I'm also reading "Barefoot in the Church", which is a 1971 study of the then-emerging house church movement in the U.S. It's interesting from a historical perspective to review how significant race relations were seen to be as a measure of the church's outreach relevance. It's also very characteristic of the youth movement of the the time: none of the change being described or speculated upon is led by anyone over the age of 30.
What's sad is to see how relatively little impact the house-church movement has actually had on the much-needed revitalisation of the Church. As you know, we're struggling with the lack of relevant outreach in our church community, and in particular struggling against the an entrenched unwillingness by members our elderly and retired demographic (not by any means by ALL members of that demographic, many of whom are just as frustrated by their peers obstructionism as are the rest of us). Our anti-outreach lobby interestingly includes NO youth, NO young adults, and NO middle-aged adults. Our current problematic anti-change lobby would have been the "over thirty" crowd who are so obviously unrepresented in Barefoot -- and they're still holding the Body back (with the help of the Church establishment, I'm afraid, in our case the pastor)!
