Chapter 4

 A Biblical Vision for Small Groups and House Churches

 

To be most effective to experience Christian community and the Lord building His Church through us, we believe that it is God's plan for us to follow Jesus' model of training through small groups and house churches. Just as a cell is one of the smallest units in the physical body, sometimes the term "cell groups” is used to denote the small units of the local church where relationships and personal growth take place. In this book we will mostly use the term small groups, although some call them by various names, including cell groups, home groups, house fellowships, house churches, and life groups.

Small groups of believers committed to one another give everyone an opportunity to get involved. In small groups, each person has the opportunity to begin to fulfill the purpose God has for his life. The small group is the place where he can receive training, instruction, and encouragement as he reaches out to his friends and neighbors with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

We have used the small group model to build God's Kingdom from the inception of DOVE. Small groups are not simply a program of the church; they are a place where people have the chance to experience and demonstrate New Testament Christianity built on relationships, not simply on meetings. In small groups, people share their lives together and reach out with the healing love of Jesus to a broken world. Our vision as a church movement is to "build a relationship with Jesus, with one another, and to transform our world from house to house, city to city, nation to nation.” Since the principles of God's Word are applicable and adaptable to any culture, nation, or people group, we believe the guidelines and principles found in this book will be helpful to you no matter where you live as you reach the world for Jesus from house to house.

In addition to this book on small groups and house churches, I recommend another comprehensive training manual I've co-authored with Brian Sauder that gives the tools you need to design and build the biblical cell church and house church network entitled Helping You Build Cell Churches.1

 

The House-to-House Principle

The Scriptures tell us in Acts 2:41 that "those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”

How could the 120 disciples in the upper room possibly have taken care of 3,000 new believers? Part of their secret is found in Acts 2:46-47 (NKJV):

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

God's people gathered at the temple and met in small groups in homes. "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). They began to minister to one another and to those who were not yet followers of Jesus, and the Lord kept adding to the church daily! In Acts 20:20, the apostle Paul declares to members of the church at Ephesus, ". . . I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house.”

The letter that Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome was written to believers in Jesus Christ who met in people's homes. In his letter to the Romans, Paul indicates that one of these groups met in the home of Priscilla and Aquila:

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. . . . Greet also the church that meets at their house . . . (Romans 16:3-5).

Paul also sent his greetings to the household of Aristobulus and the household of Narcissus (see Rom. 16:10-11). When Paul wrote to his friend Philemon, he expressed his greetings to the church in his house, ". . . To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier and to the church that meets in your home” (Phil. 1:1-2).

Periodically, down through the ages, the church has lost the New Testament component of meeting in small groups in homes of individual believers and has placed an emphasis on the church as it meets in large buildings:

It was in 323 A.D., almost three hundred years after the birth of the church, that Christians first met in something we now call a "church building.” For all three hundred years before that, the church met in living rooms! Constantine built these assembly buildings for Christians not only in Constantinople, but also in Rome, Jerusalem, and in many parts of Italy, all between 323 and 327! This then triggered a massive "church building” fad in large cities all over the Empire.2

"Temple ministry” is beneficial for corporate worship, teaching, and celebration, but we believe that the Lord wants us to get back to seeing the Church as people, not as a place where believers meet each weekend. Our homes, places of business, schools, and other circles of contact provide excellent places for the Church to meet as we infiltrate our spheres of influence with the Good News.

 

What Was the Early Church Really Like?

T.L. Osborne, in his book Soul-winning Out Where the Sinners Are, tells the story of a possible conversation with Aquila in Ephesus, from the Book of Acts:

"Good evening, Aquila. We understand you're a member of the church here. Could we come in and visit for a while?”

"Certainly. Come in.”

"If you don't mind, we would like for you to tell us about the way the churches here in Asia Minor carry on their soul-winning program. We read that you have been a member of a church in Corinth and Rome, as well as this one here in Ephesus. You should be very qualified to tell us about evangelism in the New Testament Church. If you don't mind, we'd like to visit your church while we're here.”

"Sit down, you're already in the church. It meets in my home.”

"You don't have a church building?”

"What's a church building? No, I guess we don't.”

"Tell me, Aquila, what is your church doing to evangelize Ephesus? What are you doing to reach the city with the Gospel?”

