The Case for House Church

Clayton Milano

I am sure that to many, the title of this article made you roll your eyes a little bit. You know that the Bible talks about churches meeting in houses but… I mean, that can’t possibly apply to our cultural setting today. You also may have met some rather bizarre individuals who were house church advocates.  Or perhaps, you don’t see how a house church could maintain good doctrine. My goal in this short piece is to show you that house church isn’t just a crazy idea for some far out there quacks but that it helps us to live out many commands of Scripture with tremendous affect.

Few would desire to challenge the fact that house churches seem to be the modus operandi during Biblical times (Acts 12:12; Rom. 16:3-5, 23; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col 4:15). While I freely confess that there is nothing in Scripture prescribing people to meet in house churches, there are several prescriptive verses that only seem possible to live out in a house church. And then there are other verses that, while not absent in the institutional church, seem like they are better lived out in a house church.[1]

Let’s start with 1 Corinthians 14:26 where Paul writes, “What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” I have hit on this verse over the past few weeks but I highlight it again to point out the fact that this is the ONLY place where Paul specifically describes what we should do when we are gathered together as a body of believers. If this is the only place where Paul tells us what our gatherings should look like, then it stands to reason that we should endeavor to create an environment where this can be lived out. It must be said that living out this verse is quite possibly the most important mark of a healthy church. House churches, being small, enable the participation of all members. And those leading the house church ought to encourage the others to bring something every week for the building up of the body. It is not one person’s job to build up the body but everyone must work at it together by bringing something each week.

The reason that Paul is able to write about everyone participating is because in the New Covenant, every believer is a priest, not just the hired staff. 1 Peter 2:9 reads, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.” House church enables all believers to live out of their “priesthood.” They are not second class Christians with less to contribute because they haven’t yet read enough books about hermeneutics or whatever topic. Those who are priests are those who have been called out of darkness and into light. There are no other qualifications to be a New Covenant “priest.”

Many protestant confessional statements contain an affirmation of the priesthood of all believers. However, if we look at the structure of the institutional church we have to ask if this is really being borne out. The priesthood of all believers does not just mean that you don’t have to confess your sins to a priest. It means much more. It means that all God’s people are able and capable ministers. If someone were to walk into an institutional church, would they be able to agree that all God’s people are equally “priestly.” Probably not. In a house church everyone is ministering to one another.

It is in this framework that Paul’s discussion on the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12-14 makes most sense. There are indeed many members of the body. What is not considered is that Paul wants these many members to be active during the gathering. It is not only those who can teach and play music that ought to be active during the church gathering. If someone has the gift of prophecy, they should be active in the church gathering. If someone has the gift of encouragement, they should be active during the gathering. When all the members are using the gifts during our church gatherings, then we see the Body of Christ.

Paul frames the spiritual gift discussion with his command in 1 Corinthians 14:26. One of the biggest problems with the institutional church is that it believes the Body is being reflected if these gifts are used at other times outside of the church gathering. While it may be good for them to be used at other times as well, the Body of Christ is best reflected when the church gathers together. But it’s not a Body if only a few are active during the gathering. House church provides us with a model that enables us to live out the reality of the Body of Christ when we gather together.

While more could be said in favor of house church, I hope this has at least stirred some thought. In the coming weeks, I will be addressing common objections to house church. In the mean time, I would love any dialogue on the topic below.

[1] I will use the phrase “institutional church” and “building church” as a contrast to the “house church” model. Notice I do not contrast the house church model with the “traditional church” model. Often when people discuss the house church movement, they try and categorize it as if it were something new. But in historical reality, the house church model is not new. In fact, it was first. Indeed it would be most accurate to associate the house church model with the “traditional church” model.

Clayton Milano
Clayton is a former regular contributor to The Two Cities.

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One response to “The Case for House Church”

  1. Ian Hodge

    Ryan –

    I have read several of your recent blog posts with interest. I appreciate that you seem to have a burning desire to see the church act with real power, and that you are willing to think outside the box with regards to how we are doing church today. In many ways I need to hear what you have to say.

    A little background to me and my perspective – I graduated from Talbot with an M.Div almost a year ago, and I’m now pastoring a small Presbyterian church of about 40 in central California. In other words, I do have a vested interest in doing church in a larger congregation, because most of our income comes from this ministry!

    While I do applaud your desire to take the priesthood of all believers seriously, I don’t agree with how you have outlined the outworking of the priesthood in your post. For example, you take 1 Corinthians 14:26 as implying that all members of a church should have a special ministerial role in each gathering of the church, and that this does not happen in non-house churches. Unfortunately, I don’t think this verse means what you think it means.

    First of all, 1 Corinthians 14:26 is descriptive of a specific situation in the Corinthian church. Paul does not say, “When you come together, MAKE SURE each one has a hymn” etc. Instead, Paul says that each person has something to share when they get together. Why does Paul mention this? Because, as the prior context tells us, when the Corinthians were coming together they were trampling all over each other to share their gifts. As a matter of fact, the gifts that God had given the Corinthian church in order to build it up were instead being used to tear it down, which is why Paul discusses spiritual gifts in chapter 12. Therefore, Paul continues in 14:27, “If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three…” In reality, the Corinthian congregation was too big, with too many gifted people, for each of them to speak at each gathering! Paul’s solution is to impose a sort of order upon the service, including, when necessary, limiting the number of Christians exercising their gifts. In reality, 1 Corinthians 14:26 doesn’t favor house churches over larger churches, nor does it favor larger churches over house churches. It does, however, prove that God’s people can still be God’s people, and by extension, priests, even in a setting where not every person can exercise their full gifting or full responsibility as a priest.

    The next thing to note is that it seems to me a false assumption when we say that the only people exercising their gifts or role as a priest is if they have a specific responsibility at a gathering of the church. As a pastor, I have many responsibilities on Sunday morning. Responsibilities, by the way, that I do my best to share with the rest of the church by asking others to pray, read, lead worship, and even teach as appropriate. But even though I am the most visible human being on Sunday morning, every Christian still plays a role in the service on Sunday, even if their only role is to worship along with the rest of the congregation and be led in worship and teaching by those “up front.” The gathering of the church is primarily to worship God as a body, to be led by Him, and to be transformed as a result. And if the primary mission of the church is contained in the great commission, as I believe it is (to make and teach disciples), then each person is contributing to the carrying out of that goal by their participation in leadership and in being led (in reality we are all being led by God’s Spirit). Those who are only being led display obedience, not to the pastor or elders, but to God Himself. Even though not every person participates in a more visible way, every person is still participating in a meaningful way as a priest of God.

    Since this post is already way too long, let me end with this last observation. There is much that happens outside of a Sunday service in which every believer has an opportunity to continue to work as a priest of God. My own church runs a feeding ministry twice a month that is run entirely by the (so-called) laity in the church. This is a powerful ministry that not only fills stomachs, but provides a point of connection to our community that opens doors for the gospels. The gentleman who runs this ministry doesn’t participate on Sunday mornings according to your interpretation of 1 Corinthians 14:26, but he certainly acts as God’s priest in the ministry of the church through this ministry. The same is true of any number of other ministries my church and thousands of other churches run.

    To wrap it up, I don’t have any problem with house churches. I do, however, believe that the claim that house churches better accomplish the identity of what a church is cannot be supported by Scripture, nor does it bear out in our real world experience.

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