We are a house church of homeschooling families in Northern California, that has been practicing this vision since 2001. Before then, like many of you, we had tried to find a church in our area that would unapologetically embrace homeschooling and family reformation as a central tenet of biblical vision and practice. In particular, we asked if the church leadership would recognize the biblical mandate of training Christian children differently from the world, and also if it recognized the primary role of fathers in the home and equip them for this (according to Eph. 4:12-16)—rejecting the common church practice of Sunday School, children’s church, youth groups, etc. What we all found repeatedly is that no existing church would insist on a distinct Eph. 6:4 training of Christian children with a biblical worldview. Moreover, none would exchange its practice of Sunday School for a biblical equipping of fathers in the home to teach their children. It came as quite a surprise to us to see that this rejection crossed all denominational boundaries and was firmly entrenched in Christendom. It was with this background that God began to show us that the man-based traditions of the contemporary church were not reformable, and that He was using homeschooling to reform His church back to biblical purity in some foundational ways. Knowing the Scriptural admonition to “not neglect the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb. 10:25), several families began to meet together on the Lord’s Day and seek the Lord as to how to proceed. We realized that God had called us to begin a house church that would be faithful to biblical family reformation. What we didn’t realize was how important it would be for the men to function interactively—each bringing something to the meeting as the Scripture describes in I Cor. 14:26: “What is it then brethren? Whenever you
come together, This one practice alone began to transform the men from silent spectators, to vital participants in the meetings, which spilled over into daily life. The well-known and pervasive homeschooling enigma of “passive” fathers, began to give way to active leadership in the church and home as “iron sharpened iron.” We now realize that this level of functioning simply cannot happen in the pastor-led, institutional model of today’s churches. We believe that it is for this reason that God has raised up a movement toward house churches---the New Testament model for the first 300 years of church history. However, most of the books written on house churches, unfortunately, do not see the hand of God in raising up the homeschooling movement as a necessary foundation for biblical house churches. Our experience over the past 7 years, practically linking these two God-ordained movements in one vision, is that our Lord has unmistakenly blessed it, and it is now our desire to help other homeschooling families understand the interrelationship of both movements and enter into all that God has intended. It is our view that God never intended homeschooling to be done without the full support and equipping of a local church. Indeed, this kind of radical family reformation requires very much sustained effort of both husbands and wives, while the surrounding culture and oftentimes relatives reject it. Unfortunately, most homeschool resources: books, tapes, and even conferences, omit the matter of the local church---as if it is irrelevant. God clearly states in His Word, that church IS relevant. (Matt. 16:18) Just imagine what it would be like if homeschooling was central to your local church’s vision and practice instead of never being mentioned for fear of offending someone! George Barna, the pre-eminent survey resource of the church in America for the past 25 years (Barna Group.org) has documented a very strong, unprecedented exodus OUT of the institutional churches during the past 8 years. Currently 12 million “dedicated”, 24/7 Christians have left the Sunday morning building ritual, and many are meeting informally. Barna states that if this strong trend continues, it will be the dominant form of Christianity within 15 years! The only question is about what form it will assume. It is our conviction that God has raised up the homeschooling movement to give the developing house church movement a solid ground floor: the reformation of the family. If homeschooling families do not begin to start new
house churches with a solid biblical family foundation, they will
continue to struggle as they have. And without homeschoolers’
leadership and direction, the new house church movement will continue
to wander aimlessly. We are here to help you. Please contact us
with your questions, participate in the Discussion Board Forum,
and see our Resource
page. |