A Glimpse into Gatherings: Approaching Fellowship, Communion, Partnership, and Edification

As part of our article series, “A Glimpse into Gatherings,” we’re diving into many of the specific ways we’ve seen house churches spend their gatherings–both scheduled and spontaneous ones. We hope that sharing these experiences brings both visibility for those nervous about the unknowns, as well as hope and inspiration for those struggling to let go of the idea of needing a liturgy. If you haven’t already, check out our article, A Glimpse into Gatherings: Letting Go of Liturgy, for more on why we believe intentional flexibility better serves the church than a set liturgy, including more about the example of this set before us in scripture. 

We’ll start with the “buzz word” that gets thrown around quite a bit in the house church scene: fellowship. 

Sometimes we can focus on the idea of fellowship for good purpose, but sometimes our modern idea of “fellowship” becomes too generic. When that happens, immature house churches or other “organic” faith communities fall into the pattern of just becoming friends, social clubs, or therapy groups.

We see that happen when people lose sight of what fellowship actually means, particularly fellowship based on Christ. Fellowship, at least in the sense used in scripture, isn’t just having someone around. It’s “communing” or intimately sharing our thoughts, lives, work, and generosity with one another based on the foundation of our shared priesthood (1 Peter 2:4-9) as Christ’s partners in the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). But don’t just take our word for that: you can check out the Greek usage of the word used for “fellowship,” “communion,” or “partnership” yourself in with a Lexicon like the one available through the Blue Letter Bible: koinōneō, koinōnia, koinōnikos, and koinōnos.

Now to the more practical question: what does fellowship look like? 

A lot of times, it looks like eating together–or “breaking bread.” While some house churches also have a more symbolic and ritualized “communion” practice with just bread and wine, every house church we’ve met makes it a regular priority to eat together. One reason for this is the inherent intimacy that can happen over a meal–especially when everyone’s focused on sharing spiritual life and ministry together over that meal. 

More importantly, though, we share meals to follow the pattern we see in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 of sharing the Lord’s supper as a meal in remembrance of Christ.

The meal is a reminder of Christ’s final moments with his own disciples as he taught them to serve one another as he served them. Beyond that, we also understand the meal shared together as a reminder of our participation in Christ’s sacrifice and as priests in the ministry of reconciliation, just as the priests of Israel shared in the meals of the altar as partners to the Lord in the old covenant. This understanding of the shared meal being similar to that of a priestly meal comes in large part from 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 (ESV):

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

In this passage, Paul compares "the cup of blessing that we bless" and "the bread that we break" as a participation in the body of Christ to the meals that were eaten as part of the Old Testament sacrifices. Some offerings may have been shared by more than just the priests, as well, though there are generally more specifications for the priests' meals and participation. Paul then goes on to draw a contrast between those offerings and those of pagans, following it by coming back again to Christians' participation with "the cup of the Lord" at "the table of the Lord," a phrase reminiscent of Old Testament references to the offering table (most directly in Malachi 1:7 and 12).

The more important piece of this scriptural comparison is, of course, about breaking bread as a reminder of dedication and offering to God, which is why we keep ourselves unstained from idolatry. With that in mind, we've also found that reflecting on and taking in the connection Paul draws to the context he knew has been a helpful reminder of how the church is "being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5). It has served as a reminder that breaking bread together is more than friendship alone but also a shared commitment to offering our lives to Christ to be not only His children but also His priests.

For our team, most of this thinking was first kicked off by a short podcast series from the late Dr. Michael Heiser on the Naked Bible Podcast. We would highly recommend it as well as a place for thinking more about how the concept of communion started off and how it came to be what it is today. You can find the first episode here.

Since then, for many of us, such an intense understanding of sharing a meal has also deepened from considering the perspective of Paul and the ancient audience in other ways. As Dr. Craig S. Keener puts it, the original audience “saw hospitality and the sharing of table fellowship as an intimate bond establishing a covenant of friendship” (from his comment on Matthew 26:21-23 in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament). While many of us today are not in the habit of considering any relationships besides marriages as covenantal, that depth of commitment may start to make more sense in the context of friendships grounded in remembering Christ and being built up to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices.

How the practical details of that commitment play out around a shared dining table varies across house churches and even seasons for each house church. Some have sign-up sheets for pitch-ins, some have a scheduled rotation, some assign dishes and sides each gathering, and some do a mixture of those options. Generally, though, house churches consider having a regular meal also as an opportunity for everyone to serve the church through prepping and cooking, not just the same person or few people every time.

On another very practical level, thinking about fellowship as partnership brings up another side to the equation:

Not only do we come together as partners, but we also go out together as partners.

That looks different depending on the needs around us, but it includes giving; serving; filling needs on volunteer levels; and generally caring for the orphan, widow, and least of these (James 1:27, Matthew 25:40). It also looks like going out together to meet, care for, and share about Christ with larger groups in our communities or with specific individuals that someone in the church has a relationship with. In all of those things, you may see churches organizing larger events together (sometimes across multiple house churches), or you may see them spend time while they are gathered to encourage these as individual pursuits for one or a few people.

That approach of encouraging individual pursuits in and of itself also brings up a core part of what fellowship often looks like for house churches: edification.

Scripturally, edification is all about building one another up as Christians towards maturity in our faiths. There’s not just one defined context for edification in a house church; it happens over a meal, in the midst of prayer or scripture study, and casually as we go about our daily lives.

With that said, it is also a very common practice for house churches to have unstructured time in some or all of their gatherings, which may also be referred to by some as “fellowship” time. When that happens with the biblical heart of “fellowship” in mind, the purpose of that unstructured time is mainly then to make space for any member to speak up to build up another member or the church at large–or to ask for the church to build them up in a certain way, too.

What this looks like in practicality depends on what the church as a whole and its members need at the time. Most commonly during this unplanned time, we see:

• Gifts of the Spirit come into play (such as those listed in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4)

• People sharing what they are learning from the Lord in their lives, biblical study, or prayer either to encourage all or ask for support from all

• Follow-up to sharing with feedback, questions, correction, and clarification

• Addressing concerns when something seems off with a church member or the church as a whole

• Sharing needs and asking for help (both practical and spiritual)

We’ve found that house churches are at their healthiest and most mature when they don’t limit their fellowship and edification to only structured or unstructured times, though.

As we talked about in our article, A Glimpse into Gatherings: Letting Go of Liturgy, the heart of no longer following a set liturgy isn’t about having free-for-all gatherings. Instead, it's about asking the Spirit to help us “consider how to stir one another up” (Hebrews 10:24-25) and discerning the best way to do that for every gathering depending on the needs of the people at the time.

While this is certainly not an all-encompassing look at the part that fellowship and edification play in house church settings, we hope this has given you a very wide, practical view of what gatherings can look like in a healthy, mature house church setting. However, our goal isn’t to give house churches a list to pick from for their gatherings–rather, we hope this has been a touchpoint for potential inspiration and connection to your own church’s needs.

For more glimpses into what a house church gathering looks like, you can also check out the other articles in this series: A Glimpse into Gatherings: Letting Go of Liturgy, A Glimpse into Gatherings: Approaching Scripture, and A Glimpse into Gatherings: Approaching Worship and Prayer.