In Western society it’s difficult to do life together, but it does happen, it can be sustained and it can be life-changing. I pray these stories encourage you to keep meeting, keep searching and start gathering. This story is told by Art Mealer. You can read an excerpt from his exceptional book The Servant Community here.
I became a Christian as a young adult in the early seventies. In the beginning, I loved everything about church: from its high ceilings and imposing pulpit to seeing friends dressed up and smiling in its pews. During those first few years, I read the Bible for hours nearly every day. Although I was hungry, I never felt dissatisfied. Then something changed.
Do you remember seeing one of those images you can interpret in two different ways? At first, your brain registers only one image, such as the face of a young girl. Then, suddenly, another image – say, a much older woman – comes into a new focus from the same lines. That happened to me one day, as I sat in the pew, everything I’d been reading in the Bible seemed to stand out differently from what I experienced during our week-by-week meetings. Between the hymns and the collection that Sunday, my perception suddenly shifted between two images. One had well-dressed rows of people sitting quietly, stiffly attentive to the minister at the front. It had the feel of listening to a professional lecture at a university. The other image that came into focus was glowing with cousins and aunts and uncles enjoying one another – laughing, chatting, and talking as if enjoying a barbecue at a casual family reunion. While the view seen in the traditional church models remained clear, I’d been blind to another equally evident vision reinforced by the very same Scriptures.
Once I saw that second image, I couldn’t ignore it. By the end of the sermon, the disquiet in my heart shifted all I knew about the church into this alternate image of sacred, familial, simplicity. I realized that what we’d traditionally dismissed as the “primitive, early church” appeared now as the natural and normal church of relationships -maturing and nourishing one another – just as we see described in scripture.
That event was over fifty years ago, and I still can’t unsee either perspective. As a result, I’ve pursued that fresh, alternative biblical church experience without animosity towards my traditional friends. This return to the scriptural pattern had no name or books describing it. Since the 1990’s it has been known as the small church movement (variously called the New Testament Church, house church, organic church, micro church, simple church, and so on). Over the past 50+ years I have experienced deeply peaceful house churches and a few splits and schisms as well as a few helpful traditional churches. I continue today to be part of a house church. I recently thought to set down all I had learned over the years into 20 brief chapters and published, The Servant Community. One among 100’s of good house church related books available today.
Various house vs traditional models will continue to point out the “errors of the other’s way,” charging each other as being “unbiblical.” But hold on. Can you tell me of a more unbiblical organization than the synagogue? Not found anywhere in the Torah. No instructions for their practices. Used by the diaspora Jews as a place of prayer, beginning a few hundred years before Christ, until this very day. Yet, we read: “He (Jesus) went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was His custom.” – Luke 4:16
In spite of setting out yet another detailed house church resource, my encouragement to you is “grace.” At the end of the day, be free. Set others free. God used the nation of Israel in spite of their failures to “do things right.” Stay humble. Jesus had a habit of attending the unbiblical synagogue. Pursue His leading. Our God doesn’t fit into anyone’s box.
To purchase Art’s book, click here.
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