Home-churching
A report from America’s Finest News Source:
Norville Tucker, who moved his family to the woods outside Shelby, AL in 1998 to “escape the damaging cultural influences of urban Mobile,” is widely credited with pioneering the home-churching movement. Tucker said he was inspired to home-church when his 10-year-old son Macon returned from Sunday school singing a lighthearted song about Zacchaeus, a tax collector befriended by Christ, and then later recited the parable of the Good Samaritan.
“I couldn’t believe that the liberal elite had infiltrated even the study of our Holy Scriptures,” Tucker said. “It was bad enough that my youngsters were being taught evolution in public schools, but when I discovered they were learning to embrace foreigners and Big Government in Sunday school, I drew the line.”
9 Ripples from “Home-churching”
Scott says:
September 17, 2005 at 8:09 am
We did home churching for a while about 5 years a go. But it wasn’t to escape rabid liberalism, it was to get away for from people who thought that church is where Jesus lived.
Nicole says:
September 17, 2005 at 9:09 am
Are you sure your source is right? I could swear that was my Uncle David, in Virginia or Georgia, I’m sure. No, wait, he’s pastor of a Southern Baptist Church...not a home church. Right.
Eric L. says:
September 17, 2005 at 10:09 am
Norville Tucker pioneered the home-churching movement in 1998? There were house churches back in the 70’s during the whole Jesus movement. I used to be a part of a house church that is a part of a network of house churches (which i’m still a part of) which is part of an organization of networks of house churches which is among many other organizations of networks of house churches all around the world....and Norville Tucker didn’t have anything to do with it - i don’t think.
It’s mostly people who are wanting to live out faith and be Church outside of the traditional and institutional model of “doing” Church. House church is a decentralized model of Church (at least that’s what it tries to be). It’s often referred to as house church, simple church, or organic church (not cell groups or cell churches though - there’s a distinction). Anyway, the house church movement has nothing to do with people not wanting to embrace foreigners or Big government.
While the movement is not about escaping foreigners or Big government, there are people who go to house church because they are escaping Big church. Many people are becoming dissatisfied with the modern Church and end up running to house church to detox. Those people typically have a hard time being satisfied with house church too.
I wrote a related post here.
Eric
Heidi says:
September 17, 2005 at 11:10 am
Hi all -
This article is from “The Onion”, a spoof newspaper. It’s a totally made-up story. My boyfriend send me the link a few days ago and it brought us both lots of laughs - because we both have known many people who, if they didn’t fit the description of these folks exactly, came pretty close.
Of course home-churching itself, as a movement, may or may not be anything similar to what this article is describing in jest. I was part of one home-church that was similar enough that this post made me laugh; but I think the idea of a “home” church or a “coffee shop” church or any other out-of-the-box ideas can be really great.
Brandon says:
September 17, 2005 at 12:09 pm
*chuckling in a benevolent sort of way at this dialogue*
He he he, satire.
That’s all.
Jim says:
September 17, 2005 at 12:09 pm
I’m chuckling too. The first time I saw something from The Onion I got all lathered up about it! Then the friend who showed me the article said. “Uh, Jim? It’s satire.”
“I knew that!” I said and tried to walk away passively.
Eric L. says:
September 17, 2005 at 2:09 pm
Ha! That’s funny...something deep down made me suspicious about the whole thing… Norville Tucker seemed too stupid to be true (or maybe not).
zalm says:
September 17, 2005 at 5:09 pm
Heh. Didn’t mean to snooker anyone, I promise.
I think that the best satire is absurdly plausible, but with a wink to the audience. By only giving you an excerpt, I guess I gave you more of the believable and less of the wink.
So if you got fooled, don’t feel bad. The Onion is very good at what they do. And if you haven’t clicked over to read the full article, you should. The rest is pretty funny, too.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think the article was targeting house churches. And I think they were only partly going after home-schooling. Instead, I think they were mostly tweaking the idea that certain Christians have that the only way to live a “godly” life is to disengage as much as possible from the world and culture around them.
That said, (and I understand what you’re trying to describe, Eric, so please don’t feel like you have to defend yourself) there is something inherently funny about an affiliation of organizations of networks of individual churches that don’t want to be part of anything institutional.
-----
Presbypoet says:
September 27, 2005 at 4:09 pm
An organization of churches that don’t want to belong to an institution seems to describe baptists, since it is all voluntary. They are now having problems dealing with churches that want to believe heretical stuff. How can they ever discipline?
I’ve been thinking about church discipline, and how do we hold people accountable, if the worst we can do is tell them to leave. At least the PCUSA has a book of order, that if it was actually followed, would make a pretty good outline for a group of disciples. It just doesn’t get followed.
The idea of going off into the wilderness is nothing new. In the 3rd and 4th century you had the monks going off to find God, then founding a monastery, when others wanted to come and join.
We keep looking for something new, and it’s all is 2,000 years old. There are no new heresies, just new names.