Why does your church meet in a house?
Well, we don’t always meet in houses. We also meet in coffee shops, parks, outdoors, and other locations. We could gather in a more traditional church building but meeting in these other locations is actually strategic.
Biblical Precedence
In the early church, where there was a Christian home, its uses were numerous. The book of Acts illustrates these homes being used for prayer meetings, Christian fellowship, communion services, entire nights of prayer, worship and instruction, impromptu evangelistic gatherings, planned evangelistic meetings, following up with inquirers, and organized instruction (Acts 2:46, 5:42, I0:22, 12:12, 16:32, 18:26, 20:7, 2I:7).[1]
It is of course fine for churches to gather in a church building. It can be a great blessing to steward a building for Kingdom purposes. But the Bible clearly never says that the church gathering must take place in a building reserved for that purpose.[2] Far from it, early Christians utilized houses to a great extent.
| Acts 2:46 | “their homes” |
| Acts 5:42 | “House to house” |
| Acts 10 | Cornelias’ house |
| Acts 12:12 | Mary’s house |
| Acts 16:32 | Jailer’s house |
| Acts 16:40 | Lydia’s house |
| Acts 20:20 | “House to house” |
| Romans 16:5 | Prisca & Aquila’s house |
| 1 Corinthians 16:19 | Prisca & Aquila’s house |
| Colossians 4:15 | Nympha’s house |
| Philemon 1:2 | Philemon’s house |
In fact, it’s intentional for the church not to hide behind the four walls of a church building. Jesus has called us to be light in a land of darkness, how can we be that when all the light is huddled up where it is bright inside? Jesus has called us to be salt in a world of decay, how can we do that when we are all locked up together in the shaker?
The early Christians were out and about and mixing it up with nonbelievers. Paul had discussions at the Hall of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9) and evangelized outside among other places (Acts 16:13). It’s strategic for Christians to be amongst nonChristians.
I was meeting with two guys at a McDonald’s for some discipleship and a guy asked: “Are those Bibles?” We said, “Yep!” and invited him to join us. He did. And we shared the good news of Jesus with him and prayed over him with tears streaming down his cheeks. God worked through us that night. And God has worked through us in other ways as we are the church amongst and visibly mixing it up with our community.
Simplicity and Stewardship
One of our desires as a church and movement is that we would be simple so as to be easily replicable. Most people have access to some sort of location to gather as a church. So, meeting in homes is simple and allows for easy multiplication.
Meeting in homes and other simple locations also allows for the stewardship of resources. Church buildings cost a lot of money and can be a distraction and hindrance to the actual mission of the church. Church buildings are not necessary, faithful disciples who are willing to meet wherever are necessary.
Facilitates Hospitality
The Bible places a lot of value on hospitality. It even commands hospitality and hospitality is a qualification to be a pastor. I am convinced hospitality is really important and yet it is often not valued like it should be. I also think hospitality is a heavily untapped evangelistic tool. Meeting in different people’s homes breeds a culture of hospitality.
Facilitates Discipleship
Meeting in other places besides a traditional church building can help people have a healthy ecclesiology (theology of the church). It is a constant reminder that the church building is not the church, God’s people are the church. The church gathers to be built up and scatters to bless. God’s people are the Church seven days a week throughout the places we live.
Gathering as the church in the places where we work, live, and play also shows us that church is not disconnected from everyday life. There’s also just something about meeting together in certain spaces that facilitate relationships. I can’t say exactly what it is but there’s a special bond that’s made sitting in someone’s house sharing a meal.
Notes
[1] See Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, 218.
[2] God does not dwell in any type of building made with hands (Acts 7:48; 17:24) but rather dwells within His people (Eph. 2:22; 2 Cor. 3:16; 6:16).
The Explosive Potential of Discipleship
The Explosive Potential of Discipleship
Not only did Jesus disciple and tell us to disciple,[1] there is potential for explosive Kingdom growth when we focus on discipleship. If we want to be about the work King Jesus has called us to, we must not be about brand building, but discipleship building; we must be about discipleship, not entertainment.
Jesus had just three years to launch a global movement, the length of His public ministry. Just three years to reach people that would eventually reach the ends of the earth.[2] What would He do? There was no social media, no radio, no television, and public transportation was nothing like what we know. How would God’s plan to bless all nations through Messiah Jesus ever happen?
