Quote:
Originally Posted by North Jersey Baptist  This is a sidebar discussion inspired by the House Church thread.
I suppose there are many different methods of planting a new church. In our situation we were planted by a large Baptist church that "seeded" us with a large cash gift and monthly support checks for a period of time. Unfortunately we never had to give account for the money we were given. Our sending church never came along side us to help. We were truly on our own except for assistance with our book keeping. Looking back on that experience I wonder whether starting off as a house church would have been better than the way we took. We were saddled with a lease for office space and rent for a school we used twice a week. We also had two full time salaries (pastor and music pastor) and benefits; all for a brand new church that was not established in the community. Had we started in a house or a smaller facility we would have being better stewards of God's money. I also believe the sense of community among the members would have been stronger.
What is the consensus on the PB about church planting and meeting in homes? Have many of you been down this road? I'm interested in hearing different stories. |
The problem with meeting in someone's home is that it is not a public meeting. You can bend over backwards to insist that it is public and anyone is welcome to attend, but by and large, no visitor is going to be comfortable going to some stranger's house without a specific invitation. I had meetings in my house every Fri night for years and kept insisting it was a public meeting, but never once did we have a stranger join us.
I think it is very important that churches be as public as possible. So I recommend spending the extra money to get a public building even if it doesn't appear that you need the extra space. It is better to spend more money on a public building than to try to save money by turning church into a private affair.
