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What’s Up:
Most churches confuse small groups with house churches. The results? Weak discipleship and missed opportunities.
So What:
If you’re serious about making more and better disciples, your format matters. The best results come from something deeper, messier, and more accountable than your typical study group.
The Point Is:
Small Groups Educate
They’re usually focused on content: a Bible study, a book, a sermon series. Great for knowledge, but discipleship needs more.
House Churches Transform
Real house churches include confession, worship, shared meals, accountability, prayer, generosity, and spiritual mentorship. It’s full-body Christianity.
Children Belong Too
In a true house church, kids are full participants. No separation. No age-specific fluff. Real intergenerational discipleship happens organically.
It’s Not Sunday-Centric
Most house churches don’t meet Sunday mornings. That’s cultural baggage. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday … whenever the community can be community.
And … ?
Here in the States, most house churches don’t explode into movement like they do in China or India. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth paying attention to. In the house church network my wife and I led nearly 25 years ago, we saw discipleship happen at a level no platform-based church in our area ever reached. More baptisms per capita. More transparency. More behavior change. More maturity. Because house churches are designed for it. You confess. You’re accountable. You eat, worship, pray, and serve together. That’s the environment where real growth thrives.
Is house church the future of your church? Probably not. But could you take the best parts of it and infuse them into your small groups? Absolutely. Dump the study-for-content model. Create rhythms that reflect the whole life of a disciple. Prioritize behavior change over head knowledge. And for heaven’s sake, stop doing prayer requests and just pray. That’s where the real work begins.
Action!
Download the Simple Small Groups ebook and grab the framework that helped transform our house churches into discipleship factories: https://fun.effectivechurch.com/simple-small-groups
