healthy perspective than you will from the very biased perspective of these authors.

Rating:
Summary: Right Between the Eyes? The blind leading the blind.
Review: The House Church Movement? I thought only bowels have "movements." And that is how I felt after finishing this book. There are some good points regarding the Institutional Church and the shallowness of some home churches (HCs)not centering and trutsting on Jesus Christ alone, but the whole of the book is deceitfully dangerous. These "planters" or "workers" "plant" HCs that claim to be the only TRUE or biblical HCs in existance and any HC that wants to be truly Christ-centered needs to be taught by the "God-ordained worker" to lead us in the "right" path. So they say in subtle words. In actuality, they have switched from the OVERT control of Institutional Churches to the CO-VERT control of House Churches.

If anyone really wants to know more about Body-life and real, relational Christianity, and a balanced view of Home Churches, you won't find it here. You'll find instead a group of men proclaiming that "their way" is really the only right way. To be a valid HC you need to be "planted" - and planted by whom? You guessed it, one of them. Their elitest attitude and their shallow descriptions of other HCs are repulsive. They certainly had an agenda with this book, an agenda, in my opinion, much more sly than the IC ever came up with.

If you want to truly know more about "Home church" subscribe to a balanced HC discussion list like New-Wineskin on yahoogroups.com. You'll learn more about "Home churching" from a healthy perspective than you will from the very biased perspective of these authors.

Rating:
Summary: Much ecclesiastical sizzle, little spiritual steak...
Review: With a title like "The House Church Movement" one might expect to find an overview and history of the current exodus of true believers out of the pews of traditional steeple-house churchianity in search of a more organic expression of corporate "body life." Disappointingly, what one finds here is little more than grandiose pamphleteering for one small segment of the movement.

Even this could have been useful, had there been more hard information and less sloganeering. Some examples, facts, numbers, histories and testimonies would have been nice. Instead, there is little more than arrogant claims by the four authors that they are doing something right that hasn't been done on earth for nearly 1,800 years.

Although accredited to four disciples, anyone familiar with the movement's founder, Gene Edwards, will recognize his peculiar brand of hyperbole peppered throughout the tome. I have met with one of his groups in Rochester, New York and was present for several sessions with Gene himself presiding. Many chapters of the book are none other than Gene's own voice.

There are bright moments, and of course, the theme is important. Particularly worthy of reading and praying about is the chapter on the Church, the Dream and the Dreamer. Traditional churchianity is an old wine skin and monumentally unsuitable to contain the movement of the Holy Spirit and true body life that God is pouring out on the earth today as the Bride of Christ prepares to meet her soon returning Bridegroom.

Nevertheless, while professing liberty and freedom, the authors are clearly stating that they recognize no party or movement but their own as being true expressions of the life of Christ in a community of believers. It may not be intentional, but by refusing to embrace and celebrate ALL movement in the right direction to the exclusion of only their own methodolgy, these men set themselves up as the popes of the house church movement, who "give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their (own) anvil." How this serves to promote the unity in the Body of Christ that is everywhere called for throughout the New Testament is hard to understand.

Gene Edwards has written much useful material -- Climb the Highest Mountain, The Inward Journey, and of course the classic Tale of Three Kings. His understudies have produced a book of questionable value which is guaranteed to produce much heat and very little light among the uninitiated, and absolutely no new information or inspiration for those who are familiar with the subject matter and the particular movement in question.