A mega shift is taking place in Christianity at the moment. The face of the church is changing all over the world! The House Church Chronicle is one of these places on the Web to find information on the revolution that is taking place! They have just quoted a very interesting article by Paul Asay in The Gazette on the development in USA.
Church is the big building with the steeple on it. 
Church is the house two doors down.
Church is the strip-mall coffee shop.
Church is the deeply wooded hiking trail.
Church, for better or worse, is changing.
Some Christians are forsaking familiar churches and cobbling together their own mix-and-match path to God. They worship on mountaintops and laptops, in business suits and tank tops. Most often, they worship in small, tightly knit groups and can be found across Colorado Springs any day of the week.
These Christians would say they’re not so much “unchurched” as “alternativechurched.” They don’t think they need trained clergy or large congregations to find the face of God: All they need is desire and faith. George Barna, evangelical Christianity’s most respected researcher, says these alt-churched Christians will change Christianity forever — and force some churches out of business.
“I don’t go to church,” said Tilman Wright, a local Christian pastor who spent more than 30 years as a paid church staffer. “I am the church. What we call church is just the gathering place.”
In Colorado Springs, like most of the country, there’s a disparity between the number of people who claim to be Christian and those who attend church regularly.
Three of every four U.S. citizens identify themselves as Christian, according to the American Religious Identity Survey. It’s a rate that likely holds true for Colorado Springs, experts say. Yet, according to many faith experts, fewer than one in five Springs residents goes to church every weekend.
Many Christians stop attending church during college and sometimes return once they’ve started families of their own. Some get angry or disillusioned and fall away from the faith. For others, church is difficult to fit into busy schedules.
Others are radically spiritual. Barna’s research organization, the California-based Barna Group, suggests that many of these alt-churched Christians pray more, give more money to charity and know their Bible better than their church-attending counterparts.
“These are what we would classify as the most spiritually minded and spiritually passionate people around,” said Thom Black, Barna’s partner.
In September, George Barna will publish a book called “Revolution” profiling what he thinks is an up and coming, idealistic brand of Christianity. The believers tend to be male; most are looking for a more tailor-made worship lifestyle, deeper relationships and greater opportunity to use what they consider their God-given talents. Some — but not all — have stopped going to church.
Barna suggests this group, which he calls “revolutionaries,” will experience staggering growth. Although about 70 percent of American Christians saw the church as their “primary means of spiritual experience and expression” in 2000, Barna estimates that number will drop to as low as 30 percent by 2025. Another 30 to 35 percent will find a spiritual home in smaller faith-based communities such as house churches; still another 30 to 35 percent will get spiritual nourishment from Christian books, movies and concerts.
“They’re migrating out of the church to find an authentic relationship with God,” said local evangelical Butch Maltby, a satisfied churchgoer whom the Barna Group dubbed a revolutionary because of his spiritual passion and willingness to explore faith outside the norms. “They’re getting together in a way that’s not real slick, it’s not real sophisticated.”
Barna calls this trend “an unprecedented reengineering of America’s faith dimension” in his upcoming book.
Some think that Colorado Springs is a prime spot for these alt-churched believers to thrive. Western
states have always been a refuge for those who don’t fit into orthodoxy off the rack. Black says altchurched believers often hike or camp as part of their faith routine. They also find fellowship online, and Colorado Springs is one of the country’s most plugged-in cities.
And then there’s the city’s collection of nonprofit faith organizations. Some Springs experts say many of the city’s more than 3,000 parachurch employees — even some parachurch leaders — don’t go to church.
“When someone works for a ministry, they don’t see it as being that much different from a church,” said the Rev. Ed Rowell, senior pastor for Tri-Lakes Chapel, a church of about 1,000 attendees. “So they figure, ‘Hey, I gave at the office. I think I’ll go camping.’”
These alt-churched Christians search for spiritual growth along several different paths, many exploring more than one. Some set up faith groups among co-workers or meet other Christians at coffee shops. A few follow traveling worship concerts from city to city like spiritually minded Deadheads. Black of Barna says the cyberchurch, centered around perhaps blog sites or e-mail, is seeing explosive growth.
One of the most recognizable genres is the home church, also called the simple church. James Rutz, a Colorado Springs author and chairman of Open Church Ministries, is one of the leaders of the home church movement.
“Within 10 years, there will be more people in house churches than traditional churches in this country,” he said.
Read the complete article HERE.
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