- Ps Ian Freestone
In August 1989, while holidaying in Central Australia, I had a prophetic word given to me in my sleep,
"You don't grow a church from the outside in but from the inside out. The house church is the basis for growth and the key to growth is faith."
Because of my interest in evangelism, particularly in the Australian context, these "words in the night" were very provoking, but puzzling as I didn't really know what a House Church was! I had been involved in home fellowship groups and bible studies but the concept of the Church in the house was new to me.
Two other, rather incidental things, were also spoken during that night. In the next few months those two incidental things came to pass. I reasoned that this was God's way of showing me that His word concerning "church in the home" would come to pass. I put the words in the back of my mind and gave it no serious attention until the following year when I went on staff, as a Church Army evangelist, to All Saints at Balgowlah; an Anglican Church in Sydney. The congregation under the leadership of Rev Baden Wynn, had experienced significant renewal and had been transformed into a vibrant community of prayer and worship. They felt that the next step forward was evangelism and reaching out into the community and so asked me to come on staff.
In June 1990 prayer intensified both at the congregational level and among the staff concerning the way forward: "Lord, how can we best grow Your Church? How can we best reach out to the lost?" In one of these staff prayer meetings, Baden shared how the Lord had been waking him up at 3.00am in the morning over the last few weeks concerning a new set of structures for the church. It was a whole new way of thinking about "church". Here is a summary of what the Lord was showing Baden:
* The nucleus of the church was to be "church" in the home. Each of these home (cell) churches would be networked together in an area and join together for celebrations.
* There was to be an unpaid pastor leading each home church.
* Each of the home churches would raise up leaders so that as new people come in the church would multiply.
* The members of a home church would comprise the "total family", with no age divisions.
* Within the home church everything happens. It is the Church! Edification, fellowship, worship, breaking of bread, exercising of gifts, pastoral care and reaching out into the community would all take place through the ministry of the house church. Such ministries are in turn supported by the congregational identity as cells are linked together.
* The full congregation would meet at least once a month for a celebration service. This was to be a time of giving thanks for what God is doing, has done and will do. The celebration time was to include creative praise and worship, testimony and a message of exhortation.
* Home Church pastors meet regularly with the pastorate leaders for training, encouragement and a review of the agenda for the meetings.
* Integral to the success of the vision is the use of retreat centres so that house church members could go away together several times in a year for mutual encouragement and spiritual refreshment.
Baden expressed what God had given him by saying, "Its all about growing a church from the inside out". These were the exact words that the Lord had spoken to me 12 months before. I now knew that this must be God. It was a vision of a church that instead of being "building centered, clergy centered, Sunday centered" and saying to the world "come to us" (and therefore trying to pull people from the "outside in") became centered around the life of small vibrant home communities with each person released in their areas of ministry. Each community (and the individuals within it) would be active in sharing their faith, new people would be won for the Lord, groups would grow and multiply, literally from the "inside out". We were a church that had a good home group/small group program but we realised that this new vision was quite different to our home group program which was just one of a number of other programs that our church had.
After developing this vision largely within the context of the Anglican Church (1991-1993) there came a time for me, and 6 months later for Baden when the decision was made to pursue the neighbourhood church vision independent of the Anglican Church. Those wanting to be involved in the house churches were sent out and a new movement begun. We called it Ruach Neighbourhood Churches (Ruach from the Hebrew word meaning spirit or breath of God, because we felt that this was something God had breathed into existence). I wouldn't advocate to anyone in a traditional church who had a vision for a home-based church to form an independent movement. I am not suggesting that it would be the ideal to do so, but it seemed the only way for us at the time given the breadth of the mandate we felt the Lord seemed to be giving us; that is, to reach the city and the nation for Christ through the planting of neighbourhood churches.
For the first 2 years since beginning the first neighbourhood church, we stumbled along, simply following what we felt God had told us to do. We didn't read about it in a book or hear about it at a conference. Then somebody lent me Where Do We Go From Here by Dr Ralph Neighbour. We ordered more copies and others began reading the book. I personally was very encouraged to see that what God was doing with us was something He was doing with many people all around the world. Ralph speaks of a "second reformation" sweeping the church. It was exciting to think that unbeknown to us we had got caught up in something wonderful that God was doing worldwide by His Spirit. A few months later Baden, and wife Val, were invited by YWAM to attend a 3 month intensive cell-church planting course with Ralph Neighbour at Faith Community Baptist Church in Singapore.
They returned to Sydney with a truck load of ideas and resources! Over the 18 months that followed we discovered that many of the ideas and resources from Singapore provided handles for us to see aspects of the vision that the Lord had given us realised in our own context. In September 1995 we hosted our first Australian Cell Conference with Ralph Neighbour and Lorna Jenkins (consultant on intergenerational cells). The "Uncle Ralph" connection has helped us to see a number of things:
The value of "supervisors" i.e unpaid pastors who had oversight of 3-4 cells (neighbourhood churches) and their leaders. This allowed us to give the pastoral support that was necessary to the leaders of the cells, and closer monitoring of the life of each cell.
The necessity of apprentice cell leaders. Instead of allowing a group to grow and then looking around for someone to lead a new multiplied cell we began appointing apprentices who from the start were preparing to lead a cell of their own.
The importance of an equipping track - this includes intentional steps of learning through experience in areas of bible knowledge, christian values, and evangelism.
The priority of leadership training and an understood leadership equipping track.
The benefit of feedback through leaders reporting on progress or difficulties.
The importance of goals, planning and budgeting.
The need to keep the focus on growth through conversion rather than through transfers from other churches.
We pray that we might develop as a movement of God's Spirit to the glory of Jesus Christ with prayer being the foundation for all we do.