Good Gatherings - Oasis NT Church Planting Movement

Many people ask what our gatherings look like.

I have sort of covered some of that in a section called Good Story (click here) which explains how we interpreted scripture and then took some bold faith-action.

But I would like to peel back more detail on what the gatherings were like in the early church, before paganism took over. I will try to highlight scriptures and the application of those scriptures so we can get glimpse of what healthy house Church gatherings looked like in 50AD, how the house church functioned and the type fruit these gatherings produced.

FIRST, SOME CONTEXT.. LETS SAY IT’S 30AD…

So first we need to set the historical scene. We are in the ancient world of Israel, which has been subjugated to the Roman Empire, and effectively become a proxy state of Rome. In the main city of Jerusalem, a great calamity had taken place. A man named Jesus from a town called Nazareth claimed he was the Jewish Messiah.

For 3 years Jesus roamed the area performing amazing miracles and was eventually, arrested, falsely accused by senior religious Jews and then tortured and executed.

3 days later this same Jesus, rose from the grave and walked around Jerusalem and that area for 40 forty days, and appeared to about 500 eye witnesses. Then he ascended to heaven in spectacular fashion from the Mount of Olives which is a hill outside the city of Jerusalem.

About 10 days after he vanished, something weird and supernatural happened in an upper room where 120 of his followers were meeting. Crazy things happened. Earthquakes, Hurricane sounds, tongues of fire, miracles breaking everywhere… it was crazy.

That was just 30 years ago. Since then a guy called Saul, a senior religious Jewish cleric was running around, searching houses (the House Churches where they met) arresting and executing these Jesus Followers.

Then something crazy happened to him. He was on journey to Damascus to arrest more Jesus Followers, when this resurrected Jesus appeared to him. He was struck blind and didn’t eat or drink for 3 days until his sight was restored, and his name was changed to Paul.

That’s the background.

WHERE DID THEY MEET AND WHAT DID THEY DO ?

All these Jesus believers were meeting regularly in homes.

They would gather everyday at each other’s homes and eat, pray and discuss all that Jesus said and did. They had the support of the Holy Spirit which is a powerful, strange invisible force that speaks to Jesus Followers, encouraging them and giving them instructions.

No one seemed to lead these meetings because everyone honoured and respected each other. Everyone was so kind, patient to each other.

They would eat regular meals together, but when together they also took a moment to drink a glass of wine and eat a piece of bread in a memorial ceremony to Jesus. This became known as “communion” from 1 Corinthians 10:16..

There were no outsiders in these gatherings. They were all Followers of Jesus.

Each person in the gathering contributed to the group in some way. Each one would bring a teaching, a song, a prayer or some form of encouragement to the others. It’s important to note and worth repeating that the believers taught each other. The teaching was done by all the believers, and corrected and governed by those with the Gift of Teaching. The same is said for “pastoring” because all the believers were called to pastoral activity and would be trained by those the Gift of Pastor. Again, all believers performed evangelism and if they need help in that skill they would call on a person with the Gift of Evangelism to coach them. Al believers got trained in this way according to Ephesians 4:11.

Through the strange power of the Holy Spirit working inside these people, they were able to predict future events and speak accurately to spiritual matters, and receive specific helpful instructions.

Sometimes when they spoke or prayed, they did this in another unusual “spiritual” language which required someone else with a spiritual gift to interpret.

When the Jesus Followers left these meetings, they impacted their local communities by performing miracles, healing the sick and casting out demons.

Every Jesus follower seemed to be able to do this.

New converts planted new Churches in their homes. The movement grew and took over cities all over middle east, and grew by multiplication.

DID HOUSE CHURCHES HAVE PROBLEMS ?

These House Church gatherings were not without problems.

Paul speaks about a range of problem that House Churches experienced, that he and the leaders had to deal with. Some of these issues were:

Excessive Booze – Alcohol was served at the House Churches but some were drinking too much and getting drunk and rowdy.

Gluttony – Some people were coming to the House Church just for the food and just focused on the food and ignored the fellowship, and the reason for gathering.

Sexual Immorality – Some people the the House Churches were sleeping with people they should not be with.

Dealing with Non-Believers – Occasionally a non believer would stumble accidentally into some of these meals and gatherings. When this happened the unbeliever would often collapse in conviction and say “God is truly here”, and make a decision to also become a Jesus follower. This was unusual because these gatherings were geared for the believers only. Paul gave specific advice to believers how to behave in the event that a non-believer showed up in 1 Corinthians 14:23-25.

Heresy – Occasionally others would come to the meals and say false things, which the group and the leaders had to correct.

Abuse – Some groups were dominated by egotistical leaders who abused members of the group.

Money and Greed – Everybody worked and were generous to each other especially if they had needs. Paul was a tent maker. Peter was a fisherman. In Jerusalem Peter was a main leader and Jesus followers supported him through sharing of resources for him to devote his time to prayer and training. Everybody else worked for a living. Money also caused a big problem as some leaders took money off other members when they should not have. Also some leaders “Lorded it over” other believers in a form of abuse. Other leaders not only took money but segregated themselves away from other believers like an elite clergy class. Leaders in the early church were selected based on leadership characteristics which excluded “financial greed”.

As you can see, these believers gathered in a dynamic “family” centric way looking after each other, and also had problems or challenges to deal with along the way.