Jesus chose to invest heavily in just a few people and help them to become like Himself. That was His big cosmic plan. And it was utterly time-consuming. “But within seventy years, the cadre of people around Jesus had taken His good news into every corner of the Roman world. Do we have better efficiencies in mind?”[3] (If so, we’re foolishly not following the One who is Wisdom incarnate).
Westerners are in love with well-packaged mass marketing of the gospel. In church, as in advertising, growth is a numbers game about getting as many impressions as possible out to the masses. Mass communication and evangelism may have their place, but they show no signs of dramatically transforming the world. But Jesus gave almost all of His attention to intentionally discipling just twelve men, especially focusing on four of them. The results speak for themselves. Can we do better, investing in Christian mass messaging and once-a-week preaching services?[4]
What did Jesus’ discipleship look like?
Dann Spader identifies the major discipleship methods in Jesus’ life and ministry. Jesus tells us to make disciples and He shows us how to make disciples.
- Jesus was deeply committed to relational ministry.
“Every aspect of Jesus’ ministry was relational. To Jesus, relationships were not a strategy; they were part of being full human.”[5]
- Jesus invested early in a few.
He started slow to go fast.
- Jesus often slipped away to pray.
“More than forty-five times in the Gospels, Jesus escaped the crowds to pray.”[6]
- Jesus loved sinners profoundly.
- Jesus balanced His efforts to win the lost, build believers, and equip a few workers.
“Jesus poured His life into a few disciples and taught them to make other disciples. Seventeen times we find Jesus with the masses, but forty-six times we see Him with His disciples.”[7]
Discipleship is about Obedience, Not Knowledge Acquisition
The Great Commission says, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded,” not “teaching them to know a bunch biblical data.” Knowledge certainly has it’s place but it’s condemning if not applied (see Matt. 28:20). Knowledge should have its effect, for one, it should humble us. We must be mindful of our minds. Yet, sadly, “There is a misconception that if people know what is right, they will do what is right. Experience tells us that this is not the case, yet we function as if it is.”[8] We need more apprenticeships and less classrooms.
The Discipleship of a Few Led to the Discipleship of Many
Jesus did not just choose the educated and the especially gifted to be His apprentices. He chose common people like you and me. Yet within two years after the Spirit was given at Pentecost this ragtag group “went out and ‘filled Jerusalem’ with Jesus’ teaching (Acts 5:28). Within four and a half years they had planted multiplying churches and equipped multiplying disciples (Acts 9:31). Within eighteen years it was said of them that they ‘turned the world upside down’ (Acts 17:6 ESV). And in twenty-eight years it was said that ‘the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world’ (Col. 1:6). For four years Jesus lived out the values He championed in His Everyday Commission. He made disciples who could make disciples!”[9]
Despite the harassment and persecution the Church faced across the decades the movement continued to grow to some “1000 Christians in 40 AD, about 7 to 10,000 in 100 A.D., about 200,000 or a bit more by 200 A.D., and by 300 A.D. perhaps 5 to 6,000,000.”[10] People were discipled to follow Jesus and they did and the Jesus movement spread like wildfire.[11]
As Michael Green in his classic book, Evangelism in the Early Church, says,
It was a small group of eleven men whom Jesus commissioned to carry on his work, and bring the gospel to the whole world. They were not distinguished; they were not well educated; they had no influential backers. In their own nation they were nobodies and, in any case, their own nation was a mere second-class province on the eastern extremity of the Roman map. If they had stopped to weigh up the probabilities of succeeding in their mission, even granted their conviction that Jesus was alive and that his Spirit went with them to equip them for their task, their hearts must surely have sunk, so heavily were the odds weighted against them. How could they possibly succeed? And yet they did.[12]
How did they succeed? Well, it was clearly through the power of the Holy Spirit. He empowered these early Jesus followers to practice passionate discipleship.
If we make disciples as Jesus told us and showed us it may not look “sexy” or effective but at times Jesus’ ministry didn’t look successful either.[13] “A lot of disciple-makers feel successful when they have a large crowd of people listening to their teaching and following their lead. Catalyzing Disciple-Making Movements, however, requires disciplemakers to give up the spotlight.”[14] It’s about Jesus’ fame, not ours. It’s about making disciples, not fans.
