Missional House Churches in America-Part 2

If you read the first post, you know that these two posts are the result of the fact that at least three major U.S. news papers carried stories last week on house churches.  In the 24 hours following post #1, I received notice that another U.S. story was published. In this final post, I want to provide you with a continued glimpse into the world of the house churches represented in my book Missional House Churches: Reaching Our Communities with the Gospel.    On Baptisms

• Churches baptized an average of 4-6 people in previous year
• Average membership to baptismal ratio 4.3:1 to 2.3:1 (In other words, on average, it took between 2 and 4 members per church to make one disciple in one year)
• Had some of the lowest baptism to membership ratios in the United States (range 1.4:1  to 14:1)
• Each church was comprised of 24-43% recent converts

On Church Planting

• Each church planted an average 4-6 churches in past three years
• Three churches in study planted 10 or more churches
• In the three years prior to study, the 33 churches had planted between 132-198 churches

On Use of Money

• Overwhelming majority of the churches used their financial resources in two main areas: benevolence and missions (some giving 80-90% to these two areas)

On Networking with Other Churches

• Half of the churches were connected with a network of other churches
• Half of the churches desired to be part of another network or were actively looking for a network
• A small minorty of the churches were connected to denominations (majority were non-denominational)