Choosing House Church, Part 2: Functioning Body Members

In this article series, we’re taking a look at a few scriptural precedents for what it means to be the church and how the house church structure empowers Christians to follow these precedents.

In part 1 of this article series, we first addressed the elephant in the room: the fact that asking, “Why house church?” inherently raises another question: “Why not the institutionalized church?” We explain in more detail there how we love our brothers and sisters in Christ who attend institutionalized church. Our desire for all Christians to have the foundational support that the house church structure provides stems from our love for them–not from hatred, division, or competition.

With that said: let’s dive into the most foundational scriptural pattern that we believe answers the question, “Why house church?” and its natural follow-up, “Why not the institutionalized church?”

The church is meant to be a body in which every part has a purpose and a function. 

While this article certainly won’t be a holistic deep dive of everything surrounding what it means to be the body of Christ, there are a couple key passages of scripture that we want to look at. The first is Ephesians 4:11-16 (ESV): 

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

That end piece we bolded points directly to a repeated pattern that we see in scripture: the Lord desires for every part of the church to work properly. And when we do? Two things happen. 1) We grow in love towards unity in the faith, knowledge of the son of God, mature manhood, and the fullness of God. 2) We stop being tossed about by false doctrine and cunning, deceitful schemes.

Another part of that pattern is in its connection to the spiritual gifts listed in the beginning of that passage. In fact, there are quite a few scriptural reiterations that each person in the church is given spiritual gifts to glorify God, as 1 Peter 4:10-11 (ESV) says:

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

And in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 (ESV), where Paul calls the gifts, services, and activities from the Lord “manifestations of the Spirit for the common good”:

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

At the very foundation of the house church structure is an inherent focus on this design for the church: to be a body where every single member is gifted with a manifestation of the Spirit that brings good to the church, glorifies Christ, and helps the body grow to build itself up in love.

House church enables Christians to live this out more easily by making participation of every member the norm–both inside and outside of church gatherings. 

Even in the youngest, least mature house churches we know, all of their members play an active role in their gatherings and in each others’ lives. Really. Every single person who calls themselves a part of the church is investing in the others in the church in at least some way.

Of course, the balance of that investment and how well each part is working depends heavily on the maturity of the church body. That is, after all, why the church has to grow and attain the fullness of Christ, not just grasp it as soon as we become Christians. But it’s nearly impossible to be a silent observer in a house church setting–unless that’s an active decision for a gathering for the sake of order.

That probably sounds incredibly weird if you’ve never been part of a church gathering where everyone there had space and opportunity to talk. But having too much participation, even too much pouring out of the gifts of the Spirit, was an issue in the early church as well. Paul even had to write to the church of Corinth about it in 1 Corinthians 14:26-33 (ESV):

“What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”

What a problem to have. 

When every person is involved and investing during gathering times, it’s also much more natural for the church members to build relationships that extend beyond their gatherings. Body members know each other as Christians and people much more quickly because of the open participation in gatherings (which doesn’t mean there’s never any structure or order to gatherings). They then become more tightly knit or “jointed” together in their everyday lives because of the more-or-less built-in focus on the church not as a building or an event, but as the people who are gathered. We’ll dive into that a little more in part 4 of this series, Choosing House Church: Known By Our Love.

Christians in institutionalized churches often want this, too. But the institutionalized structure inherently makes it more difficult to live out.

That’s not to say that Christians in institutionalized churches can’t function as mutually beneficial body parts with one another. Not by any means. 

Can you imagine, though, Paul having to write something like the passage from 1 Corinthians 14 above to an institutionalized church? Even taking into account every single person serving in any capacity on a Sunday morning, you’d be hard-pressed to find a typical Sunday church service where more than a quarter of the body members were actively involved or “working.” And while we don’t want to by any means dismiss people serving one another, we’d also be remiss if we didn’t ask what percentage of those serving were doing so in a way that 1) effectively impacts the growth of the church so that it builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:11-16), 2) glorifies God through Christ (1 Peter 4:10-11), and 3) is a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)?

And with those scriptural precedents in mind, it’s also worth asking: if 100% of the church wanted to be actively serving during even just most times where the church came together, what would they do? How would they help? Where would they have the space to (in an orderly manner) use the gifts the Lord may give them? 

