Backyard Baptism - The House Church Way

  My friends baptized their kids in a backyard swimming pool this afternoon and in my mind I couldn't help seeing visions of ancient New Testament believers being dunked in fountains and reflecting pools and rivers all across the middle eastern world as the gospel quickly spread across the region two thousand years ago... minus the cell phones and pocket cameras snatching their digital images instantly uploaded to the Cloud (gives new definition to the "cloud of witnesses").

A circuit-riding house pastor oversees the baptism of 2 kids by their parents in a backyard pool.

  But my visions were not only reminiscent of the past, for I also saw into the future as I was struck by the durability of the house church movement, the modern version being around since the 1800's but exploding with growth over the last ten years as the institutional church continues its God-ordained decline.

  My own exodus from the church is only four years old, but I am already aware of some of the long term benefits that the backyard festivities today brought to mind:

Freedom Reigns

  By far the most dominant characteristic of the movement outside the walls of the church is the freedom that dawns so brightly as the sun comes up the morning after another church refugee leaves the empire.

• Freedom from denominational dogma.  Liberated believers are free to shed the traditions and ordinations of the church.  There's no licensed legalist to tell them not to practice communion and baptism without an ordained minister on hand (although many house churches are attended by an abundance of former pastors).  I've even seen Mountain Dew and Ding Dongs used as communion sacraments and I don't think Jesus was the least bit upset about it.  Denominational doctrines are up for discussion in the home group.   It's just us, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit... and the internet.  No credentialed big shots telling us what we must believe.  If we want exegesis we go on line and read the latest blog from the scholars at Asbury or Moody or Wheaton.  In an instant we can learn and evaluate doctrines from the great theologians... if we care to know what any high-minded stuffed shirt thinks (because many of them don't seem to know much about grace).
• Freedom from condemnation.  Although it can take many years to purge the legalism and guilt out of one's soul, most freedom exiles start to loosen up as soon as they realize that there is nobody looking over their shoulders with a pointing finger or a disapproving  look (that is, after the fallout from the initial explosion has subsided a bit.  There is an inevitable sifting of friends and family members that follows an exodus, but it subsides with time).  Grace is the pervading attitude in the home group.  Non-condemning, nonjudgmental, let-me-be grace.
• Freedom from liturgy and protocol.  Would you like to have church at the ice cream shop?  Our group has done it several times.  We have also met at the park where we went for a one-hour run/walk before sitting down and dialoguing.  We don't meet on Sunday mornings, and we don't have worship time if we don't feel like it, and we don't have prayer before or after the offering... because there's no offering.  People get up and leave the discussion for more coffee or pizza and then come back a few minutes later... if they're not in the back yard leaning over the fence talking to the neighbor.  The institutions of the church vanish into the distance over time.  And the altar call?  What is that?
• Freedom from rhetoric.  Pious platitudes are a thing of the past.  The talking head (the sermon) is long gone.  Seminars and conferences don't exist.  We are all about conversation.  When's the last time you tried to interrupt your pastor's sermon with a question from the floor?  How did that work out for you?  It happens all the time in the home group.  Oh, the freedom of it all!

  A few years ago I heard a critic of the emerging church predict that the movement would be dead inside ten years.  The only problem with his statement was blind ignorance of the facts.  Recent studies indicate that it is the institutional church which in fact is declining and at faster rates every year.  Last month I heard a researcher report that the number of believers outside the church now outnumbers those still attending.

  Demonizing the movement won't stop the trend.  God will stop it when he wants to.  For the time being, it looks as though he wants to keep it going, perhaps until enough of us have been dumped outside the salt shaker and into the world where we he can finally do some good with us.

  

And the Band Played On...

  While the Titanic was sinking the band kept playing, even though there were people needing assistance getting into the lifeboats.  So it is today in the institutional church.

  My suggestion to my friends still playing in the band is to leave your post and help somebody escape.  Do it in small increments at first if you need to.  Miss church on one Sunday per month and hang out with a neighbor.  Go boating or fishing with a fellow employee at work.  Take your family on a Sunday adventure at the arcade or the movie theater.  Take a sabbatical from daily devotions for a month.  Give yourself a break from the fixtures of the institution.  Baptize your kids in the swimming pool.  Serve Mountain Dew and Ding Dongs (are they back on the market yet?) for communion at your next home Bible study.  Do something unconventional.  

  And just see if you feel a bit freer.  If not, go back to what you were doing if you want.  No problem.  No worries.  No condemnation.

  The work of Christ is freedom (Gal 5:1).  I love you, and I want you to be free.