Review of Wolfgang Simson's Houses that Change the World

Wolfgang Simson, Houses That Change the World: The Return of the House Churches.

Carlisle, UK and Waynesboro, GA: OM Publishing, 2003, c1999.

You can order a hardcopy of the book through Amazon or you can dowload a free PDF version here

Wolgang Simson’s primary thesis is that there is only one type of church structure that is adequate for fulfilling the Great Commission. Simson’s book has as its major premise that house church is the only real biblical model of church and therefore has the advantage over all other models. This book is self-defined as a vision statement, a manifesto and a church planting manual.

Simson begins his argument by defining the current status of church planting in the world. Keep in mind that this was written over a decade ago. By focusing on four main themes–women, family fathers, five-fold ministry and pastors–Simson believes he can help define the major factors that will affect the future of the Christian church. He starts this in chapter one with a discussion on the church gap resulting from the huge exodus of people who have been dissatisfied and frustrated with the existing church. This dissatisfaction, he believes, is a result of an improper understanding of church and a refusal to meet where God intended it to meet. If churches would meet in homes, women, fathers and pastors could exercise their natural roles to help the church experience its fullness in the home.

Simson does a good job in chapter two of giving an historical overview of the institutionalized church throughout the Dark Ages. The professionalization of the priesthood mixed with the banning of the house church led to an acceptance of only state-sanctioned and state-controlled church structures. Although men like Luther, Schwenkfeld and Spener made some efforts to reform the institutionalized church, their attempts often were thwarted or redirected. Wesleyan cells and the Anabaptist movement experienced a revival of sorts, since both insisted upon the house-based church structure. Simson comes close at the end of that chapter to identifying all opposition to house church as false prophets.

In chapter three Simson explains the nature of house church. His main point is that the structure or locale of house church drives the nature of the church. The elements of a shared meal, shared possessions, mutual teaching and corporate prayer made up the essence of house church. Simson draws upon biblical references to prove that churches met in homes, and then he makes some practical applications based upon the theory that entire families were involved in those meetings.

Simson explains the five-fold ministry more fully in chapter five. After a unique rendition of calculations and multiplication theorems, he jettisons into a discourse of pastors, prophets, apostles, teachers and evangelists. These roles of church leadership are exercised in three areas–eldership, five-fold ministers and apostolic fathers. The proofs for his argument are backed by biological examples of acidic soil.

To solve the current problem of frustration with church, Simson suggests house church as the natural solution. He enlists the example of Yonggi Cho’s cell model to contrast an imperfect solution. The more natural and more biblical model of house church has thirteen reasons why it has the advantage. Among those are the shared leadership, the success rate in peaceful countries, the holistic nature of house church, a flat structure, elder-led in a decentralized format, flexible worship format and low visibility. These kinds of advantages make the house church a more successful model for church planting.

In chapter six Simson deals with the blessing of persecution. His argument is not just how to survive persecution but how to thrive under it. With almost a martyrdom syndrome, Simson celebrates the historical examples of growth under persecution and then moves to identify the persecutor as religion itself.

Chapters seven and eight are devoted to change. As a basic call for revolution, Simson outlines how a traditional church can transition into a house church. He lists some of the potential positive outcomes for this transition and then gives practical advice in how to move a church through the change process.

He entitles the next chapter “QSQ” to describe the movement of the Holy Spirit to initiate a different kind of quality into the church that is spirit-led. That quality leads to a new structure, the right one being house church. And then that structure drives the quantity, more reproduction of smaller groups. He draws upon the work of German research Christian Schwarz to justify his theory that smaller groups reproduce more quickly and thereby become more healthy churches.

The last three chapters of his book are more of a pep-rally to enlist the reader’s support for a house church movement. He again solicits the family image for a clearer picture of discipleship, and that can be accomplished only in house churches. Practical issues like fiscal responsibility and waste in overhead costs as well as the exercise of spiritual gifts are seen as obvious support for the house church model over the traditional church. Simson calls upon the reader to make a decision in the last chapter to become a part of this sweeping movement and to make small but significant steps to change the world by starting a house church.

Overall, Simson’s book is a worthy read, but there are some inherent dangers in his presuppositions. It is quite telling about his theology of the church, but perhaps a couple of flaws are worth noting. His insistence upon house church as the only biblical model is revelatory of his hermeneutical principle in reading the book of Acts and the epistles. To Simson, scriptural references to church planting are all prescriptive and not really descriptive. He leaves no room for the possibility that churches in the first century chose to meet in homes more out of preference or circumstance; instead, he posits that this was the apostolic model to be followed explicitly.

Furthermore, his comparisons between house and traditional church preaching are somewhat biased. He makes the assumption that no traditional church is doing any of the quality ministry that can be accomplished only in houses, therefore the preaching of today is also inadequate in comparison with the spiritual dialogue of house churches in the first century. Taking a step back from his apparent biased presuppositions would probably strengthen Simson’s argument tremendously. 

What do you think? Is the church that meets in a home inherently better than a church that meets in a storefront? or school building? or under a tree? or in the park? or in a coffee house? or in a white cinder-block building on a rural dirt road? The biggest question in my mind is whether the rejection of one form over another is warranted. If Simson's book is viewed as an introduction to a larger conversation about the missional activity of the local church, it's a worthy ice-breaker.