Planting Churches Among the City's Poor - Volume 2

P ART II: C HURCH P LANTING T OOLKIT • 241

A. New Wineskins: new forms of the Church

1. Change today is a way of life; changes occurring today are both frequent and radical, Foreword 1.

2. For the first couple hundred years of the Christian movement, all churches were house churches, Foreword 1 (not as common in our generation, with the exception of China). 3. Different folks and different strokes: house church networks, community churches, and mega-churches are all important in drawing people to God, Foreword 1.

4. House church networks as a new species of church emerging in North America, p. 1.

a. What is occurring in places like China, central Asia, Latin America, India, and Cambodia will soon impact North America.

b. In house church networks , each house church functions as a “little church.”

c. They function together as networks for the sake of fostering accountability and encouragement.

B. NT description of church: a flattened, egalitarian model of the church, p. 2

For Kreider, the original ekklesia of Acts was essentially the original egalitarian house church network upon which his model is based.

1. The NT church was defined as the people, p. 2.

2. Believers did not go to church or join the church; they were the church (what about Acts 2.47: praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved).

3. All members functioned as priests, everyone served as ministers (what about the apostolic role?), p. 2.

4. Each person got on-the-job training to make disciples, p. 2.

5. Practiced faith in spiritual families , and met in homes, p. 2.