We need to change our perception of success. We need to measure the number of leaders we train, the number of leaders those leaders identify and train, the number of people who are sent out to start groups, and the number of groups that replicate.[15] We need to be about building the Kingdom, not our kingdom.
Simple church structures that facilitate discipleship our essential. We need to do away with as much of the trappings of religion as we can. We must not sell Christianity as “cool.” If we make Christianity simply “cool,” what happens when and where it’s not “cool”? Cuddling Christians must also go. Jesus said, “If you lose your life, you will find it” (see Matt. 16:25; Lk. 9:24; Jn. 12:25). He didn’t say, “Following Me is a cool bonus.” Jesus is life and loving and following Him is what life is about.
Notes
[1] And note that the “going” Jesus is talking about in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) is not a special event, such as a mission trip. Instead, we are to make disciples as we go to work, as we go to school, as we go out into our neighborhood” (Dann Spader, 4 Chair Discipling, 36-37).
[2] Jerry Trousdale, Miraculous Movements, 40.
[3] Trousdale, Miraculous Movements, 40.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Dann Spader, 4 Chair Discipling, 30.
[6] Spader, 4 Chair Discipling, 14.
[7] Ibid., 36.
[8] Watson, Contagious Disciple Making, 204. “Transmitting information in the discipleship process is imperative, but it is not the most important aspect of the disciple-making process. Disciples do not just know what the Master requires; they do what the Master requires in every situation regardless of the consequences.” (Watson, Contagious Disciple Making, 204)
[9] Dann Spader, 4 Chair Discipling, 36.
[10] Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the gods: early Christian distinctiveness in the Roman world, 3.
[11] Rapid Church growth is still possible. J.D. Payne notes in his book, Discovering Church Planting, that when Francis Asbury, the Methodist minister, began his work in America there were some 600 Methodists in America, but at the time of his death there were over 200,000. Here’s a summary of some of what can be gleaned from early Methodism: 1) Abundant Gospel Sowing, 2) Evangelistic Zeal, 3) Contextualization, 4) Sacrifice, and 5) Simple Organization.
[12] Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, 13.
[13] Jesus didn’t have a building or apparently much of a budget and He would often say things to disturb the masses to the point that they would leave. Yet, now reportedly 31.6% of the world’s population affiliates with Christianity.
[14] Watson, Contagious Disciple Making, 112.
[15] Ibid., 113.
The Modern American Church is Sick
The modern American church is sick. Let me count the ways… Here I’ll just give two. I hate being doomsdayish. But the writing is on the wall.
Invitation/Evangelism
Sadly, many church leaders equate evangelism with church invitation. In his book Meet Generation Z, James Emery White talks about Michael Green’s book on the staggering growth of the early church. He says Green’s book Evangelism in the Early Church had one huge conclusion: the early church “shared the good news of Jesus like gossip over the backyard fence.” Yet, right after this, White says, “In other words, a culture of invitation was both cultivated and celebrated.”
White, however, is not talking about sharing the good news of Jesus. He is talking about inviting people to a church service.
It’s not difficult… We create tools to put into the hands of people to use to invite their friends all the time… We celebrate and honor people who invite people all the time… Such tools can be something as simple as pens with the name of our website on them that people can give to someone. (Meet Generation Z, 151).
I know this is just a little quote but it does highlight that church leaders are stretching to try and get their people to invite others to church. That’s the big push. So, we make it so “It’s not difficult.” We seem to think, the people in the church are only so capable or faithful. We apparently can’t expect too much. We celebrate the faithful few who give their coworker a church pen and invite them to a Christmas Eve service.
The early church was willing to do more than give out pens with the church’s name on it. Let me get all nerdy and drop some biblical language facts. Do you know where the word “martyr” comes from? “Martyr” means someone who dies for their beliefs. “Martyr” comes from the Greek word which means “witness” or “one who gives testimony.” The early church was filled with witnesses—martyrs—who lovingly told others about Jesus, regardless of the cost. We celebrate and cultivate invitation to a church service. There’s a little bit of a difference.
