Recommendations for House Churches That Work
First of all, people must be brought together. Either by arousing people’s interest through awareness of the house church principles or through the evangelism of new converts.
Practical preparatory work
Pray for wisdom and pray for people. This first step is a very important spiritual action. The house church is born and not just started. Before the birth, someone is first “pregnant”. With God, you first become “pregnant” in prayer and expectation. Time will pass, but one day the birth will take place.
Find unsaved people and lead them to Jesus.
Start a book group and read sections of the “home church manual” and the “organic church block letter” with people to learn and understand the fundamental truths.
Meet with people and discuss the possibility of establishing a house church with them.
Informed people are a necessity
Gathering people to establish a house church can be done by anyone. The most important “attitude” in this regard is to get the mind out of the way. Don’t dwell on any practical complications and don’t overthink prospects. All the questions scare and make one doubt. Do only what can be done humanly and leave the rest to God.
If the fundamental principles in this manual are followed, the rest of the journey is much easier. Everyone in the group, and of course, new visitors who join in, must be brought up to date with the biblical truths and principles regarding daily Christian community life and Christian meetings. This is a challenge because everything is new to everyone, but the results are phenomenal. Therefore, the house church manual must be covered every week until everything is clear and well-known to everyone. At first, everything is new, but later everything makes sense, and eventually the puzzle falls together nicely, as clearly explained in God’s word. It is usually a great and wonderful revelation for people when everything is so beautifully confirmed by the word of God. You will never be convinced otherwise once you are a part of it.
It usually takes about six months to lay the right foundation. In addition to reading from the “Home Church Manual” when you gather, everyone should also study it further at home. There are also many other home church resources available on the website. Visit the websites mentioned, where you will find other links to other websites for further study.
There must be a concrete action plan to practically implement the principles of the manual.
Of course, it helps a lot if everyone takes note of the following:
Become like children about the new and strange principles with which you are not familiar. Everyone must decide to participate with an open mind and, as it were, turn over a new leaf. Such an attitude makes it easier to accept the changes. Of course, new converts will have no problem with it. We older people who come from the institutional church have it more difficult, but with the grace of God, all things are possible.
Be patient with the group’s progress. It takes quite a while to get everything going. Don’t be in a hurry. The Holy Spirit is in control, and He has His own time. Live in surrender regarding the house church progress. Everything is in His hands, and therefore everything is under control.
Know that your feelings will get hurt somewhere in the process because it is, firstly, inevitable and secondly, necessary. This is precisely when progress and growth occur (When the self is crucified to further God’s will).
People will leave. It’s inevitable. Not everyone accepts the new or the strange so easily, especially if there’s a bit of fear of the unknown.
Know that an exciting time of spiritual growth and development awaits those who walk the entire path. It is also inevitable, and believe me, it is absolutely worth it!
It is very important to get the following terms right from the start:
“We have a meeting today”
“We are coming together today” or “We have a gathering today” (1 Corinthians 14:26).
“Our fellowship today”
“We have a congregation meeting”
Please note that the following terms are not at all correct and should not be used:
“We are on our way to church”
“We have a church service this morning”
These statements are not as innocent as they sound. They are not correct, they are not Scriptural, and they promote the human institutions of the institutional church. We are the church. The building we are going to gather in is not the church, whether it is a house, a church building, or a cathedral. A “service” is an institutional institution and has replaced the gifts of the Spirit. We do not hold services, and the Holy Spirit does not perform a “service.” Services do not have the impact on people that one would like. We have become accustomed to them, and that is enough for us, little knowing that our experience of God in worship falls far short.
Since this regular performance-oriented enterprise called “worship service” requires a lot of organizational talent and administrative bureaucracy to keep going, formalized and institutionalized patterns developed quickly into rigid traditions. Statistically, a traditional 1-2 hour “worship service” is very resource-hungry but actually produced very little fruit in terms of disciplining people, that is, in changed lives.
– Wolfgang Simson
The gathering place
Find a house with a large enough living room or other room where you can meet on a weekly basis. It doesn’t necessarily have to be at the same house every time. A good rule is to rotate clockwise from house to house. That way, everyone knows where to meet the following week. The houses where you meet should be centrally located for everyone. Someone who lives far away should always drive in.
However, it should be very clear to everyone that the person where the congregation meets is not in control of the gathering. This is not negotiable. If this is allowed, the house church congregation is immediately on its way to becoming an institutional church again. Even the “smallest” motivation for the “least” control by one person is taboo. However, take note of such a person or persons regarding parking, where and in which room the congregation members should sit, and which bathrooms should be used. After all, this is their home.
Decide when the congregation will meet. Once a week, on a Sunday is usually a good time. Usually for about two to four hours. However, everyone needs to be aware of this matter, and a consensus needs to be reached. It should not be forced on each other, and as the group grows, it needs to be decided again, and a consensus needs to be reached again.
Great care should be taken regarding temperature. People should not sit and get cold or hot. Use an air conditioner, fans, and heaters at all times if necessary. The room can heat up very quickly when people are singing, and if the room becomes stuffy, someone should immediately open extra windows for ventilation. Keep an air conditioner, fans, and heaters in good working order because the survival of the group depends on this.
