More of Ross Rohde's writings on the organic/simple/house/emergent church can be found Right Here on another of his blogs.

I learned a great concept from Harold Korver, the pastor of a church we were a part of for ten years. He described how we must practice what he called "rowboat vision" in which we keep our eyes on the landmarks of where we've come from to chart a straight course into new waters. Brian McLaren uses the metaphor of the playground swing to describe the wonderful effect of leaning back and kicking forward at the same time. In both cases, I resonate with the point: the passage into the future will involve change; our task is to

Our society has been saying for a long time that Christians ought to practice what they preach. Now the research is in and it turns out the society was right. In an interview with Christianity Today, Ron Sider talks about his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (Baker Books, 2005) and his assessment of the current situation. Being confident that one knows something real and true is no substitute for loving humility. One word of caution in the interview falls on those of us outside the conventional church

The following is a letter from Ross Rohde to a guy named Joe attempting to explain the difference between a housechurch and the other types of churches we hear and know about. A friend named Ric Joline shared it with me.

Oh, I also found it here on Ross' blog.

Dear Joe,

It is exciting to hear your story and see what God is choosing to do through you. I rejoice with you brother.
What an interesting question "What is a housechurch"? I think I want to tackle that one by getting all the confusing terms out on the table so we can discuss them. Do you have a minute? This may take some time.

As I have journeyed to the conclusion that Christians should un-learn much of what we have been doing in recent centuries, few authors have characterized the situation as clearly as Frank Viola does here how crucial it is that we jettison all the bathwater, not just some of it, and pay close attention to the baby, not just to parenting techniques.