House Church by Design
This is a little story about church design.
Way back in the beginning when Jesus was walking the earth he would celebrate the Jewish Sabbath. Every Friday night at sunset he would faithfully meet with others, light some candles or a menorah, eat some food, say some prayers and drink some wine. Then on Saturday (the Sabbath day) he would take it easy and not work until sunset.
Thats what Jews did, according to a pattern or design.
In those days salvation was focused primarily on the Jewish people, as the gospel program had not yet started for Gentiles.
Then Jesus died, rose again, walked the earth for 40 days, being seen by many witnesses, and then ascended to heaven.
The church looked very different back then to the way we typically see it today.
As far as we know from the book of Acts, from the very beginning believers met in their homes, and Paul confirms this in his writings.
Later when Paul was converted and travelled on his mission trips, occassionally he would use or borrow or rent a larger venue like the school of Tyrannus, or visit synogogues. We see this in Acts 19:9 but we dont know the venue arrangements Paul made. These meetings were not considered a church, their purpose was mainly preaching, debating, reasoning, pursuading and teaching venues for the public (and we assume local house churches) to gather. Eventually Paul had his own house church in Rome in Acts 28:30.
Other house churches found in the new testament are Mary’s house church Acts 12:12, Lydia’s house church Acts 16:40, Prisca and Aquila’s House Church Romans 16:3-5, Nympha’s House Church Colossians 4:15, Philemon and Apphia’s House Church
Philemon v1-2 and finally Paul’s house church Acts 28:30
By 70ad the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple so there was no more temple venue to gather at, or temple taxes paid by the Jews. In fact Jews were purged from Israel in the great diaspora by the Romans. Jewish and Gentile believers had nowhere to gather except in homes.
To Jews in those days, the Sabbath was considered both a holy day and a holiday in which Jews did not work and the marketplace did not function. Shops and businesses were closed on Saturday (Sabbath). Even in modern Israel today the Sabbath is generally pretty quiet.
What we know as Sunday was the first commercial day of the week where shops, businesses and government offices were opened and workers went in the fields or workplaces to work. Again in modern Israel when I worked there, Sunday was a normal work day in the marketplace.
Back then, and today, Sunday was (and is) very similar to our modern western Monday, being the first commercial day of the week. I digress… lets get back to the early church.
Acts 20:7 refers to “the first day of the week”, meaning… the first commercial and business day of the week, the disciples gathered together for fellowship and to break bread.
On one occassion in Acts 20:7 we see the local disciples gathered in a hosts home to hear the Apostle Paul speak.
We have to stop and ask a basic question… If the disciples all went to work that day (and it was a work day) then how did they possibly gather to eat ? The answer is simple. They gathered for the evening meal after work on Sunday night, which was a work night, just like our western Monday night.
So we can now form a picture of the early church believers running home from working (in the fields, the bakery, the carpentry shop, wherever). They would enthusiastically gathering family members and bags of bread and bladders of wine and hurry to a home (or be hosts to others in their own home) where they would talk about Jesus late into the evening, and be discipled, ask questions, eat, pray and celebrate together. That church design actually sounds rather exciting.
We now understand that this was a “daily” occurence when we look at Acts 2:46 and furthermore as a consequence the church grew with new converts being added daily in Acts 2:47 and even more converts being added again in Acts 16:5. Radical growth was an outworking of this church design as more disciples were made.
We also begin to paint a picture where these house meetings were dynamic with food, singing, prayer, worship, social interaction and according to Paul, even wine. Sounds more like a party or a wedding celebration. Imagine that going on every night.
There appears to be no clergy, no professionals, no building fund, no programs and no liturgy. The church met daily, all members participated and contributed in some way, the church grew, disciples matured and made more disciple makers, and the church in that design changed the world.
Since then, the simplicity and purity of the early church has been complicated and polluted with pagan rituals, dogma and corporate religiosity, and with that change the church has lost favour and lost its influence. Others have done a great job of documenting how the church has steadily veered away from its simple original roots. I wont treat that topic here. However, Jesus came to set us free from the bondage of religion.
Instead of complaining about our church life, my wife and I have implemented a house church as close as we can to this original pattern.
We meet at a cafe. We meet on Saturday night. We follow a “wedding celebration” format of eating, speeches and celebrating. It seems to work. On occassion we also move the gathering from house to house with the hosts running the evening’s agenda. We have been doing this for 3 years now and its growing and alot of fun. We see change in others and we are also challenged to grow spiritually along the way.
In our experience, humans are not looking for “house church” or church by a “brand name”, they are simply looking for Jesus and that original and pure expression of the early house church format, not religion. They want the fresh new spiritual wine, not the old corporate wineskin.
This little story is meant to challenge our thinking on how we meet, when we meet, why we meet, and the “go into all the world” disciple makers we are all meant to become in that gathering process.
I hope this gets you thinking how you see church design and I hope you yearn for changes back to original pattern, as I do, that changed the world.
Martin and Cher Spratt are house church practitioners and lead Oasis.org.au which is a house church activation organisation based in Melbourne, Australia.