Joe, Thanks for inviting conversation around this topic. We are currently in a new church development process here in Detroit which is asking those questions and experimenting with answers. We are building relationships among three different "house church" communities across the city. Once a month, we borrow space in a building from another church in order to gather with the combined groups. We don't have intentions on worshipping as a large group every week, because each neighborhood/house church already has their own rhythms of meeting weekly in their own community. We do not desire to own a building of our own for both financial and mission-minded reasons.
The benefits of not having a building are multiple: not having the costs associated with it, not having people get in the mindset that the building is central to the ministry, interacting with our church and community in spaces that are not owned by us, having to be creative rather than getting into routines based on a consistent meeting space, we don't fall into a consumeristic mentality of providing goods and services to the church.
The challenges are: The need for good communication is critical because of a lack of a consistent meeting space for people to depend upon. It can also be challenging to be nomadic in setting up for a gathering (even once a month). People with needs also seek us out in our homes rather than a building, which can be a challenge to have need coming to our doorstep rather than an "organization" like a church building provides.
If we were to settle on a consistent space for our monthly gathering (or if we decided a more frequent pattern of gathering with the larger group was better) we would try to find a space to utilize that was already a neighborhood asset in order to partner with other community-serving agencies.
Those are some initial thoughts to keep the conversation going.
Posted in: Organic Church
Joe, Thanks for inviting conversation around this topic. We are currently in a new church development process here in Detroit which is asking those questions and experimenting with answers. We are building relationships among three different "house church" communities across the city. Once a month, we borrow space in a building from another church in order to gather with the combined groups. We don't have intentions on worshipping as a large group every week, because each neighborhood/house church already has their own rhythms of meeting weekly in their own community. We do not desire to own a building of our own for both financial and mission-minded reasons.
The benefits of not having a building are multiple: not having the costs associated with it, not having people get in the mindset that the building is central to the ministry, interacting with our church and community in spaces that are not owned by us, having to be creative rather than getting into routines based on a consistent meeting space, we don't fall into a consumeristic mentality of providing goods and services to the church.
The challenges are: The need for good communication is critical because of a lack of a consistent meeting space for people to depend upon. It can also be challenging to be nomadic in setting up for a gathering (even once a month). People with needs also seek us out in our homes rather than a building, which can be a challenge to have need coming to our doorstep rather than an "organization" like a church building provides.
If we were to settle on a consistent space for our monthly gathering (or if we decided a more frequent pattern of gathering with the larger group was better) we would try to find a space to utilize that was already a neighborhood asset in order to partner with other community-serving agencies.
Those are some initial thoughts to keep the conversation going.