The book House Church and Mission:The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity by Roger Gehring is hard to find at a reasonable price. I’m not entirely sure why. I did find a 15 page pdf summary by John White, author and Co-founder of LK10.
Gehring’s thesis is that house churches are at the center of the missional strategy of Jesus and the early church. The implications of this idea are huge! For one, it requires that we rethink our understanding of what we call The Great Commission in Matthew 28.
Rather than bringing our own ideas and strategies for fulfilling this Commission, we must now ask how Jesus went about that task. Gehring makes a compelling case that Jesus had a clear strategy for making disciples of all people groups. At the center of that strategy was the birthing of house churches (small, family-like communities of faith), which became bases of operation for His mission. Jesus implemented that strategy himself and then taught it to His disciples. (The clearest description of His strategy is found in Mt. 10 and Lk 10.) Those disciples continued with that same strategy throughout the New Testament.
Gehring demonstrates this strategy through five stages: Jesus’ ministry, disciples’ ministry (pre Easter), disciples’ ministry in Jerusalem (post Easter), disciples’ ministry transitioning to the Gentiles, Paul’s ministry. He also demonstrates that an understanding of oikos (household) is critical in understanding not only the nature of mission but also the nature of the church and of church leadership in the New Testament.
Because this book was written as a doctoral dissertation, it is rather long and difficult to read. For that reason, I’ve taken the liberty of gathering and organizing, in the paper below, the key quotes from the book.
As evangelicals, we affirm that “Scripture is our authoritative guide for faith and practice”. House Church and Mission brings new clarity to the “practice” of church and mission in Scripture. How will this understanding now guide our “practice” of church and mission today?
If you would like to learn more about how to start and nurture house churches, go to our website at LK10.com
John White
The LK10 Community
John.LK10@gmail.com
You can check out the Simple Church Europe website here.