House Church Essentials

This book by John C. Fenn is about 114 pages and is an easy read. It gives practical and spiritual advice on starting and maintaining house church. The excerpt below is about relationships.

One of our house churches, the leaders had sat at  home for about seven or eight weeks and realized  that they couldn’t do that forever and they started thinking who they knew who had stopped going to church. They called those people and said let’s get together for a meal, a time for prayer and some worship and visit and that is how that house church was born. Oftentimes it is very natural.

We’re not trying to build a network. We’re building relationships. Networking is just a natural result of getting to know one another. A house church meets with purpose. It is more than a Bible study; it is more than just a prayer meeting. It is people who will commit to one another with purpose to meet week in and week out and to truly do what it takes to become the body of Christ, to grow in the Lord. It is all about discipleship. It is not a Bless Me Club; it is all about discipleship.

It is that commitment to look outward and become like Christ and grow in Christ. Look for people who are on that same spiritual page. That is when you call them and say, hey, come on over, let’s pray, let’s have a Bible study, let’s talk about this; and you walk through it and you talk through it. You will find as time goes on that people will say things like, wow, you guys meet in living rooms? Wow, that is what I’m looking for, something where the Lord can just move! And, here is the thing: trust the Lord and he will take care of it. He will do it.

And, again I want to make the point that the house is not the point, it is the relationships. The house and the home is where the family lives. It flows out of the family. Let’s look at where most of the New Testament people in house church came from. And we can see this in a couple of scriptures.

In John 1:40-42, it says “one of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said unto him, we have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jonas: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone.” And that was their first meeting.

Andrew introduced his brother Peter to Jesus. And, Andrew introduced Simon, his brother to Jesus. And right after that it says Philip found his friend Nathaniel. And Jesus said to Nathaniel, I saw you sitting under the fig tree, here comes an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. And he said you don’t even know me. And Jesus said, no, I saw you sitting under the fig tree before Philip called you. Philip, it says, was of the same town as Peter and Andrew.

And, so what you have is Andrew introducing his brother, so that means family is the first connection in biblical house church. And, 2) Philip found his friend Nathaniel; they were of the same community; so neighbors and community is the second group. And then in Luke 5:10, we are told that Peter is a partner in a fishing business with two guys, James and John. Of course, they all left the boats to follow Jesus. But, they were business partners.

So, there is 1) family, 2) friends/community and then 3) co-workers. And that is the basis. If you look through the Book of Acts at the end of Paul’s letters where he greets people, these three elements are consistent with the biblical house church: family, friends and co-workers; and friends include neighbors.  So if you want to go to four, it is family, friends, neighbors and co-workers are found in John 1 and Luke 5:10.

John C. Fenn, House Church Essentials