Most of what we’d find in answering those questions is that the structure of Sunday morning services makes it difficult for members to function well. And while any church is certainly more than its scheduled, structured, full-body gatherings, these services are what the institutionalized church generally considers to be the “main event” for church members’ faith. For many, it’s the only part of “church” that they know. In particular with those services, it’s difficult for every part to function when the majority of the event is typically centered around only one person (or just a few people) speaking.

Now don’t get us wrong–sermons can be a good thing, and we know the Lord absolutely gifts people to teach (through sermons and in other ways). Jesus taught large crowds as he passed through towns, and Paul taught for so long that a young boy nodded off and fell out a window in Acts 20.

But those are examples of brief visits to town from extraordinary faith figures. They aren’t the weekly structure of the early church’s gatherings. While there may be some space to consider the temple services of their time, those also had more opportunity for involvement. But we also have to ask if Christ’s intention for reconciling Jews and Gentiles in the church would have been for them all to follow the patterns of 2nd Temple Judaism? But that’s a consideration for a future article. 

This all raises some questions: when was the last time you heard more than only a handful of body parts speak on a Sunday morning? How often is anyone able to make comments or ask a question that could edify the entire church? How much time or space is left outside of the time assigned to the specific body members who were pre-assigned to serve in some capacity for the other members of the body to work properly, too?

Many institutionalized churches recognize this exact issue in their midst.

That’s why so many pastors preach that Sunday services alone aren’t enough. That’s also why so many pastors encourage their members to join small groups or bible studies, often saying things like, “Circles are better than rows.” But within their own churches, the very structure works against them because the large majority of the time, effort, and money goes to the “main event.” Then, that main event doesn’t allow for the sort of understanding of the church that the pastors hope for. That leaves its mark even for the people who do join those small groups or bible studies, because they see these times where every body member has the space to edify other church members as optional “extras” or “bonuses” to their faith.

Still, though, many times, those small groups or bible studies can function excellently, and the body members in them can grow deeply. We’ve seen quite a few of these institutionalized off-shoot groups grow to function pretty similarly to a house church structure (and a few that eventually explicitly became house churches). We love seeing our brothers and sisters in the institutionalized church actively seek out ways to “work properly” as body members and build up the church. 

But the struggle remains in how much of that building up has to be relegated to “parachurch” activities because the possibility of mutual “iron-sharpening” (Proverbs 27:17) is hindered during the main event of Sunday church services. The struggle often (but not always) continues in how well the Christians in those “parachurch” activities are equipped to effectively support one another’s faiths (something we’ll talk about more in part 3 of this series, Choosing House Church: Royal Priesthood). Then, too, these churches run into the issue of how many people, proportionally compared to those who attend Sunday services, invest into groups like these–and how consistently they remain invested in groups like these.

Pastors so often have a heart to see their church members long for more of Jesus in themselves, their lives, and their fellow body members. They want “church” to mean more than just an hour-long service that people observe. It’s because of this, we think, that it’s actually most often from pastors that we hear encouragement for the house church structure and purpose.

But while every body part consistently having a role to play is more scriptural, it’s also more challenging. 

People often mistake the high participation and engagement levels of the members of house churches as just a difference of “personality” or preference. But the truth is that most people in house churches aren’t just more outgoing or more comfortable with discussion. All of us have had some growing pains learning to engage, to speak up, to ask the Lord to gift and use us–and to make room for him to do the same for the others in our church bodies. It can be a challenging and uncomfortable experience. It can feel risky and vulnerable, and it requires a whole lot of boldness.

It can also be overwhelming and imperfect. That’s why Paul had to write to the Corinthians and help them set up guidelines to keep their gatherings orderly. They needed help learning how to not step over each other’s gifts, how to keep their time together peaceful and not full of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:26-33). They even needed to be reminded to put the edification of the church first (1 Corinthians 14:12) as they each sought the gifts of the Lord.

But that also means we each have the opportunity to bring glory to God through those gifts.

Everything about why we choose to practice our faiths in house church settings comes back to this foundation of the church as a body in which every part has a part to play and work to do that glorifies God. But it’s also more complex than that. We dive even more deeply into that in part 3 of this series, Choosing House Church: Royal Priesthood.