Punctuality is very important, and no slackness in this regard should be allowed. Many groups have been ruined because of this. Institutional churches can get away with it, but not house churches, where everyone is an active, participating member of the congregation. Make a rule that everyone must be there 15 minutes before the time, and when the official time has arrived, those who are already there should start the meeting. Waiting for latecomers gives the impression that it is okay to be late, and eventually, the meeting will start later and later until it finally ends in a dead end. Be very strict in this regard and address it immediately if it starts to raise its head (With a nice attitude, of course).
At the end of each meeting, someone should remind everyone of the meeting place for the following week’s meeting. We have found that if this is not done, some people tend to miss the next meeting.
Make sure the bathroom is in good condition before people arrive: a) Enough toilet paper b) Towel, soap, and a toilet brush (plunger) c) Make sure the bathroom is clean d) Make sure it can be locked from the inside. Some people will not come back if the bathrooms are not maintained as mentioned.
The chairs should be arranged either in increasingly larger circles or in increasingly larger squares. This way, everyone can see each other face-to-face. This is important for comfortable interaction and communication.
However, the path to the front door and the path to the bathrooms must be comfortable and easy to use without having to brush past people or furniture or step over people.
At the end of each meeting, the entire group, including men, should help everyone to quickly clean the rooms that were used. This includes sweeping, vacuuming, washing dishes, and cleaning the kitchen (if you had a meal together) as well as putting away the chairs. Cleaning should not be left to the household members alone. These tasks build good relationships and are part of the growth process. If everyone works together, it should not take more than 15 minutes.
Visitors should be treated very specially. When they visit for the first time, they should be greeted very kindly, welcomed, and introduced to everyone. It is also a very good habit to give everyone a chance to introduce themselves to visitors with a little bit about themselves (name, where they live and work, etc.) and the visitor as well. There is a difference between “being welcomed” and “feeling welcome”. Visitors should feel that the group really wants them there. There should be no doubt about that.
Get their contact details, call them during the week, and hear how they are doing, ask them if they enjoyed the event, and invite them back. This makes the difference between “being a visitor”, even if you become a regular visitor, and “you are part of us” and “we don’t want you to just be visitors” but “join us”. This message must be clearly conveyed by everyone because it is the attitude of love and acceptance. It is the family or brother attitude of Jesus in action, regardless of who or what the visitor and their family are.
This is also the antidote to a problem that can arise in house churches, namely exclusivity or, to put it another way, “Just the four of us and no one else”. We know each other so well, and we have something very special here between us. If someone comes along, it might disturb the harmony, and we might lose the beautiful thing we have here. This attitude is usually the beginning of the end for a few reasons: New people need to come along to bring a new dimension to the group. Exclusivity causes short-sightedness, meetings become stereotypical, and exclusivity makes people inflated. A group that functions in this way will not last forever. At some point, this wrong attitude will catch up with them, and the group will probably not survive. The formation of a “clique” in house churches should not be allowed under any circumstances.
Dress should always be informal when you gather. For men and children, neat shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and sandals or sneakers in warm areas are quite sufficient. Women can also be neatly dressed but still very informal. In winter, even sweat suits can be worn. It is not what we wear but the attitude of our hearts that is important.
If possible, cell phones should of course be turned off out of respect for God when you gather. This is His time, and this little inconvenience will not harm us. A cell phone that suddenly starts ringing at an inappropriate time disturbs people and can even grieve the Holy Spirit. It should not even be set to “silent”. It is just good manners, and really not acceptable for someone to use a cell phone while we are “fellowshiping” with God. He really deserves the highest respect from everyone. Nothing is going to happen if you completely lose touch with the world for an hour or two. On the contrary, it will only do you good. I know of people who leave their cell phones at home when they go to a meeting. That deserves a round of applause, or what should I say? People who are on standby for their work should, of course, set their cell phones to “silent” or “vibrate,” but should really take great care to leave the room and only answer or speak when they are out of earshot of the meeting.
I know it may sound over-the-top, but it is really necessary not to turn a blind eye in this regard. For some reason, people have a bad attitude when it comes to cell phone etiquette. Worldly cell phone etiquette is now so acceptable to most people in the Christian church that they don’t even see anything wrong with it anymore.
What do we do to break the ice?
My suggestion is to initially work through the “house church manual”. Hold two meetings a week if possible until everyone is familiar with the house church principles. The entire manual must be worked through thoroughly before the house church officially begins. It is very important that the group starts right, and this can only be done if everyone knows how and why. If one starts without this intention, people do not always understand why things are done differently. This leads to frustration and ultimately arguments and unwanted incidents that could have been prevented. There is an audio CD/MP3 series available that can be used for this purpose. Once the manual has been completed or once the entire audio series has been listened to, the actual house church can begin.
Always start with singing unless the Holy Spirit leads otherwise. This usually creates a Holy Spirit-filled “atmosphere” and opens the door for Spirit-led interaction with God and with each other.
The Practical House Church Manual was written by ASR Martins