"Oh, we already evangelized Ephesus. Every person in the city clearly understands the Gospel. . . . We just visited every home in the city. That's the way the church in Jerusalem first evangelized that city (see Acts 5:42). The disciples there evangelized the entire city of Jerusalem in a very short time. All the other churches in Asia Minor have followed that example.”3

The church of today should take a lesson from the early church. Today's church has tried to reach people for Christ in our communities with extravagant church programs and 21st-century methodology. While such methods have their place, they can never substitute for personal relationships formed in the context of genuine Christian community.

A couple at a DOVE church began a small-group ministry in the heart of a nearby city. A man who has lived in this city all his life shared an observation that illustrates our point. He noted that many of the city churches have moved to the suburbs, while others have sought to promote programs encouraging city dwellers to come in. He was grateful to see the heart of this one couple and their work to move in among the community and develop relationships in order to share that God loves us and sent His Son so that we can find forgiveness and new life through Him.

It's not too late to get back to basics and allow God to build His Church through New Testament relationships built through community. The Scriptures consider a community relationship of love, commitment, and interdependence among Christians as normative, not optional. Let's strive for this kind of community that the early Christians understood. They understood that their faith gave them a distinctive identity that they shared with other Christians.

 

Living Stones

The Bible calls us "living stones.” Each believer has been made alive through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

As you come to Him, the Living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him--you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (see 1 Pet. 2:4-5).

The Lord builds us together with other Christians into a type of spiritual house or community. Christianity is practical. Who are the other living stones the Lord has built you with?

Do you know that as living stones we can demobilize the devil as we obey the living God? Imagine a large stone wall made up of thousands of stones mortared together. These thousands of stones are made up of clusters of stones that touch one another. Can you imagine how frightening it would be if each of these stones were alive and all decided to walk toward you en masse? That is how the devil feels when, as Christians, we pull together, realize God has called us to minister to one another, and obey the prompting of the Holy Spirit to destroy the works of darkness.

Each (living) stone can only touch a small group of other believers at one time. These believers are knit together in small groups through relationships as they are united in the Lord. Ten people who are of one mind and heart can have a tremendous impact on the kingdom of darkness. The devil would like to get us alone, to isolate us, leaving us without the support of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In small groups, we can interact meaningfully with a few other people (Christians and those who have not yet received Jesus) through encouragement, prayer, and practical service. As each small group or house church obeys our Lord Jesus, the entire congregation or house church network has a powerful effect on our communities as we minister in Jesus' name. It's important to remember that the "ministers” Paul speaks about in the New Testament are not only the pastors or leaders--they include all the believers!

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12 NKJV).

God has called every believer to be a minister. He calls the leader¬ship gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to teach and train all believers how to minister. You and I, average, down-to-earth believers in Jesus, are called to tend to others on Jesus' behalf. This ministry becomes quite effective in a small group setting.

 

Learning From History--the Methodist Revival

I have had the privilege of proclaiming the Good News of Christ on six continents during the past few years. Amazingly, in almost every nation that I go, I find a Methodist Church building! Some of my Methodist friends tell me that many of these buildings serve as memorials to a past revival. What happened?

Howard A. Snyder, in The Radical Wesley, says it like this:

John Wesley [the founder of the Methodist Church] saw that new wine must be put into new wineskins. So the story of Wesley's life and ministry is the story of creating and adapting structures to serve the burgeoning revival movement. After 30 years, in 1768, Methodism had 40 circuits and 27,341 members. . . . By 1798, seven years after Wesley's death, the totals had jumped to 149 circuits with 101,712 members. By the turn of the century, about one in every thirty Englishmen were Methodists.4

A key to the Methodist revival was the accountability that each of these new believers found in small groups. Wesley called them class meetings.

The classes were in effect house churches . . . meeting in various neighborhoods where people lived. The class leaders (men and women) were disciplers.

The classes normally met one evening each week for an hour or so. Each person reported on his or her spiritual progress, or on particular needs or problems, and received the support and prayers of the others. . . . According to one author it was, in fact, in the class meeting "where the great majority of conversions occurred.”

The class meeting system tied together the widely scattered Methodist people and became the sustainer of the Methodist renewal over many decades. The movement was in fact a whole series of sporadic and often geographically localized revivals which were interconnected and spread by the society and class network, rather than one continuous wave of revival which swept the country. [Classes joined together to form a society.]

