Posted 938 days ago

The House: A New Hybrid in Seattle

By Eric Likkel, Northwest Hothouse

Churches come in all shapes and sizes. In the emerging stream of church planting, groups intentionally shape themselves for the place and people of their call. Choices are based in context, and because people are diverse, we expect ministry approaches to reflect diversity. Beyond an appreciation for different kinds of church expressions, I am amazed to witness the blending of approaches in ways I had never anticipated when I began my own journey of church planting eleven years ago.

In some ways, it is like choosing the best vehicle for the journey. To reach some destinations, you fly in a large airplane. Other places are best reached on a bicycle. Most of us value the variety of vehicles available to us, and we do not imagine constricting future travel by always choosing a bicycle over an airplane, or vice versa. In fact, not only will we embrace different kinds of vehicles at different times, we are excited by the advancement of hybrids! Likewise, in reaching out to people, neighborhoods, and cities, we welcome a variety of vehicles and approaches in ministry, including hybrids. We recognize how “necessity is the mother [and God is the Father] of invention.” You might say this is one of the driving impulses of the fresh expressions of church today.

Among Seattle’s wide array of emerging churches, one such “hybrid” group, The House, is learning to live out classic emergent ministry values on an intimate scale. It is precisely the scale of a small “house church,” which effectively facilitates community for some who avoid the church in larger, less personal, more institutional forms. But beyond the personal warmth and hospitality so often associated with house church movements, The House seems to have learned lessons from previous generations of their kind. For those of us who have watched or participated in this kind of a church plant, having enjoyed relationships and community only to have the whole thing implode after a few years, their story could be an encouragement.

Brian and Betsy Turnbull were drawn to Seattle a couple years ago by a longing to connect people with the Gospel, the kind of people who remain untouched by dominant church models and experiences. Both had served as Pastors of Discipleship at a classic Willow Creek-style church plant, hired two or three years after that ministry started with a focus on a weekly worship event. What was thought of as “discipleship” came second to what was thought of as “worship.” While the Turnbulls do not spurn the successes of that approach, they clearly see the need for other ways, or other vehicles, of engaging culture and community. When asked to compare specific ministries or church plants with The House, two which most remind the Turnbulls of their own include Mosaic in Bellingham, Washington, and Adullam of Denver, Colorado. These groups combine many of the elements that define The House: shared rhythms of life among the church, alternate gatherings of smaller house meetings with semi-public worship gatherings once or twice a month, significant time and energy invested in social justice and civic engagement at a local level.

Getting to know Brian and Betsy is pretty easy. Open, accessible, and unpretentious, both members of this couple smile easily and speak fondly of friends and neighbors. They seem well suited to move in and through the neighborhood(s) they have recently made home, undaunted by the “Seattle Freeze,” which often stifles newcomers. Taking their two little boys to the park, shaking hands at the coffee shop, showing up again and again, they earn their place by becoming part of the social fabric. Not overly charismatic or ambitious, they seem genuinely concerned about individuals and bonds of friendship, rather than institutional achievements or trappings of ministry. Their dreams reflect the name of their church, The House: to be a spiritual home and family; a place to belong and be known, to know God and others. As one member recently shared, “It feels like family…without all the interesting dynamics that go with your real family.”

These and other signs of life identify this group with the house church movement familiar to many in the emerging church world. But like many recent expressions of the church, The House moves beyond the boundaries of “first generation” versions of itself. The House is part of a greater movement to expand the meaning of “community.” Some say it is the difference between what people describe as “community building” versus “community development.” Among the emergent, it is a gradual shift from the internal to the external focus. It is a taming of that insatiable appetite for intimacy inside a select inner group, so that one might cultivate a hunger to know, and be known among, the neighborhood and culture.

Here is where Brian and Betsy help lead the way: their civic engagement began immediately, and is being reproduced among their members. There was no delay in waiting for The House to reach certain benchmarks, or achieve certain growth goals, before becoming active in the neighborhood. Very quickly, Brian joined the Wedgewood Neighborhood Council; he soon became a volunteer co-chair of the neighborhood’s Summer Cinema. This neighborhood initiative drew nine hundred people last year, involving local merchants who provided coffee, refreshments, and helped foster a great sense of community. Betsy joined the Ravenna Eckstein Advisory Council, and helped start the Red Wagon Rangers, a neighborhood group that cleans up graffiti and garbage.

This kind of activity is becoming more common among church planters and emerging groups of all kinds, but it may make the biggest difference for small groups like The House. No longer defined solely by the “we’re-the-alternative-to-big-and-we’re-proudly-non-programmatic” factor, a determined approach to positive neighborhood activism demonstrates a mustard seed principle: small things of the Kingdom can make big differences. Differences beyond the emotional, spiritual lives of the members of the group; differences felt by the greater community around The House. For those who go along on this journey into the neighborhood, it increases faith by stretching it in healthy ways. According to another member of The House who describes their discipleship emphasis, “Brian and Betsy have a way of stretching people, without making them fall apart.” These words evince the marks of leadership and vision in which a relational approach takes precedence over an institutional, programmatic approach. And the relationships are fertile: they birth relationships of service and friendship outside the gathered core. Stretching without falling apart. Staying together without imploding. A small group making a big difference outside themselves.

What kind of ministry is The House? Indeed, one might argue the lines seem blurred. Certain aspects of this group clearly identify it as part of the house church movement, while in other ways it resembles a cell-based church, or even an emerging church gradually moving toward their future identity as a worship community. What kind of ministry vehicle is it? Is it a bicycle, car, or caravan? To the builders of The House, the answer is that categorizing does not seem to matter too much; it is not the name of the model which is stamped in bold letters on The House’s blueprint, or on the hearts of its leaders. Rather, it is the name of Christ and the name of their neighborhoods—Wedgewood and Ravenna—that will ultimately shape The House. Their challenge, shared by all of us within the emerging stream of renewal, is to discover which vehicle—and what hybrids—are right for the journey of our calling.

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