FROM CHURCH HOUSE TO HOUSE CHURCH

Those inclined to historical study can make a good case for the claim that early Christianity began to lose its impetus when it moved into buildings and carried on its “program” behind brick and mortar. It is clear enough from the scriptures that the primitive Christians scattered to preach and assembled to worship. There was probably at first no one “Lord’s Day,” for both the sabbath and the first day had significance to them. They were, after all, still Jews. They continued frequenting the temple and synagogues. Assemblies of “the Way,” which was no doubt first viewed as another Jewish sect, met whenever and wherever they could. Private homes, the catacombs, lecture halls were likely places. By 115 A.D. the meetings began to go underground, for by that time it was against the law to be a Christian.

To think of the community of saints then meeting on the corner of Fifth and Izzard, with a sign reading “Church of Christ,” and times of worship recorded for both Sunday and Wednesday, with the worshippers scurrying about trying to find a seat in the back, is to think of the unlikely. They met when and where they could, perhaps secretly, passing the word around obliquely by such signs as the fish. They certainly owned no property and had no buildings, perhaps not for 300 years, by which time Christianity was the legalized religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine.

By the time we read of buildings we find a decadent religion, one converted by the Empire rather than one that had converted the Empire. In its most vibrant and dynamic era Christianity had no buildings in which to concentrate its activities. The homes of the saints were its headquarters and the centers for its operation. Its power was in its message, not its real estate. They had Jesus, not paraphernalia.

It is ironical that in spite of our multiplicity of divisions we have never had a major fission over church houses. We have divided over doctrine, over how to serve the Supper, over how to do mission work, over how to sing; but church buildings no. To the contrary, each of our parties goes out and builds another house. It would be much more reasonable to split up over our costly real estate, and all that goes with it, if we have to split at all. Think of the money saved for benevolence and missions; think of the jealousy and competition between congregations that would be eliminated. The answer may lie in the fact that we did not have buildings until we had a special priesthood or clergy. New parties are usually formed around some preacher, who of course wants a building as a monument to his success and as a base for his operation. Buildings have their pulpits, and pulpits always have their clerical implications, which often include the infallibility, more or less, of the pulpiteer.

With the emergence of the building has come a beclouding of some of the lesser, but still important, characteristics of early Christianity. The kiss of love or the holy kiss, for instance. It would seem awkward in the formal setting one finds at Fifth and Izzard, but ever so natural in the persecution-ridden atmosphere of a saintly gathering in a Roman catacomb. In comes a brother that you thought was in Nero’s prison, waiting to be thrown to the lions. What do you do, walk up, Stick out a cold fish and say, “How’s it been going”? We can see them embracing and kissing one another in a spontaneous outpouring of concern.

And who can fancy a foot washing ceremony on the plush carpets of Fifth and Izzard. How embarrassing! What would the neighbors think? But it appears likely in a peasant’s home, where a brother is moved by Jesus’ words: “You ought to wash one another’s feet.”

Then there is the spontaneous outburst of prayer and praise. Maranatha!, which meant to them, “Come, Lord Jesus,” was such an outcry. But at Fifth and Izzard if we did that, the presiding officer would have to say, “Brother Jones will now say Maranatha for us.” It is likely that no one was called on to lead a prayer in a Christian assembly until we had church buildings. And “the saying of the Amen,” which was a part of their service, is as rare these days as hen’s teeth. And how often do you hear a heart-warming Praise God! in our assemblies? It was common in theirs.

The church house has all but killed spontaneity in our services. Only those speak who have been appropriately employed (and usually paid) to do so. Only those pray who are called upon to do so. “The prayers of the congregation,” always prominent in the early assemblies, is virtually unknown to us.

All the bugaboo about what the sisters can or cannot do is mostly a church house problem. If we had never had a pulpit or a pew, a lot of the questions would never have arisen. Huddled together in some cave in Thessalonica, who would have called in question some sister’s cry to God for the protection of her family? We associate “preaching” with the pulpit or “teaching” with standing before a class. It has no such formal connotation in the scriptures.

Then there’s singing and the organ and all that. Oftentimes in a primitive assembly they dared not sing at all, lest they expose themselves to arrest. Even today behind the Iron Curtain there is no instrumental music question, for the evangelical church has gone underground. If they sing, they whisper it!

Church buildings also solidify our divisions, literally and physically as well as in sentiment. The building stands as a monument to the separation. If the church in a given city was distributed into a hundred homes, the divisions would be less noticeable and less enduring. Buildings fix and guarantee the prolongation of division.

But for all this we do have our buildings and they are likely to be around for awhile. They are still going up as symbols of our modernity and our affluence, bigger and more expensive. Moreover they are status symbols and barometers of success. I find myself increasingly disliking them, almost nauseated by them, and almost totally unimpressed by their magnificence. They remind me of Socrates’ insistence that for something to be truly magnificent it must also be appropriate. Even gold, he taught, is not beautiful if it bedecks an idol, but on a lovely woman it too becomes lovely. If I could see our buildings as workshops, as centers for social action, headquarters for programs for the poor, used daily by those who lack housing, then it would be different.