Without the class meeting, the scattered fires of revival would have burned out long before the movement was able to make a deep impact on the nation. . . .

Now here is the remarkable thing. One hears today that it is hard to find enough leaders for small groups or for those to carry on the other responsibilities in the church. Wesley put one in ten, perhaps one in five, to work in significant ministry and leadership. And who were these people? Not the educated or the wealthy with time on their hands, but laboring men and women, husbands and wives and young folks with little or no training, but with spiritual gifts and eagerness to serve. . . .

The system which emerged gave lie to the argument that you can't build a church on poor and uneducated folk. Not only did Wesley reach the masses; he made leaders of thousands of them.5

Slowly the Methodist believers began to put more of an emphasis on the Sunday morning church meetings in their buildings. As they de-emphasized the accountable relationships they had in their class meetings, the revival movement began to decline. God, help us to not make the same mistake in this generation! Let us learn from history that small groups and house churches have often served to fan revival throughout church history:

The ember that has rekindled movements of renewal ever since [the first century] is the cell group or "micro-community,” as church historian Richard Lovelace calls the small group of believers that meets for prayer and support. As we seek to ignite a discipling movement in our own time, we must place the local prayer and support group concept at the very center of our strategy. The great reformer Martin Luther proposed that widespread spiritual renewal should take the form of ecclesiolae in ecclesia--little churches within the church.6

 

Tradition, Tradition!

Tevye, the patriarch in the classic motion picture, The Fiddler on the Roof, loved tradition. If something has worked in the past, most people, like Tevye, are happy to continue on in the same way. The old adage, "If it isn't broken, it doesn't need to be fixed,” satisfies many Christians today as they continue on in old patterns of church structure.

Although tradition tells us that believers should meet in a church building on Sunday mornings, according to the Scriptures the believers in the New Testament appear to have met in homes on Sunday mornings. Church history tells us that the believers met on the first day of the week.7 But since the emphasis seemed to be on the house-to-house ministry and they didn't have their own buildings until about 250 years later, it seems reasonable to believe that the believers met in homes on Sundays.

We are not implying that congregations of believers shouldn't meet in a building on a Sunday morning. Our culture is accustomed to Christians gathering in a church building every Sunday--and there's nothing wrong with it. Nevertheless, we should ask the question, "Do we meet together in this way because the Holy Spirit has directed us to or because tradition has dictated it?”

Certainly, not all tradition is wrong; some traditions are godly and good. When traditions take on a life of their own, however, we may be in trouble, because we begin to trust a method rather than the Living God. Even small groups and house churches can become legalistic and traditional if we trust the method rather than allowing God to keep us flexible and open to His leading.

I look forward to the day when we can be so flexible that we will allow a church building to be utilized every day of the week. One congregation (cluster of small groups) could use the building on a Sunday morning. Another group could use it on Sunday night. Six other groups could use it the other six nights of the week. A group could even use it on Saturday morning. Imagine the same building being used by nine different congregations or house church networks! That's divine efficiency!

The believers could meet in small groups in homes on Sunday mornings. All of the money that is saved on renting and maintaining buildings could be given to missions and to the poor. Believers could meet together on a Sunday evening as a small group or house church and then meet as a congregation or house church network during a night of the week or one or two times each month. Of course, if houses are large enough, some congregations could have their regular meetings in homes.

With the recent global financial crisis of 2008, which is the worst of its kind since the Great Depression, the church in the 21st century may indeed have to downsize in light of these economic realities. In economic times like these, the value of small groups and house churches is especially appealing because they do not require large buildings to maintain.

Ralph Neighbour, in The Seven Last Words of the Church, makes some important observations about the church's dependence on buildings:

Churches in the United States now own in excess of $102 billion in land and buildings. I am not picking on my denomination, but simply using it as an example: We will spend far more than $50 million this year simply to pay the interest on church mortgages. This profit by bankers from churches represents an investment which is several million dollars more than the amount to be invested by those churches for all home and foreign mission causes.8

Some years ago, our leadership team did a study from the Bible on the use of the tithe. To our amazement, we could not find even one reference in the entire Bible that encouraged using tithe money for buildings. The references that were given showed us that tithe money was to be used for supporting people, and then offerings were to be taken for buildings. Although most of the money that DOVE has spent during these past years on buildings has been on rent instead of on mortgages, we realized that in some cases we were spending too much of the tithes on buildings. Without becoming dogmatic regarding this principle, we must continue to take a close look at how we are spending the Lord's money so that we can see the church built effectively from house to house.

