February 22, 2010
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House Church reading notes, Chapter 9
House Church Reading Notes, Chapter 9 - "Preaching and Teaching Ministry"
Much of this chapter's contents was covered earlier in the book. The gist is that while preaching and teaching is important, it was not the central purpose of the weekly New Testament church gatherings and thus should not be our central purpose today. The authors recommend that special 'teaching meetings' be held from time to time on other days of the week so as not to replace the regular house meetings.
I am curious to see what this would look like.... whether teaching would quickly fizzle out without a pre-planned 'main speaker' each week, or whether house congregations would quickly rise to the challenge and begin mutually contributing with gusto.
The question of to what extent women should participate in the meetings is also still extant, given the extreme differences between 1 Corinthians 14 and contemporary American church life.
Two interesting quotes from the chapter:
p.132 "...the push was always for mutual participation; for lots of people to share something, including a short teaching, rather than for one person to predominate..." - from 1 Cor 14, as discussed before.
p. 135 "It is unhealthy for believers to exist exclusively in one isolated house church. Each house church, properly speaking, is a part of the much bigger city church in whatever town it is located. Though they may never all meet together in one place, and though there is to be no outward ecclesiological authority controlling them, all the congregations in a given area constitute the one body of Christ. We are to cultivate an attitude of oneness, acceptance, love, concern, and cooperation with all the other believers in our city." --- I have myself experienced this "city church" experience rather by accident than by plan, and I have found that it is wonderful... to fellowship as regularly as possible with multiple 'spheres' of Christians within one's city... However, how can this be done in conjunction with attending regular house church meetings with a consistent group of people, to facilitate strong fellowship and trust and sharing? Probably more than one gathering per week is required. Perhaps two or three or more....
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