This is what Michael Green says,
Communicating the faith was not regarded as the preserve of the very zealous or of the officially designated evangelist. Evangelism was the prerogative and duty of every church member. We have seen apostles and wandering prophets, nobles and paupers, intellectuals and fishermen all taking part enthusiastically in this the primary task committed by Christ to his Church. The ordinary people of the church saw it as their job: Christianity what supremely a lay movement, spread by informal missionaries. (Evangelism in the Early Church, 516)
He is clearly talking about evangelism, not invitation. They are not the same. He goes on:
Unless there is a transformation of contemporary church life so that once again the task of evangelism is something which is seen as incumbent on every baptized Christian, and is backed up by a quality of living what outshines the best that unbelief can muster, we are unlikely to make much headway through techniques of evangelism. People will not believe that Christians have good news to share until they find that bishops and bakers, university professors and housewives, bus drivers and street corner preachers are all alike keen to pass it on, however different their methods may be. And they will continue to believe that the Church is an introverted society composed of ‘respectable’ people and bent on its own preservation until they see in church groupings and individual Christians the caring, the joy, the fellowship, the self-sacrifice and the openness which marked the early church at its best. (Evangelism in the Early Church, 517-18)
Listen, I am not saying it is bad to invite people to church. There can be a place for that. But we should not equate evangelism and invitation. And we are all called to actually “gossip the gospel,” not hand out a handout.
Transfer Growth/competition within the Kingdom
How can a kingdom divided against itself stand? I’ve talked about this elsewhere but I think Jesus makes a good point (even if the context in which He said that was different. See Matt. 12:26; Mark 3:24).
I heard a story from a friend. They overheard some other friends talking: “I saw the addition to y’all’s church. It looks great! How’s it going?” That’s when a kid chimed in: “My friends are coming from their churches because they’re not doing good.” I think, “From the mouths of babes” is appropriate here.
A lot of churches across America aren’t doing well. A 35,000-square-foot church building in my area with a 400-seat sanctuary just sold for $65,000. Some may celebrate that another church down the street is adding a multimillion addition, but where is the actual growth? Is it Kingdom growth? Are new people crying out Jesus’ praise who previously didn’t, or are we rearranging furniture?
I’m not saying there are no reasons to decide to go to a different church, there are. The way that we think about transfer growth, however, is important. Again, not to pick on James Emery White but his book’s on my mind and in my hand because I just read it. He talks about visiting a church over the summer which “was one of the most programming-challenged services I’ve ever attended.” He doesn’t specify but I imagine it wasn’t very smooth and maybe awkward at points. But he goes on to say that though the service wasn’t very good, his kids liked the kid’s ministry.
Here’s the lesson: you can drop the ball in the service but ace it with the kids and still have a chance that a family will return. But no matter how good the service is, if the children’s ministry is bad, the family won’t come back… Children are at the heart of your growth engine. (Meet Generation Z, 150).
Basically, we need to have better religious goods and services than the church down the street, and an important part of what we need to offer is a really good children’s ministry. Notice the goal is not discipleship of parents so that they love and teach their kids, and it’s not discipleship of the kids; no, it’s an experience for the kids.
Conclusion
I get it, I don’t want things to be bad or awkward. But maybe the whole paradigm is messed up? Perhaps church was never supposed to be structured with a stage and an audience to entertain? Perhaps the church was never meant to be something we attend or a building? Perhaps “we are family” was never meant to be a church tagline but a reality? Perhaps service is meant to be something that the church provides to the world and not something church leaders provide to church members?
I agree that we should do things well. But it is imperative that we do the right things. 1 Corinthians 10:31 is often quoted by church leaders: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Of course, I agree with this verse. But this verse doesn’t give us carte blanche to use any methodology.
I appreciate what J.D. Payne wisely says in his book, Pressure Points:
With over four billion people in the world without Jesus, it is not wise to develop strategies that support methods which are counterproductive to the healthy rapid multiplication of disciples, leaders, and churches. Just because there is much biblical freedom in our culturally shaped methods does not mean that all such expressions are conducive to the multiplication of healthy churches across a people group or population segment.
We should intentionally pursue what makes for rapid multiplication of healthy disciples. This will call for us to be collaborators, not competitors, and care about actual growth, not transfer growth. Buildings, budgets, and even butts in seats are not necessarily an indicator of health or faithfulness to Jesus’ commands.
in X 