IN-DEPTH: Home Church Pastor Says Constitutional Right Violated After City Issued Cease-and-Desist

Inside of Martin Bownik's home church in Minnesota. Courtesy of Martin Bownik

A pastor of a home-based church in Rogers, Minnesota, is facing a city government cease-and-desist order after a complaint was allegedly filed by a neighbor.

According to the Minnesota-based Alpha News publication that obtained a copy of the letter sent by the city of Rogers Development Director Brett Angell, the pastor for The Edge Christian Fellowship, Martin Bownik, is violating a zoning ordinance stating that “religious assembly is a principal use within the zoning district for your property and not allowed accessory use.”

“The use of your residence as a religious assembly is in direct violation of this code,” Mr. Angell told Mr. Bownik in a Nov. 17 letter. “Lastly, this use would be in violation of the Minnesota State Fire Code and Minnesota Building Code.”

According to city code, a religious assembly is defined as a “building, together with its accessory buildings and uses, where persons regularly assemble for religious worship and which building, together with its accessory buildings and uses, is maintained and controlled by a religious body organized to sustain public worship.”

If Mr. Bownik didn’t “cease operations immediately,” he would face “citations or fines.”

“Just because this is a zoning issue doesn’t mean it’s not a violation of our First Amendment right,” Mr. Bownik told The Epoch Times. “The first part of the First Amendment was not Freedom of Speech. It was the government ‘shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’”

Mr. Bownik referenced the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which he said—in addition to the First Amendment—supports his argument.

The congressional law applies if a “substantial burden is imposed in the implementation of a land use regulation or system of land use regulations, under which a government makes, or has in place formal or informal procedures or practices that permit the government to make, individualized assessments of the proposed uses for the property involved.”

“No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution,” the law states.

Mr. Bownik received the letter—which he called “aggressive”—before Thanksgiving.

The number to call on the letter was incorrect, so he drove to City Hall, where he found that the letter’s author had gone on vacation, he said.

Even for a small church, the holidays are packed with events, he said, so he asked if discussions over the order could be picked up after Christmas; however, he was told that he should plan to have church online.

Closing a church for Christmas is a move that would rival that of Ebenezer Scrooge, he said.

“Our services last about an hour and a half and are as large as any Thanksgiving family gathering,” he said. “Why are we being looked at when I have neighbors who have twice as many people over for a football game? There are plenty of groups that come together that have way more people than we do.”

In response to a request for comment, Mr. Angell told The Epoch Times that the city “granted additional time to cease operations weeks ago and have just requested regular updates on how the search process has been going.”

“To date, there has not been a citation or fine issued,” he said.

On whether the order is a potential violation of the First Amendment, he said that “by no means are the occupants of the home not allowed to exercise their right to practicing religion.”

“The violation pertains to the operation of a nonprofit corporation as an accessory use and non-compliance with regulations related to home occupations,” he said. “The particular use—operation of a home-based church where gatherings of people attend services—is not our focus.”

The House Church Movement

Mr. Bownik’s congregation of about 22 has been meeting for 12 years and is a part of the house church movement, he said, the origin of which can be traced back to the origin of America itself.

“In the 1600s, a small group of people—what an English journal described as a bunch of poor farmers and nobodies that got together to study the Bible because they weren’t allowed to meet in churches—began meeting in the basement of a house in England,” he said. “We call that group of people pilgrims, and three of those pilgrims came together and said, ‘I wonder what the world would look like if there was a nation that was truly free to worship Christ. What then could be done for the advancement of the kingdom of God?”

This meeting in what is known as the Scrooby Manor House, where the early pilgrims met before coming to the New World on the Mayflower, he said, and what seeded cultivation of the free world.

“Today, the house church movement is the largest expression of the kingdom of God right now,” he said. “In the United States, 43 people will visit a house church this month. The goal is wherever there are 5,000 people, there’s a house church. It’s the largest expression of the church in China, Egypt, Germany—the list goes on.”

If it were a denomination, he said, it would be the second to the largest denomination, he said.

“So, if this is a zoning issue, it’s a zoning issue that really impacts 43 million people in the United States,” he said.

Many churches use the house church network model, he said, like Francis Chan, who attributed his departure from the traditional in-house church system to becoming disillusioned with what takes place with the politics of a church after its congregation increases.

“We’ve seen that once we get to 30 or 50 or 100 people in a church, it becomes increasingly more difficult to live like a family, truly know each other, carry each other’s burdens, and build each other up,” Mr. Chan wrote on his website explaining the home-church system. “Many churches will do this in the form of a community group, which is great. But far too often people view a Sunday morning big gathering as the primary context of church and the community group.”

Instead, Mr. Chan wrote, the intent for a smaller gathering is to facilitate a stronger sense of sharing of each others’ lives.

It’s a return to its roots, Mr. Bownik said, considering that the Last Supper took place in a house, in addition to the churches that sprouted up later inside of people’s homes.

According to the House Church Network, which follows a model similar to Mr. Chan’s and Mr. Bownik’s, the movement “avoids marketing strategies or typical growth models” that make up the “culture and structure of modern church” to return to the framework and intent of the early church.

Returning to this early model proved to be sustainable throughout the pandemic when churches were told by local governments they had to close, Mr. Bownik said.

Martin Bownik, the pastor of the home church The Edge Christian Fellowship. Courtesy of Martin Bownik

‘Why Now?’

It’s easier, too, he said, because, in his 30 years of preaching, he’s witnessed city governments making it harder for churches to be planted.

“What you end up doing is having to rent from the community center or schools, which are charging exorbitant fees right now, or you have to have $5 to $7 million for a building,” he said. “Well, the average church size in America is 48 people. People don’t know that because the churches that get all of the attention are the mega-churches.”

Calling his church a “mini-mega church” because of its scale of charity accomplished from a small home, Mr. Bownik said he prefers to give the offerings from tithes to larger causes instead of budgeting it into church maintenance operations as if it were a business.

“I just think there’s still room for some voices of small little churches that say, ‘Hey, we want to stand on the word of God and live it out, and we want to love our community,” he said.

The church hasn’t remained hidden in the home, as it received a church nonprofit discount for renting out the city’s community center to hold a Christmas production, an Easter service, and a summer in the park service for 12 years, he said.

This begs the question, he said: “Why now?”

If a neighbor were to complain, it would have happened years before this; however, he added that he suspects it could be someone in the neighborhood.

Still, it’s a time of the year when people need a community church, he said, and not the time for a city government to shut it down as they did during the pandemic.

Mr. Bownik was told that the city would be reaching out for a better resolution, he said.

“I wish they would tell me that because I would gladly talk with them,” he said. “We are praying for our city officials, and we love our community here.”