Number 120:  August 6, 2007

The newspaper headline read “Controversial ‘house churches’ gain popularity.” Another article read “Home-church movement growing in America.” A survey conducted in 2006  reported that 9% of U.S. adults attend house churches weekly and that 70 million Americans have experienced a home service. Both articles addressed what they say is just now becoming fashionable, a church in one’s home. Here are two exerpts:

In an age where area-sized churches seem all the rage, there’s another, quieter movement afoot, house churches. They are springing up around the world, across the country and in cities where megachurches seem to grow like kudzu.

The couple are part of a growing movement, mostly among evangelical and born-again Christians, that represents either a second Protestant reformation or a sellout of biblical principles.

I’ve been attending home churches for almost 30 years, and my wife has since 1971. Recently I visited many home churches in India, and personally know of others in most countries around the world. The Bible reveals that this is how the earliest Christians met.

I Corinthians 16:19:

The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.

Colossians 4:15:

Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house.

Philemon 2:

And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house.

I Timothy 3:15:

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

The homes in which the churches met were called houses of God. These homes were the pillars of the Church for these fellowships were built on the foundation of truth. Since those who ran most of the early synagogues could not tolerate this movement concerning Jesus of Nazareth, it necessitated meeting in one’s home. This was God’s method of winning and sustaining people in the early Church. When the churches met in the homes in small groups, under the supervision of a trained overseer, it made possible participation by everyone, as well as the giving of attention and help to the individual