So how many Americans go to a house church?
September 2, 2009
This week, the Barna Group, a Christian research/survey organization, published “How Many People Really Go To A House Church?” a study of house churches in America.¬† Besides looking at the history of house churches, the article includes an interesting examination of American views on hou
se churches.
When asked if they had attended a “worship service” at a home in the past month, about 10% of the adult population said they did so.¬† However, when the wording changed to “religious service,” the percentage went up to about 14%.¬† Then when the question changed to “Have you experienced God or your faith in a house church or simple church meeting,” ONE THIRD of Americans said they had been to such a meeting in the past month.
Perhaps the words “worship” and “religious” are somewhat loaded in our culture, and associated with very specific rites, whereas the experience of faith in the presence of other believers is something separate, seen as more casual.
One of the ideas of Transmission is to merge these definitions and to realize that “worship” is meant to be organic and does not need to be confined to what we do in church pews, that the “experience of God and faith” can be experienced in our living rooms, gardens and kitchens any day, any time: as the Bible said, God is present any time two or more are together in his name.
One Response to “So how many Americans go to a house church?”
Wow – this is really interesting. And I agree that words can be a barrier. I hardly ever refer to myself as “religious” because it carries so much baggage. “Spiritual” also has a lot of weirdness attached to it. There’s no secret that I think the word “faith” is largely abused and misused, so the only word I’m 100% comfortable with is “Christian.” I guess that describes me pretty well.
By Isaac on Sep 3, 2009