A Glimpse into Gatherings: Approaching Scripture

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. 

In this article, we want to dive into the ways house churches approach scripture in their gatherings. The way modern Christians interact with scripture is one of the biggest cultural shifts compared to the earliest church–in some ways to our advantage and in some ways to our disadvantage. On one hand, we’re two thousand years removed from the language, contexts, and cultural understandings of the original authors. That can obviously make interpretation more difficult. But on the other hand…

Our literacy rates are generally much higher, the direct availability of the scriptures themselves is near-constant, and our access to scholarship that recovers what we may otherwise lose in language and cultural gaps is incredible.

That near-constant availability of the scripture means you can expect a lot of casual scripture references and readings when most house churches are gathered. Sometimes casual reading is scheduled or assigned during a certain season. That might look like having someone read a section of their choosing or part of a larger book that the church is reading through at a certain point in a gathering. Otherwise, casual scriptural references and readings happen naturally as part of conversations over a meal, in the midst of time set aside to worship, or in response to someone sharing a need or concern.

As for more intentional time spent with the scripture during gatherings, that also varies season-to-season depending on what’s most beneficial for the church. When considering what’s most beneficial, house churches’ focus is typically on preparing every part of the body to be able to understand and faithfully use scripture to equip God’s people for good works, as Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV):

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Sometimes, someone prepares a teaching, a facilitated reading and discussion, or a guided bible study. Sometimes these are one-offs and sometimes they’re a series through a topic or book. Sometimes, they may even focus more on how to study the scripture, access resources to bridge the 2,000 year gap between us and the original authors and audience, or critically evaluate biblical interpretations.

Even when there’s a single person teaching or leading, these don’t usually look like Sunday morning sermons.

For one, there’s almost always active discussion, audience participation, and room for questions built into these teachings and studies–even in the most sermon-like or lecture-like teachings. We talk more about the importance of the participation of the entire body in our article, Choosing House Church, Part 2: Functioning Body Members.

Besides the interactive nature during teaching-based gatherings, there’s also sometimes follow-up (in groups, as partners, or with the whole church) of prayer, having a conversation about what the teaching impacts for people personally, or digging into a question raised by the scripture or discussion. Occasionally, there may even be structured quizzes, outside readings and critiques of interpretations from scholars or the general public, and “essay”-style take-home topics or questions (and rubrics for responses) that the church discusses the next time they gather. 

Beyond those practicalities, teaching-focused times also look different than most Sunday morning services because very rarely is the main purpose of these teachings to rouse people to live more faithfully or morally. Which is not to say that living well isn’t important. But that’s not often the focus of dedicated teachings. Why? Because the house church structure already allows us to much more directly, effectively, and personally exhort one another to live more in step with the Spirit of God in our everyday lives and edification. Because of that, when house churches come together and someone leads a teaching or study, the focus is heavily on understanding the scripture and the complex picture of our immense God more fully.

That said, we do expect our ever-growing knowledge of the creator to renew us (Colossians 3:9-10) in both mind and action.

However, you aren’t likely to find a bulletized list of key points after a teaching at a house church gathering. Instead, the focus will likely be on coming communally to a renewed understanding that enables the church to maturity, rather than an exhortation towards general faithfulness or away from general unfaithfulness.

None of that is to say that institutionalized church sermons never aim to bring the church to more maturity, of course. Pastors are, however, under a much different pressure and expectation for their preaching and how it affects their audiences. Part of that is the inherent pressure to keep the congregation happy (and thus tithing and thus paying the pastor’s salary), even if sometimes what makes the congregation happy isn’t what helps them grow the most.

But even besides that, pastors are typically faced with the impossible task of shepherding or watching out for large (sometimes very large) amounts of people who they do not know very personally. When the sermon is the only for-sure touchpoint they have with many congregants, it makes the most sense for sermons to then focus on basic care and carroling of the sheep to support general perseverance in the faith and encourage living a general good reflection of that faith. 

In the house church setting, there are also non-teaching-based scriptural approaches that can be just as valuable–and sometimes even more so.

For example, the church might choose to read through a book of the Bible together or dig into a topic together with much less guidance from a designated leader. Oftentimes, churches may set up foundational questions for discussion around big but simple questions, like for example, “What does this reveal about the character of God?” and “What parts of the text are hard to wrap your head around?” These tend to work well for both pre-decided reading plans and more topical studies where everyone searches the scripture together for relevant passages, patterns, and considerations.

Especially for topical studies, a church leader or someone else with insight into what may be fruitful for the church in that season may lay out more specific questions. Sometimes leaders choose the topics, and sometimes churches decide or vote together–or pull a suggestion from a hat each week.

Rather than taking time in a gathering to study, we’ve also seen house churches have “hot-seat” questioning to practice verbalizing off-the-cuff what they believe (or “making a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you,” as 1 Peter 3:15-16 puts it). With this, the basic expectation and hope is that their response be scripturally sound and grounded but also approachable for non-Christians to hear and be drawn to Christ through. Sometimes this is a fuller church discussion, sometimes one person or a partner crew take on a topic or question on their own, and sometimes churches even set up partners to try to argue opposite sides. 

On the other end of the spectrum of “hot-seat” scriptural conversations, house churches also often slow down and dive more deeply into the text together, both topically and with book read-throughs. Much of this deep diving is a protection against twisting the scripture (maliciously or out of misunderstanding), which was a problem even in Peter and Paul’s day when there wasn’t a 2,000 year information and culture gap for at least Paul’s writings (2 Peter 3:16). 

Sometimes that deeper study as simple as discussing for each passage (with extra research as needed) for A) the author’s main point or purpose in writing, B) the context of the original audience that would’ve impacted their understanding, C) how that then translates to Christians across culture and time, and then D) if and how that changes how any one of us understands something important to our faith. Churches may also dive in by reading through a commentary together, or by splitting into groups reading multiple commentaries and then pooling the knowledge they found. They may also walk through a step-by-step study structure together, especially for topical study and reading.

While this is certainly not an all-encompassing look at the part that worship and prayer 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 Fellowship, Communion, Partnership, and Edification; and A Glimpse into Gatherings: Approaching Worship and Prayer.