House Church Reading Notes, finishing up the series of notes on this book (edited by Steven Atkerson)
Chapter 10 - The Ministry of Elders -
In this chapter the authors discuss the importance of having elders in house churches. These are officially recognized positions of leadership, not simply old people or people who have attended the group for a long time.
When many people think of house churches, they think of 'splinter groups' of 'theologically wayward people', because there have indeed been occasions of house churches going astray theologically. This is why elder leadership is important - to 'refute' those who oppose sound doctrine (Titus 1:9).
The authors discuss congregational consensus leadership, Biblical characteristics of elders, the plurality of elders, and the working together of all the elders in a city. They raise some good points.
Chapter 11 - Full Time Ministers
Here they discuss Acts 20:32-35, 1 Cor 9:14, 1 Tim. 5:17, etc in the question of whether church leaders should receive a salary for their work. They suggest that generally, elders/leaders should be in a position of giving rather than receiving from the church, although there are certainly times in which the church would see greatest benefit in supporting a particularly gifted teacher financially so that he could devote more time to ministry... especially if his family was going through some kind of financial struggle. Also, they discuss the difference between giving "financial gifts" to the elder versus formalizing a "salary" (a "hireling clergy"). They suggest that the salary is dangerous, wheras the giving of gifts is fine.
A quote from page 155: "If someone feels called to a ministry which prohibits him the time to earn money from other employment, then he can well trust the Lord to provide his needs. It will, of course, be through the freewill offerings of the Lord's people, but nothing must be done by the one called into full time service to ever procure money because that would transgress scriptural teaching that all ministry is free of charge."
This seems interesting and worth pondering further. They are surely right that we don't see salaried church positions taught in the NT, and that these didn't arise until after Constantine. Does this imply that God's ideal for the church was in working jobs on the side to provide for family and in voluntary financial provision in the form of gifts?
Chapter 12 - The ministry of evangelism
Is church primarily for believers or unbelievers? The authors suggest that the NT pattern is that church is primarily for believers. Evangelism in the NT took place either in public settings as evangelism-gifted people publically proclaimed the gospel (e.g. Paul in synagogues, marketplaces, riversides, Stephen in various venues, Apollos, etc), or, in daily life and conversations with unbelievers as believers rubbed shoulders with them ("Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of every opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned as it were with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person." Col. 4:5-6)
Chapter 13 - Ministry households, key to healthy churches
In this chapter Jonathan Lindvall discuss the importance of the family in church life. Not only the family, but the united, close-knit, well-functioning, biblical, mission-minded/focused on fulfilling Jesus' great commission family. They discuss hospitality, elders' families, the problem of missionary boarding schools, and NT ministry households.
Chapter 14 - The ministry of giving
Here they reiterate some points in earlier chapters on the greater proportion of finances that can be devoted to directly helping missionaries and poor brethren in the house church paradigm compared to the traditional large-church-building paradigm (with its huge facility costs, staff costs, etc).
Chapter 15 - The City Church
This chapter first discusses the question of whether the NT's references to churches was primarily speaking of one church in each city, or multiple house churches in each city. They suggest that in some cities, as in Corinth, the church may still have been small enough to actually meet in one home wheras in other cities, like Rome, there were three subgroups (probable house-churches) named. They discuss the situation in Jerusalem (where all the believers met every day in Solomon's portico near the Temple), and argue that this was a unique and temporary situation, because thousands of people who were visiting Jerusalem for the Pentecost feast had suddenly become converted and were needing training before going back to their home countries. They also discuss some problems with the concept of the "city church", as in - who determines who is included and who is not included (cults, etc). If instead a decentralized house church paradigm is adopted, then each house church can decide with what other groups it has true biblical fellowship.
Chapter 16 - Church Discipline
They discuss the pattern of church discipline laid down in Matthew 18. Good thoughts.
Chapter 17 - Church families -
This short chapter is similar to chapter 13 but written by a different author. He shares thoughts on the importance of the whole family experiencing church together as opposed to being separated into various youth classes. Interesting thoughts. This is a very important area, it seems, and there seem to be pros and cons to the different types of teaching time. How can teaching be imparted that fits all the biblical criteria: it is applicable to all age groups, it is by men only (at least for the combined time), it is by all the men, and yet somehow it is deep and thorough...? It seems that deep/thorough teaching would take longer times to convey (perhaps 10 minutes at least?) and that if all the men did it and then "judged"/commented upon each other's teaching, it would take a long time... during which the young kids would be bored. Also, teenagers would often have skeptical questions which would take thorough time to answer. Perhaps this "main assembly time" could be staged somehow? Deepest/most-"theological" teaching first, followed by discussion by the men (during which the little kids color or play quiet games or whatever) followed by teaching aimed at younger folk/everyone? Or the deep theological stuff which is judged to be necessary but not edifying-enough-to-everyone-present could be relegated to another time? A separate 'apologetics discussion for teens' could be hosted at a different point in the morning/evening, with participation from both boys/girls as it is not part of the 'main assembly' that Paul discusses only men leading in 1 Cor 14?
Chapter 18 - Divine Order
The authors first discuss various spheres of authority - God (Father, Son, Spirit), Family, Government, Church. Then they discuss in detail two views on the 1 Cor 11/14 women silent in the church passages. The first view is that the women are "silent in judgment" - that is, that they can address the whole assembly, but they are not to participate in the judging/discussion that follow each prophecy/teaching. The second view is the "silent in public speaking" view - that is, that women are not to address the whole assembly, and the 1 Cor 11 "praying or prophecying" is at other times and places (e.g. at home), not in front of the whole church. The various authors of the book hold to one or the other of these positions. Very interesting discussion. www.ntrf.org is referenced for further discussion. I'd also add www.cbmw.org .
Chapter 19 - Growing pains - getting too big
This chapter discusses various ways of growth in traditional churches (build bigger buildings, add more services) and house churches (split into two house churches, send off a small delegation to a second geographically-separated house church, other ways).
Chapter 20 and Conclusions
These chapters recap the book. They stress that house church is not a "model", it's the "real thing"... it's not something to "toy around with", but something to invest heavily in, if and only if God leads you and your family that is is the right paradigm to invest in at this time. Some stressed keys for success: love for God, love for God's Word, and love for God's people. A final thought is shared - people will probably look at you askance if you go to a house church instead of a traditional church, because for thousands of years (since Constantine) Christians have been going to traditional big-building/paid-staff churches. But as the book points out, we must please the Lord, not anyone else, in the ultimate sense. Only His opinion of us really counts.
I'd love to hear more thoughts from others of you who have read the book, or if you have more thoughts on these things in general.
Some might want to sit unnoticed in the back! But surely the friendly fellowship of a home environment would be a good and helpful dynamic for unsaved visitors.
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