Customer Reviews

The House Church: A Model for Renewing the Church

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This is a fascinating insight into the early church and how its experience offers a model for renewal today.

I have known Dr. Birkey for many years and attended his house church when I lived in Wheaton.

He knows what he is talking about from firsthand ministry experience and from outstanding scholarship.

Today, as I pastor a traditional church, I find myself constantly going back to the lessons I learned from Dr. Birkey's house church and from this book. And I find myself not only longing again for those days but working hard to move my own flock in the direction of renewal and community that Dr. Birkey describes.

The late Dr. Del Birkey's "The House Church: A Model for Renewing the Church" is 182 pages long, is divided into 9 chapters, and has 5 illustrations. The main focus is to show the biblical and practical reasons of how and why the New Testament "house church" model always has and always will be a key element for renewing the church.

It has several strengths. First, this is a scholarly work written by a formally trained and intelligent man, who has also had years of experiencing leading a house church. He knows of what he writes. Second, the author takes scripture seriously and examines them deeply to assess what the biblical understanding and practice of the church should be. It's not just the latest "fad" to come along that promises qualitative renewal and numerical growth. Third, the books deals with a number of key New Testament elements necessary for the proper form and function of the church, such as relationships, women, spiritual gifts, leadership, the place of the church meeting, the content of the church meeting, etc. Fourth, there is a very nice chapter that overviews the various house church and small group movements throughout church history and why they had an impact on their context, such as Martin Luther's view of the house church, the early Anabaptists, the early Moravians, the early Methodists, Spener's pietistic groups, and the early Brethren. He then touches on today's house church movements in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Japan, North Africa, and Latin America.

Several drawbacks should be pointed out. As scholars sometimes do, Birkey also gets mired down in details that may not be of interest to most readers, except the extremely diligent and scholastic. As such, it may be hard read for some. It's like eating a steak - one small bite at a time. Moreover, chapters 8 and 9 on "renewal" could have been combined with chapter 1, which was also on the concept of "renewal", into just one chapter summarizing the issue. I found there was too much talk of "renewal." Birkey's book is a little older and, thus, does not comment on the recent explosion of 1 million house churches in India or the massive exodus of North Americans from the institutional churches into house church-type groups.

All in all, this is an excellent scholarly introduction to the house church concept and well worth the read for those interested in what the New Testament actually teaches about church function and form.

RAD ZDERO, author of LETTERS TO THE HOUSE CHURCH MOVEMENT and THE GLOBAL HOUSE CHURCH MOVEMENT