But, as I say, we have our buildings and this article is not going to change that fact. Nor am 1 suggesting that we burn them down or walk off and leave them. I might insist however, if I thought it would do any good, that we build no more.

If it is true that Christianity became livid when it set itself up in buildings, is it also true that the restoration of dynamic religion will come as we turn from the building back to the house church?

It is significant that in these days of spiritual revolution, in which the institutional church is fighting for its life, there is a definite move back to the house church.

A brother in Dallas called me recently to tell me he was starting a church in his home, “a house church” he called it. He explained that he was passing the word around to brethren that he believed were bored with the status quo, or perhaps starved for spirituality. One prominent preacher described the Dallas Churches of Christ as “the most spiritually starved of our people anywhere,” or some such words. So this brother wanted to do something about such a depressive condition. He had around 25 saints at his first meeting, coming from several old-line congregations.

Billy Graham says there are upward of one million such house groups or prayer circles throughout the world. It is estimated that among Churches of Christ-Christian Churches alone there are a hundred such house churches in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

There has been a tendency for the house church to be underground, which means that it exists as a reaction against the institutional church and usually without its blessings, and sometimes even without its knowledge. But there are many house churches that make a sincere effort to be both friendly and helpful toward the established churches. The participants remain loyal members of their respective congregations, attending the services as usual, the house church being extracurricular. But it is the house church that provides them with more meaningful fellowship and more spiritual food, for nearly always the house church starts because of dissatisfaction with the status quo.

We would hope that the Church of Christ house churches will prove to be auxiliary efforts within our established congregations, not separated groups that are antagonistic toward the rest of us. If this is the case, they can be of great service in giving the congregations a needed shot-in-the-arm. Prayer, study, and conversation can be most edifying in house meetings, and they often lead to a soul-searching that is less likely in more formal gatherings.

Those who start churches in their homes need to ask themselves some important questions. Is it really intended to be a congregation? Is there to be structure and organization? Any officers? Any work to be done as a group? Any money to be contributed? If so, who handles it and who makes the decisions? Is the Supper to be served?

If these questions are answered in the affirmative, there is a real risk that those involved are headed for a lot of trouble. We will have a lot of mini-churches emerging with problems all their own, which might eventually be more serious than “back at the church.” And if they are answered in the affirmative, it means that the participants have left their congregations and started a church of their own.

Some hard questions need to be faced up to regarding the government of the church. No group of people function without agents. Someone has to rule, make decisions, exercise discipline, and otherwise “keep house for the Lord.” If we are right in looking to the elders as the overseers of the congregation, then what disposition will the house church make of this? And what attitude are the participants to have toward the congregation and its elders from which they come.

If the house church is nothing more than a gathering of saints from various quarters, all of whom remain members of their respective congregations, then there would not be these problems. And we would urge our emerging “house church brethren” to honor the established churches in this regard. In this way they have a chance of giving the churches a needed transfusion of spiritual energy. And the only way to do this is for such brethren to keep on attending their regular places, avoiding any semblance of a rupture in the body. If this is not done, we are likely to have an unusual rash break out on the body of Christ, a bevy of microscopic sects. Equally weakening would be the fact that many of the most spiritual folk would be siphoned off into this kind of movement, which in turn could fizzle and leave a lot of people displaced and discouraged.

The house church is often the result of charismatic experiences occurring in congregations that will not tolerate them. It is definitely part of “the Holy Spirit movement” that provides a more conducive environment for an expression of the gifts of the Spirit, especially the speaking in tongues. When this is the case the problem of preserving peace with the congregations is more serious, for it is hard for the congregations to be forbearing. It is also difficult for the charismatic folk not to be sectarian in their attitude.

The only answer is for all of us to love Christ more than we do our preferences. Even if services are boring, we should keep attending for Jesus’ sake. After all, our mission is to serve, not to be served. If a congregation is not spiritual, we should think of ourselves as called of God to do what we can to make it more spiritual. It was that way at Sardis, a church that Jesus called dead. Still he recognized that some “walk with me in white.” They did not find refuge in some house church.

If we in the established congregations will be both loving and forbearing with those who want to have their own meetings, and even encourage this (and attend if we are invited), then we can go far in “preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

If this we do, from both sides, then the house church can be a blessing to those in the church house, for actually they’ll be one and the same, only a way of allowing for preferences.

In all this we must remember that the institutional church is fighting for its survival as never before. And there is much about the institutional church that is good and should not die. And we must keep asking ourselves what will be left when it dies. If the church survives, if indeed it is renewed and becomes truly a community of redemption in modern society, it will be through the efforts of those who have remained within.—the Editor