1. Traditional church.
2. Emerging church.
3. House church.
The American church world breaks down into 3 main groups.
1. Traditional church.
Sometimes called "legacy churches", this is church as we know it, with Sunday 11 a.m. "worship services", Sunday School classes and is building based, pastor-led, program-driven, etc. This church has been around forever and the feeling of those attending is this is what we have and know and love… and we are determined to make the best out of it! "Bloom where you are planted" and so on. The vast majority of church goers in this country fall into this category.
2. Emerging church.
3. House church.
The cornerstone of this movement is not looking forward for a new type of church experience but looking backward to the First Century. Emphasis is on the apostolic, New Testament type church that Paul and his co-workers planted: Thus you find them meeting in homes (Rom 16:5,1 Cor 16:19), eating a meal together (sometimes called a love-feast; Jude 12, 1 Cor 11) and assembling with each person contributing to the gathering with spiritual gifts for the edification of the church (1 Cor 12-14). The bulk of this group seems to be families but I am not certain enough on that to make a big point of it.
Comments welcome and appreciated!!
3 replies on “The American church world breaks down into 3 main groups.”
jeff,
i would agree if you added one more – the “contemporary church”
the traditional church [old-line churches]
the contemporary church [main-line churches]
the emerging church [postmodern churches]
house church [postmodern churches also]
those outside the emerging see churches like willowcreek and saddleback as “emerging” – and they are so not even close 🙂
Hey, Jeff. I’d say you did a very accurate job of describing things pretty well… given the fact that we know you were generalizing and each ‘category’ really describes a broad range of groups, actually.
Not sure what you mean about house churches being families, though. Have you really seen a lot of that?
Jeff,
You stated it very well. I believe that the picture of what is happening is beginning to become clear to many others. The bride is making herself ready. I belong to a small house church. Just letting Jesus lead and not being led by a man is beautiful.