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The simple church is an Evangelical Christian movement that reinterprets the nature and practice of church.
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Simple
A simple church may meet anywhere with or without trained leaders, formal liturgy, programs or structures. To facilitate relationship, discipleship (spiritual formation), multiplication, mobility, and member ownership, a simple church is usually a small group of no more than 20-25 persons. Most Church "programs" privately meet during some days of the week and discuss troubles that they are having with their faith, and personal life. Church "programs" are virtually nonexistent and small group participation is essential. The process of moving from worship to small group, small group to mission work, and mission work to worship is a primary focus.
Authors Tony and Felicity Dale, founders of House2House Ministries, have promoted the term "simple church" in their book "Simply Church". The term is often used interchangeably with other terms like organic church, essential church, primitive church, bodylife, relational church, and micro-church.
In the early twenty-first century a number of established Christian denominations and mission organizations have officially supported efforts to develop house church networks. These include the Free Methodist Church in Canada, the Foursquare Gospel Church of Canada, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Partners in Harvest, the Southern Baptist Convention, Dove Christian Fellowship International, DAWN Ministries (Discipling a Whole Nation), Youth With A Mission (YWAM), and Eternal Grace.
Origins and influences
Many in the simple church movement point to the New Testament, especially the Gospels, Acts, and the writings of the Apostle Paul for justification of their model (see House Church, Scriptural Basis). Historically speaking, simple gatherings of Christians were the norm of Early Christianity. Between 100AD and 300AD, Christianity grew from 25,000 to 20 million people in the Roman Empire. In fact, much of the New Testament was written to people who met in house churches.
Early Christian house churches were patterned after house synagogues which were numerous. Christians took a low-cost and easy-to-multiply model and adapted it to their new Christian context. In addition, the Communion service, sometimes called the Lord's Supper, was uniquely Christian (though modeled on the Passover). Since it did not apply to Jews and therefore did not fit in the Jewish synagogues, it had to be celebrated somewhere else. House churches were the natural place for communion to be shared. As time went on, Christians were banned from Jewish synagogues as persecution intensified (see Split of early Christianity and Judaism). Although house churches flourished in times of persecution, they were well-established before them.
In the West, simple church can be traced back to the house church movement. In North America and the UK particularly, the house church movement is often viewed as a development and logical extension of the 'Brethren' or Plymouth Brethren movement, where many individuals and assemblies have adopted new approaches to worship and governance, while others recognise a relationship to the Anabaptists, Quakers, Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, Moravians, Methodists, and the much earlier Waldenses and Priscillianists. Another perspective sees the house church movement as a re-emergence of the movement of the Holy Spirit during the Jesus Movement of the 1970s in the USA or the worldwide Charismatic Renewal of the late 1960s and 1970s. Others see it as a return to a New Testament church restorationist paradigm and a restoration of God's eternal purpose and the natural expression of Christ on the earth, urging Christians to return from hierarchy and rank to practices described and encouraged in Scripture.
Simple church has also been influenced by overseas missions and the growth of church planting movements. Church planting movements are spontaneously growing church multiplication efforts.
The missional Movement has also influenced simple church.
Values
As in any decentralized, spontaneous movement, a variety of values are expressed in simple church. Due to the influence of some key groups and Acts 2:42-47, three overarching values have emerged in many circles. Adherents Paul Kaak (who began ministry in one of the largest and most systematized mega-churches in America) and Neil Cole originally articulated these values using the letters DNA. According to him:
These values have since been promoted by House2House Ministries and DAWN North America, and have been adopted by various groups such as New York's MetroSoul
Practices
Adherents George Barna and Frank Viola's book Pagan Christianity points out a number of reforms that organic churches often advocate.
Media and popular attention
In the early twenty–first century the growth of the movement has had increased news media coverage:
Many books have been written on the simple church movement, especially by insiders (see House Church, Recommended Books). In the early twentyfirst century books began to appear by those studying the movement from a more objective view, including George Barna's Revolution. Barna says that "revolutionary" expressions such as simple church will soon account for one third of American spirituality.
Visibility of the movement also increased due to national and regional gatherings of various kinds. The largest of these is the Annual House Church Conference held in Dallas, USA and occasionally at other locations by House2House.
Criticism
How the simple church movement relates to constructing a theology and ecclesiology is the subject of much debate, especially with critics of the movement.
Several prominent voices have serious concerns about simple church. For example, J. Lee Grady (Charisma Online Editor) says such a movement wants to "reinvent the church without its biblical structure and New Testament order — and without the necessary people who are anointed and appointed by God to lead it. To follow this defective thesis to its logical conclusion would require us to fire all pastors, close all seminaries and Bible colleges, padlock our sanctuaries and send everybody home..." Grady and other critics worry that the simple church movement could encourage people to leave more traditional forms of church, which could lead to further collapse or decline of Christendom.