Lausanne World Pulse – House Churches in the United Kingdom
By Peter Brierley
February 2008
At the time, it seemed very innovative, and, indeed, odd. Go to worship God in someone’s home? But while the Chinese Home (or House) Church Movement had started in the 1950s as a reaction against the religious clamp-down of the Communist takeover in 1949, and the burgeoning African Independent Churches had been meeting in homes for several decades by the 1960s, nevertheless, in relatively staid British church life, meeting in a house was unusual and viewed with much suspicion.
Initially, it was known theologically as “The Restoration Movement”; however, in the 1970s the more popular term was “The House Churches.” As the different fellowships grew and meeting in houses became physically impossible, in the 1980s the then-apostolic leadership changed their name to “The New Churches.” However, old habits die hard, and the mental picture that many outside the movement have is still “House Churches.”
Early History of House Churches in the UK
The formative influencers in Britain were two men from a Christian Brethren background—Arthur Wallis and David Lillie—who convened three conferences in Devon in 1958, 1961 and 1962 to explore the restoration of the New Testament Church. Wallis started the first house church in 1964, and others, increasingly inclined charismatic Bible teachers, joined the effort. Those attending them delighted in a new freedom of worship away from traditional practices and restrictions. It was the beginning of the impact of the charismatic movement outside the Pentecostal churches which has now touched (and transformed) thousands of churches of all denominations in the UK and abroad.
The early 1970s saw leaders such as John Noble, Gerald Coates, Terry Virgo, George Carleton and David Mansell, who not only started a series of house churches (each of which were later called “streams,” although in most respects they were like small denominations), but began to meet together. Independently, a former Guyana missionary, Bryn Jones, started a “community church” in Bradford. A series of Bible Weeks began (initially at Capel and then in 1976 in Harrogate). These events drew thousands of people and many of those attending enjoyed their vitality and exuberance without embracing the Restorationist philosophies of “covenant relationships” and “apostolic ministries.”
The numbers attending House Churches grew rapidly in the 1970s; the two hundred operational in 1980 were attended collectively by some ten thousand people.
A conference called by Wallis in 1971 was a catalyst in identifying seven key leaders, subsequently augmented to fourteen, who were considered to have apostolic authority. Humanly speaking, it is these fourteen who were the engine behind the growth seen in the 1970s. Eschatologically, the movement sought the emergence of a spotless bride ready to welcome the returning king. In practice, the leaders were bound together in covenant relationships, joined together in a way which would supersede the broken state of the old denominational churches. The fourteen charismatically gifted and proven men were called “apostles.”
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Dr. Peter Brierley, a church consultant, is the Senior Lausanne Associate for Church Research. He attended Lausanne I in 1974 and has been involved with the Lausanne movement since 1984. He is former executive director of Christian Research, a UK charity which produces resource volumes like Religious Trends and the UK Christian Handbook. Brierley can be reached at [email protected]. |
