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House Church Central at Four Months
by Herb Drake
House Church Central went on the net at the at the end of January, 1997, a much smaller
presence than it has today. It has exceeded its hopes in some areas and fallen short in
others--and I thought it would be a good idea to back up and take stock of the situation
after four months on-line.
Theology
The first pages on the site were the "House Church Theology" pages. These are
close to my heart, as theology was a major objective of building the site in the first
place. I have an opportunity to communicate with with Christians from a number of
backgrounds and been amazed a how poorly Christian theology is understood. What passes
for theology on some of the "Christian" radio stations and
many "Christian" books serves only to make matters worse. Even the seminaries
are of little help, requiring pastor candidates to take as few as two courses in the
subject--and those almost always a lifeless "systematic theology" that
attempts to force the relational character of God into an array of philosophical
concepts and to then to go on and talk about God's "attributes." But it was
the independent house church that especially concerned me, as these have virtually no
access to good theology at all, and (just like those house churches to whom all the New
Testament Epistles were written) are very vulnerable to theological error. So the
"House Church Theology" pages were the first to be written, an attempt being
made to make them reasonably easy to read. Web statistics show moderate interest, at
least in the first doctrine, with diminished interest as one goes down the list.
The Forum
The Forum format is somewhat odd, as it is not a news group or email subscription list
(there already is such a group and it is well used--see the
"Links" page). Such approaches are effective, but
take a considerable time to maintain. The forum here is completely automatic, and when
I want to post something I go through the exact same procedure as anyone else. But I
would have to rank the Forum section as a disappointment. I had expected it to become
a place where controversial issues would form "threads" to which various
people, including myself, might post differing views. But none of this has turned
up--perhaps that sort of discussion is better in the news group or subscription
format.
Nevertheless, the Forum page is among the most visited! So it appears that it is
taking on a kind of "bulletin board" character where people can post miscellaneous
announcements, search for a house church, and the like. So the Forum will stay if
even though it has not served its expected function.
The Search Engine
Few have taken the time to examine just how big the HCC site actually is. At the present
time it has about 3 MB of text and graphics. If it were a book (rather, a shelf of books)
it would demand subject and scripture indexes. So I installed a search engine and
have been careful to use uniform scripture abbreviations so that it would be effective
and easy to use. It would have to rank as a disappointment, as it is accessed only about
once a day.
Survey
Certainly a major disappointment is the fact that so few who have taken the time to fill
out the survey on the "Survey" page. The intent of the survey is to provide
feedback that would allow me to continue to develop the site in a manner that would
respond best to needs. It has been on the site for over a month and only about a dozen
responses have been logged.
The Vernard Eller Collection
An early priority for House Church Central was that it not simply be an outlet for my own
writings. I have written several experts in house church theology and house church practice
in the hope that I could convince them to make a contribution, and was delighted when
Prof. Eller responded with a large number of his books and articles. I had heard Dr. Eller
at a four-day lecture series at seminary, and words cannot express my delight in his
willingness to participate. The Vernard Eller Collection has grown to include quite a
number of his books, all of his contributions to The Christian Century, and
several smaller articles. The most important contributions are yet to come--his major
work on Kierkegaard and a new work not published elsewhere that is titled, Could the
Church Have It All Wrong? The former is awaiting permissions from the current
copyright holder, and the latter is very nearly ready to put on the web (watch for it!).
I am still hopeful that other authors of the calibre of Prof. Eller will make
contributions to the site.
Growth
I had made some meager efforts to determine whether there were already house church sites
on the Internet before starting HCC. In searching the usual Internet engines, I found none--either
by searching key words or by working through the hierarchical subject lists. Once HCC
was active, however, I began to hear from people who knew about other sites. Who knows
why the house church movement is so much ignored on the biggest "Christian" index
lists? In any case, it quickly became evident that HCC needed to join forces with all the
other resources in a system of cross links so that should an "outsider" happen
to come across any one of them that he or she might be able to find all the others. So
I added a special "Links" page and have a very liberal policy to include other
house church sites on request. It is my hope that others will reciprocate, however I
must say that this has been far too slow a process.
| Month | Hits | Pages |
| February 1997 | n/a | n/a |
| March 1997 | 4416 | 796 |
| April 1997 | 10564 | 2657 |
| May 1997 | 11944 | 2435 |
Web statistics have been available only starting with the month of March. The domain report
shows interest from all parts of the world, and gives me some feedback on the most popular
pages and directories. My own thesis on the book of Romans has been surprisingly popular,
and I am very gratified by that. I am also delighted to see that so many have discovered
the Vernard Eller Collection. Some statistics for the past three months are shown at the right.
Top Twenty List
Here are the top twenty pages accessed for the Month of May.
- The "Top" HCC page
- The Forum page
- The Eller Collection (top page)
- The Resource page
- The Links page
- The House Church Theology page
- The Magazine (top page)
- The "So You Have a House Church?" introduction page
- Eller's The Most Revealing Book of the Bible
- The Doctrone of Baptism
- The Survey (many visit, but few submit!)
- The Doctrine of Church
- Editorial: Should a House Church have a Name?
- The Doctrine of Election
- The Search Engine
- Editorial: "What New Paradigm?
- The Doctrine of the Simple Life
- Drake: The Book of Romans--a House Church Manafesto (top page)
- The Doctrines of Creation, Providence, Prayer, Miracles, and Eschatology
- About House Church Central
Thanks
Many thanks for the many who have taken the time to visit the site. Thanks are also
due to West Coast Online, our host ISP, which has been
very reliable and professional. And thanks as well, of course, to Vernard Eller and
others who have contributed material or who have sent me encouraging e-mail.
Herb Drake
House Church Central
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