Home Away From Home
by Jonathan Daugherty

Homeschooling is not really a new thing—not if we mean parents training up their own children. But, the home church movement is a fairly fresh one. The contemporary home church movement looks to get away from the institutional Church. Instead, the movement looks to a romantic view of the first century New Testament Church. The home church movement is folly.

The home church movement is folly in its immaturity. It is immature because it romanticizes and dreams of the immature church. It wants to be young, again. It's like the teenager sentimentally trying to ride his old tricycle. His knees are going to hit the handlebars. There is nothing wrong with being young, but when we are older we should act our age. I Corinthians 13:11 ought to help here. The same applies to the Church. God's Word clearly teaches that we are to graduate from milk to meat and not from meat to milk.

The home church movement is anti-authority. So, it is by no small coincidence that home-churching would take off and thrive within the baby boom generation. The one comfort may be in knowing that since the home church movement is so modern it won't last long. The movement is foolish also in its apathy for clergy. This disregard and distrust of the offices and officers of the Church is founded in the world's culture. It is not founded on Scripture.

The home church movement likes to be seen as being historic when it tries to model itself after the first century church. But like a true modernist, it is really thumbing its nose at history when it disregards the nineteen hundred years of church history between. When it does this it also dishonors our church fathers before us. The church may not be at the most mature point in her history, but she has certainly grown since the first century A.D. We would be wise to hear her in all her wisdom. She has fought many battles and we ought to fight with her now. In doing so, we fight right along side our fathers in the faith and our sons to come. The Church must march forward again toward a parish order and not backward toward home-churching and cell-grouping chaos.

One of the most beautiful pictures of the Church is that of a family. This picture is one of a working, ordered, and organic household. It is not one where one member is off in his room with the stereo blaring and a Do Not Enter sticker on the door, another has a Mickey Mouse phone growing out of her ear, and yet another is out in the garage listening to Harold Camping on the radio. No, it is the picture of an obedient bride, pure and holy. It is one of upright sons doing the work of their Father. Even the idea of adoption is pregnant with connotations of inclusion and unity and inheritance. All of this is the picture of one loving and obedient family unit.

The homeschool and home church movements have brought many to a more biblical family order and devotion. But when it sacrifices the biblical doctrine, unity, and authority of the Church, it is an unholy—an unacceptable sacrifice. It is because of the breakdown of the church that families fall apart. Families are simply not safe outside the institution of the Church.

And yet, on Sunday morning, we do not gather together to pledge allegiance to our families any more than we do to our country or favorite baseball team. So, we need be careful of the problem of putting the family before the church. We may come to the Lord's Table with our families, but we do not come as families. If this were so, I guess we would have to call it segmentation, or something, instead of communion. Our own families are to point to something far more wonderful and glorious than themselves, the Family of God, the Church.

Another picture of the Church is that of the Body of Christ. There are many members, but just one Head. It is true that the body does not live apart from the head. It is true, also, that parts or members do not live when they are not connected to the body. The members rot when they are severed and they cease to be members. They cease to be part of the body. There is no life outside of or apart from the Body. Our life is found within the Church and our salvation has a clear and visible relation to God's covenant people. Weak notions of the "invisible Church" need training. The Church is called out of the world and called together to congregate as God's covenant people. She is indeed an holy congregation.

In I Timothy, we find that one of the requirements for the office of overseer is that he be an overseer in his home. In other words, a man must first be a pastor in his home in order to be a pastor of a congregation. A father is to be sound in doctrine, and able to teach his family. He must be able to reprove and exhort his household. He needs to lead them and keep them as a shepherd to his sheep. He should have his house in order and under good discipline. The father is responsible for his family. He is a type of pastor to all in his house and he is wise to embrace this calling.

Fathers, lead your own families in the cultivation of a grand love for the Church. Let us teach our own by word and example to respect and submit to the God given authority of the Church and her elders. Let us all find our home in the Holy Church. May the 133rd Psalm sing in our hearts and the 84th ring within her walls. May we all find nourishment at her breast and safety beneath her wings.