PAGAN PRACTICES – WHERE DID THEY COME FROM ?

Some gatherings veered away into weird pagan practices and beliefs. Let’s look at the crazy stuff in the modern Church meetings and try to see where they came from.

In the Book of Revelation there are a couple issues that emerged in the early Churches the Jesus told John about. John wrote these down when he was on the Greek island of Patmos. The year is approximately 50AD and the Apostle John is aged 80-90 years old.

The Churches described in the Book of Revelation were all House Church networks defined in seven particular geographical cities in the middle-east. At thi point there were no buildings or structures called “Churches” because the Church at this point in time was only ever defined by the humans that gathered together. The Church was like family, a gang or a tribe, not a building. These seven Churches were: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos (Pergamum), Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

Some of the problems emerging in these Churches were:

Nicolaitans – This is the segregation of professional (greedy)clergy away from the laity people. This was throwback to the old Jewisj temple system of elite (funded) religious leaders. It also mimicked how the Pagan Temple Priests operated. This is where we get the concept a “Priest” or “Pastor” being an elite. It perverts the Priesthood of Every Believer. Jesus said he HATES it, TWICE. This is where Roman Catholicism gets it’s Churh Governance from, and most Churches have also copied this. It’s an abomination to God, leading to all manner of heresy and uncontrolled filth.

Balaam – This is involves money and prophesying. Prophesying in the church was normal and an everyday occurrence, but the sin of Balaam described it the Book of Revelation is the false prophesying for money, for fee !! This leads to all sorts of perversions including eating things sacrifices to idols and sexual immorality. We see this predominantly today in the Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches that have fallen away into financial and sexual chaos. We also see many Churches bending into paganism with perverted sexual practices being condoned. This is caused by the Spirit of Balaam.

Jezebel – This is a spirit. It is described in detail in 1 KINGS 18 in the life of Queen Jezebel, married to King Ahab. Jezebel is defined as witchcraft employing domination, manipulation, intimidation and control as a means to lead. This is a leadership style that entered the Church and is mired in demonic Witchcraft. The leaders are operating in Witchcraft. We see this in most denominations and Church groups today mired in sexual immorality, grieving the Holy Spirit and corruption when influenced by the Spirit of Jezebel.

Love Gone Cold – The Ephesus Church has lost it’s first love for Jesus and become a hollowed out organisation with no love in it, just going through the motions. We see this in a lot of Churches and denominations where the Holy Spirit is no longer welcome. Knock Knock ?? No body is home. Empty.

Spiritually Dead – This was the Sardis Church which though it was alive but Jesus said it was spiritually dead. We can see this in some Churches with bands, lights, noise, technicolor delivery, rah rah, but no Gospel, No Truth, No Holy Spirit, No Holiness, No Fear of God, No Reverence… just a noisy empty shell. A dead carcass.

Lukewarm – The Laodicea Church was accused of being lukewarm. It thought is was “rich” and full pride, and arrogance but Jesus said it was spiritually poor and impoverished. We see that today with Churches focusing on status, money, numbers, buildings and metrics that don’t matter to God. For all their wealth these Churches cannot produce Disciple-Makers or plant Churches. They are wealthy in the natural but entirely unfruitful in the Kingdom. I say they are in the “Making Apple-Pie for Jesus Business”… meaning they are focused on completely irrelevant things.

AFTER 50AD…

Moving in to the 2d, 3rd and 4th centuries we see the complete collapse of Christianity into paganism.

The Roman Empire had previously condemned Christians, now has mandated Christianity as the government sanctioned religion. This is how Rome (now the Vatican) became the epicentre of pagan Christian rituals and fetishes.

The Romans very cleverly co-opted all the pagan temples in the Empire, of which there was thousands of small, medium, large and some very elaborate buildings. They fired the temple prostitutes and the temple Priests (business operators) and put crosses on top of these buildings, and put Christian “leaders” into these buildings to operate them. You can guess that the type of Christian “leader” would accept such a role would be, operating in Jezebel, Balaam and or Nicolaitans of course. Real followers of Jesus never co-operated in the “paganization” of Christianity, and remained invisible in homes.

The people are the building, not the physical structure. We are the “living” stones as Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:5 “Ye also, as lively (living) stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”.

Some of the pagan temples that were overtaken by Rome included: the Temple of Mars (War), The Temple of Venus (Love), the Temple of Zeus (Power), the temple of Diana (Beauty), the Temple of Aphrodite (Sexual Fertility), and many many more. This is where we get the “Church Building” fetish from, and the preoccupation with liturgy and performance inside a physical building, to attract spectators. This also where we get the “Senior Pastor”, “Pastor”, “Priest” or professional elite leader performing all the ministry. This is contradicts the patterns we see in the New Testament. Many scholars try to justify the “building” by using the Jewish Temple and Priesthood as a model but again (like the Roman Catholics (and all their derivatives) and Mormons,etc), this is contrary to the New Testament.

A handful of these pagan temples are still standing today throughout the old Roman Empire (and beyond) and were not converted to state religion usage. Many of these have become popular tourist sites.

It’s good to read more history, archeology and facts on these topics. A good place to start is PAGAN CHRISTIANITY by Frank Viola and George Barna. This is a well researched and widely referenced book of the many pagan rituals and fetishes that remain in Churches today (see Good Books click here).