The Crowded House

Hello friends and family,

It occurred to me recently that when I first moved to Sheffield, I mentioned a little about the churches I had been visiting but I’ve never told you about the church that I ended up joining. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what I would find in England in terms of churches, but what I have found has really been encouraging, and (another) reminder that God has His remnant all around the globe; It’s always exciting to meet family.

Here is a summary of my whole blog post in one sentence: I have joined a church called Crowded House, South View, and I really love it.

Now for a more fleshed-out version:

The Crowded House (not the music group) is a church planting network that started in England and has spread to the US, Australia, and South Africa (and soon to France, hopefully). Most Crowded House churches are household churches (aka, they meet in each other’s homes), although some, like the one I attend, have long outgrown any house (although we still try to stick to the basic principles of house-churching).

The organisation can be a bit confusing at first, but just bear with me. It will make sense in the end.

Within the Crowded House network, there is a group of three churches in Sheffield called 215 because all three of us meet in the same building, 215 Sharrow Lane; it’s a sort of network within a network. So out of the three Crowded House churches in 215, I belong to one called South View. Now, South View divides itself further in what we call Gospel Communities.

The idea is that these Gospel Communities (GC) of 20 or so people are more than simply ‘small groups’ or ‘cell groups,’ instead, these GCs are the real churches – we celebrate communion within our GC’s, we pray together, have meals together, etc. Now, on Sundays, all the GCs that make up South View get together (in a ‘church’ building) for teaching and fellowship. The elders of the GCs collectively share the burden for teaching, leading worship, etc. The Gospel Communities are the way we try to balance the house-church principles with the advantages of a larger congregation (i.e. sharing teachers). The five GCs that make up South View total about 100 people, more or less (I’m a terrible judge of how many are in a group of people; I could be way off).

The Crowded House is non-denominational and our full statement of faith is online at www.thecrowdedhouse.org. The wording on the statement is much better than any explanation I could come up with here, so check it out. You can tell a lot about a church by what they sing; we sing a mixture of old hymns, old British hymns, contemporary worship songs, and new songs written by folks in South View (we have an unusual amount of musically-gifted people... not me). Crowded House has ten ‘core values’ that shape the way we operate as churches. Again, the actual statement (also on the website) says it much better than I could. I recommend you check it out, at least to just get a better idea of what I’m talking about.

What I like the most about Crowded House South View is their approach to missions and evangelism. The church really tries hard to serve the people around it, whoever they are, wherever they’re from, and whatever their station in life.

For example, the GC I am in has chosen to focus on immigrants in Sheffield, especially refugees and asylum seekers. There are a lot of international folks living in Sheffield (mostly Pakistanis, Kurds, Iranians, Yemenis, Ukrainians, and Chinese, but also Burmese, Eritreans, Uzbeks, and others), so it is a very exciting place to be and a very ‘strategic’ city (all England is, honestly). Among other things, we host a free ‘Conversation Class’ each week where anyone can come to practice and improve their English speaking skills or to ask specific questions, such as how to register with a doctor. Our hope and prayer is that relationships formed in Conversation Class will build rapport in these communities, allowing us to live out and share the gospel. It’s the idea that sharing the gospel is best done through sharing lives, and also that sharing the gospel is best done through Christian community.

Other GC’s try to serve musicians (you may remember the Friday night concerts I go to periodically), footballers, and young families. One GC has moved (literally) into a local housing project, where they can live with, serve, and love the other residents. While this isn’t the only way of ‘doing’ gospel ministry, or even necessarily the best, I love it because it focuses and unites the church in serving; it’s not ‘you should witness more’ but ‘I’ll see you Saturday,’ and it’s not ‘you go your way, I’ll go mine,’ but ‘let’s go together.’

The ‘credit crunch,’ or ‘global recession,’ or ‘worldwide financial crisis,’ or whatever we are supposed to call it this month, is already hitting Sheffield fairly hard (in my opinion, at least; you can tell by the number of Socialist Society signs appearing around town), so there are more opportunities than ever to show people the unshakable hope and peace we can have in Christ.

Another aspect of Crowded House that I have appreciated is their strong emphasis on the principle that the church is primarily a family and a network of relationships, rather than just a building or a Sunday ‘event.’ We regularly have meals together with our GCs. We go to the cinema together, go to recitals when someone in our GC is performing, and do other ‘normal’ family things. If you look back at last week’s update, the three guys in the picture who took me to the football match are all in my GC, and Rob is our elder. I don’t have many pictures other pictures of church friends, mainly because we are usually too busy to bother, which I take as a good thing.

I’ll say up front that I don’t think Crowded House always gets it right (lest I leave you with the wrong impression), but neither do I, and thankfully there is Grace.

So, to wrap up, God has proved Himself faithful (again) and I’m excited to have two years with the Crowded House.

Cheers ya’ll,

Will

P.S. My exam went well (I think – you know how that goes sometimes). We’ll see soon enough.

Current Favourite British Word: ‘Invigilator,’ meaning, an exam proctor, as in “The Chief Invigilator will now distribute the exam.” The word just sounds terrible, awesome, and dramatic.

Current Music:

Derek Webb’s She Must and Shall Go Free; A beautifully profound album about the Church as the Bride of Christ. A friend lent me the CD, and the more I listen to it, the more I like it. I’m definitely going to buy a copy of my own.

Current Fun Reading: The Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis

Current School Reading: A Markov Modulated Characterization of Packetized Voice and Data Traffic and Related Statistical Multiplexer Performance (don’t worry, I don’t understand it either...)