The "revolution" has recently become big news—many committed believers are rethinking (or leaving) the established church for alternative forms of church and/or community.

The term, "revolution," popularized by George Barna in the book by the same name, describes many trends, but the main focus is on the move to non-traditional expressions of church (marketplace faith communities, house churches, arts, etc.).

Rabbi Gellman (who has some positive things to say about evangelicals in general) wrote about the move away from traditional, organized church in Newsweek as one of the top religious trends for 2006. (His excellent article is here.) Though this trend has not yet been noticed by many in the evangelical church, it is growing in prominence and reputation.

• Barna explains in his October 24, 2005, Barna Update: Millions of people are seeking God without going through a local church. This controversial movement of people is seeking to "be the Church instead of just going to church…"
  
  Barna explains here: In 2000, most of the nation's organized religious activity took place at or through local churches. Today, Barna's research points out, the action is shifting to newer forms of corporate religious commitment. In a typical week, 9 percent of all adults participate in a house church. An even greater proportion—22 percent engages in spiritual encounters that take place in the marketplace (e.g., with groups of people while they are at their place of work, play, or in other typical daily contexts).

In one chart, he describes the transition to a Christianity that is less connected to a local established church:

Primary Means of Spiritual Experience and Expression

Put simply, there is a significant group of men and women leaving the established / institutional church but holding to a form of Christian devotion. According to some, this has led to a dramatic increase in alternative faith communities, which in turn has led to some major theological and ecclesiological concerns.  Although this is not the focus of our polling research, see here, here, and my own here for theological responses to Barna's book and the trend.

Who Are These Revolutionaries and How Many Are There?

This house-church trend has attracted the attention of even the secular media. Time magazine recently featured an article on the subject, NBC news did a television segment. (Since ecclesiology—the theology of church—has become such a big issue among our churches, we, at the North American Mission Board, have created helps that explain what a church is through some ecclesiological guidelines.) These issues will continue to grow in prominence, forcing us to evaluate what a biblical church is. We can and must evaluate, in the light of scripture, not just in our history, tradition, and, for that matter, polling data.

What about the Numbers?

The numbers have made quite a splash—one headline declared "1 in 5 Americans Attend a House church."  At the Center for Missional Research (CMR), we wanted to go deeper to help inform our churches about what this trend means for them. Over the last several months, we commissioned Zogby International to survey more than 3,600 people (1200 interviews on three occasions) about several issues, but particularly about their involvement in spirituality and alternative expressions of church.

We asked, "Do you meet weekly with a group of 20 people or less to pray and study scriptures as your primary form of spiritual or religious gathering?"

• Remarkably, 26.3% of the 3600 Americans who were asked that question indicated that they did—as their primary form of spiritual or religious gathering.
• Comparatively, in one of the three surveys, we cross-tabbed the number to those who considered themselves "born again."  In that case, 42.1 % of those who identified themselves as born-again Christians said that they met weekly with a group of 20 or less people as their primary form of spiritual or religious gathering.

It should be challenging, exciting, and concerning that one out of four Americans consider their small or house group / church / synagogue / mosque to be their primary source of spiritual training. However, most of those who consider their small community to be their primary place of spiritual encouragement still attend church at a significant rate. Only a smaller percentage of those who attend a small spiritual community do not also attend church—but that is still a large number:

When we cross-tabulated the "small group" question with the "church attendance" question, we found that 50 out of 3,600 adults attend both a group of 20 or less and "rarely" or "never" attend a place of worship. If extrapolated, this is almost 1.4 percent of the American population and may represent the purest measure of those who are not involved in an organized church, synagogue, or mosque but still are involved in some alternative faith community like, in the Christian faith, a house church. That is about four million people—not a small number. Barna's people have estimated that a million Americans are involved in the "house church," or the Christian expression of the above trend. 

This trend toward home based faith expressions may also explain the significant number of people who identify themselves as "spiritual but not religious." According to an earlier CMR/Zogby poll, 22% of people consider themselves "spiritual but not religious," particularly those who rarely or never attend church. The less frequently they attend church, the more likely they are to consider themselves spiritual, but not in a religious way.  The chart below illustrates:

What Can We Learn?

While we don't celebrate the revolution if it means people leaving biblical churches, we need to recognize it is happening and ask "why?" A few years ago we were upset that so many from our churches were turning from us to Islam or Mormonism. Now things are different. They have not been recruited to another faith, many have been repelled by our practices.

We need to look more deeply into the Word so we can lead our churches to be more biblical—with biblical covenant community, biblical leadership, biblical church discipline, biblical preaching, and other biblical, foundational characteristics. It does not matter if a biblical church meets in a cathedral or a coffee shop. That's not the point. But it must be a church because God has chosen the church to make known His wisdom (Eph. 3:10).

New biblical forms need to be welcomed and affirmed, particularly those that evidence more of the true community that many are finding in alternative faith communities. We need to bless all forms of scripturally-sound churches. Why?  Because the church is essential.  The church is not the center of God's plan—Christ is.  But the church is central to the plan of Christ for His name and fame to be more widely known.

Ed Stetzer is Missiologist and Senior Director of NAMB's Center for Missional Research.
For more information on this and other studies and to subcribe to the CMR Insights Newsletter, go to www.namb.net/cmr.  © 2006 Center for Missional Research, All Rights Reserved.

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