Methodology matters. 

In many ways, structure begets results. That’s not an inherently good or bad thing, it’s just reality. The same holds true for the church. Structure matters. 

I’ve been exposed to a number of people lately who suggest that the form needed for the church to flourish is a ‘home church’ structure and methodology. There was a groundswell of this type of thinking after the recent fall of Willow Creek. There are some who blame the "mega-church mentality" for what happened. While there may be some truth to that being a contributing factor (at least in the amount of people affected), I think that line of thinking is far too simplistic. 

I saw this video floating around on social media recently. It includes Francis Chan with his trademark impassioned form, calling the church “back to its roots.” If you know about Francis Chan’s journey, it's a plea to embrace the small, house church movement. Please try to ignore the dripping irony that only reason anyone knows of Francis Chan, or cares what he has to say, is because of his involvement in a highly structured, very large church. (oh, and he's promoting a new book; the video is produced by his publishing company)

To be clear, there is a lot in the video that I agree with, it’ the question about structure I want to address. 

But, is that what the Bible teaches the structure of a church should be? I think that’s a great question. The above video mentions that Francis just started with the Bible. I agree, that’s a great place to start. Are home churches and small communities the way of the scripture - in either a descriptive or prescriptive way?

As an aside, this is not intended to be a complete exposé of this subject throughout Scripture. Stick with me to the end where I’ll make my point more explicitly. 

Is this what we see in the Old Testament? In a word: No. While there are certainly some instances of the nation of Israel dividing into smaller groups for certain purposes (often fighting a battle), the majority of the narrative is built around the nation as a whole. The Exodus narrative woven throughout the Torah gives great detail about the way the community was to structure itself, identify leaders and priests and levities, and to develop a rule of life to guide their ethos with each other and in harmony with God. 

At that point in time, all of the worship was done at the temple - which was the center of the Judaic faith and the intersection of heaven and earth. People traveled from all around to be a part of the worship gatherings that happened in the temple. 

We could go on, but for our purposes here, that should suffice. 

Now, let’s move onto the New Testament. We’ll go a little bit more in depth here because I believe more of the debate is based around New Testament teaching and ecclesiology. 

Let’s begin with the inception of the church on the day of Pentecost. Acts 1:15-17 reads, 

15 In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) 16 and said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas,who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. 17 He was one of our numberand shared in our ministry.”

And then subsequently a few verses later in Acts 2:1 we read, 

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

So, you have the believers gathering with 120 in one place to decide who was going to replace Judas, and then later you have “all the believers in one place.” So, it appears that the followers of Jesus thought it important to gather in large groups together. That may very well have been an anomaly, let’s see if there is more to be learned about the rhythms of the early church. 

Later in the same chapter we read what appears to be a summary of the church’s Rule of Life. Acts 2:42-47 says, 

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were togetherand had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

It’s clear from this passage that the early church embraced rhythms of large group gatherings and in home gatherings (smaller groups) - that's the big takeaway. They gathered in the large space for teaching and in small groups for the breaking of bread. It wasn’t an either/or proposition - like you so often hear today, it’s both/and. The first church was a mega-church. It’s that simple. Overnight they had over 3,000 people gathering together for teaching and worship. We know that they didn’t switch to having the primarily gatherings in homes until they left Jerusalem and lost access the the temple courts. We know this because they decided restructure the leadership of the church so that the elders had the ability to focus their time on teaching the scriptures and on prayer (Acts 6:4). At that point they could have easily restructured the church and broken it up into house churches, but instead they restructured the leadership to have the ability to shepherd the large church.

The contrary line of thinking might be that while they started with a large and small group structure, they soon switched to a house church model. While there are certainly instances of house churches referenced all throughout the New Testament, that’s far from the sole or primary structure mentioned. 

Let’s look at a few examples of large church structure in the New Testament.

1 Timothy 5:17 - "The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching." Very early on in the structure of the church you have some elders getting paid double for the work of preaching and teaching the scriptures. That means there were other elders and staff getting paid as well (in order to get paid double, you have to have something to measure the double against). Now, to have a paid staff, you have to have a congregation to support that staff and you have to have people (presumably a large number) to necessitate that staff. In addition, from the beginning; starting with the apostles and then trickling down to the other churches, there were gifted and trained teachers that were called on (and paid) to admonish the community of faith. If our image of a first century church is people sitting around in a circle saying, "what do you think about this verse?" that's incomplete. That happened in homes, but they also gathered for teaching and instruction from the word - from the very beginning. They did this because learning the way of Jesus is important. Understanding the scriptures is important. Wrestling with theology is important. Getting those things wrong has massive implications for the health and wellbeing of the church. That's why the scriptures put such a weightiness on the calling of those who are teachers (James 3:1).

Ephesians 4:11-13 - "11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” It’s definitely possible that all these roles could be present in a small house church, but I think we’d agree that’s highly unlikely. These gifted people could also travel around to house churches, but we don’t seem to have evidence of that taking place on a large scale.

1 Corinthians - Yes, the whole letter. We see the correspondence back and forth between the Apostle Paul and the Corinthian church. It appears to be one church. One church that gathers for worship (and had an issue mishandling the Lord’s Supper), one church that divided over who they were going to follow, one church that was called to use their spiritual gifts to build each other up, one church where some women seemed to have an issue talking during the teaching time. There doesn’t seem to be any suggestion that Paul is writing to house churches, but rather a larger church - like the one described in Acts 2. 

Acts 13:1-3 - "1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas,Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.” The church in Antioch (a large city at the time) was all gathered together for worshiping and fasting. They weren’t in separate house churches, they were all together. They might have embraced a similar rhythm of large and  small like the Jerusalem did, but what we know of this church is that they had a plurality of elders and they brought Paul and Barnabas in to be their teaches for one year.

Acts 14:23 - 21 "They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, 22 strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. 23 Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting,committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.” The language seems to suggest each city had a church that Paul and Barnabas appointed elders to oversee. 

I’m guessing you get the point. You might be wondering if we could do the same thing with house churches in the New Testament. Maybe. I could definitely give you instances of people meeting in homes - and shout-outs to home church leaders sprinkled throughout Pauline epistles. However, often those were fairly large homes. Homes with courtyard, servant quarters, and multiple families living on the premises. Yes, there are instances of home churches, but I believe they are very different than the home churches we see today.

What does all of this boil down to? There is no explicit prescriptive methodology (house or large group) of the church in the New Testament. We have the example of elder leadership set up as the normative structure, but we never have a maximum size given or a even hinted at as an ideal. 

I think the above video is misleading. The conclusions Francis Chan came to don’t seem to be taken from the Scriptures, but rather from his personal experience. He may be right. The home church model may work better in some areas. It seems to be working well in places like China and in some African countries, but he didn’t get that methodology from the Bible. What is biblical is that people are called to be a part of the church, not just attendees at church (which is easier to do at a large church). All people are called to use their gifts to build up the body. Where that isn’t happening, there is a haunting longing that we aren’t living into the calling the Spirit is stirring in us. That’s why both big and small gatherings are important. It’s hard to practice all the “one anothers” on Sunday morning, but who ever said the only time the church gathers is in large groups on a Sunday morning? 

My encouragement is to find a great church to belong to. Find a church that is committed to helping you connect and grow. Contribute. Participate. Learn. Grow. Partner with others doing the same. AND, get plugged into a small group where you can share life on a deeper level with other believers. Meet needs, share meals, use your gifts, and practice loving one another in practical ways. I think that’s the model of the early church; let’s get in rhythm with their stride.