 

The Jethro Principle: Delegate Authority and Responsibility

Moses was wearing himself out by continually listening to and solving the disputes and dilemmas that arose among the Israelites. He was weighed down by the responsibilities that came with serving more than three million people. The Israelites were burdened by having to wait day after day for Moses to hear their case.

This reminds me of many pastors today. Many church leaders are nearing burnout, as they try all by themselves to juggle the crushing ministry responsibilities of the church.

God gave Moses, through Jethro, wisdom to rule so that he and the people would not be worn out. Jethro suggested a simple solution: Able men were to be selected from among the people to listen to any problems which arose, solve the ones they could handle, and pass on the most difficult cases to Moses.

But select capable men from all the people--men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain--and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied. Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said (Exodus 18:21-24).

There would be one judge for each 1,000 people. Moses would appoint ten additional judges under him, each in charge of 100; and under each of them would be two judges, each responsible for the affairs of fifty people. Each of these would have five judges beneath him, each counseling ten persons. Only the most severe or perplexing problems got all the way up to Moses, who alone had the God-given abilities to handle them.

We do not believe that it is necessary to set up a legalistic system in the church that looks exactly like the structure that Moses used; however, we are convinced that we need to see the church from God's perspective and use the wisdom He has given us in determining its structure. Our God set the sun and the moon and the stars in place: He is a God of order.

The early apostles understood the principle of delegation that Moses had used many years before. During the great awakening that took place in the Book of Acts, the apostles soon found it necessary to delegate authority and responsibility to others so that they could concentrate on their top priority--prayer and the ministry of the Word.

So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:2-4).

Many times today, those in primary leadership in the church are so caught up in management that they do not have time to pray and give clear direction to the work of God. Applying the Jethro principle to the local church would result in the delegation of authority and responsibility to believers on the "front lines” of ministry, who are best prepared to make such decisions anyway. Unless pastors and Christian leaders can release responsibility and authority to the servant-leaders at a small-group level, this principle will not work. Although local pastors in a cell-based church are responsible before the Lord for God's people in the small groups, the small group leaders must be released and trusted with the care of the people of God within their group.

When Dr. Cho from Seoul, Korea, was at our church in south-central Pennsylvania for a pastors' conference, I talked to him about the need to release local leadership in a small group setting. I will never forget his response. "Many pastors are threatened,” he said. "They are afraid to release their people.” It is my observation that this "fear” stems from our personal insecurity. If, as a senior pastor, you are threatened by the release of leaders who will minister to and lead small groups, then house to house ministry will not work for you.

 

Let My People Go

Moses gave Pharaoh the mandate of the Lord: "Let My people go!” I believe that the Lord is setting every believer free to be an "able minister of the new covenant.”9 May every spiritual leader maintain his security in the Lord and take the risk to release the people of God to minister to others.

Once servant-leaders release people to minister, the Church will grow by leaps and bounds, as it did at the first. But be prepared: with growth comes growing pains; with risk comes both success and failure. Even in the midst of inevitable setbacks, however, be encouraged, for failure is part of the process.

In the next chapter, we take a look at the very important role spiritual parents can have in developing and training spiritual children within the small group and house church setting.

 

 

Questions for Practical Application

1.What are some practical and financial reasons for limiting the number of big church buildings?

 

2.Explain the "Jethro principle.”

 

3.What happens when pastors begin to release the people they oversee?


Chapter 4

1. Brian Sauder & Larry Kreider, Helping You Build Cell Churches (Lititz, PA: House to House Publications, 2000). www.h2hp.com

2. James H. Rutz, The Open Church (Auburn, MEME: The SeedSowers, 1992), 47.

3. T.L. Osborne, Soulwinning, Out Where the Sinners Are(Tulsa, OK: Harrison House, 1980), 35-37.

4. Howard A. Synder, The Radical Wesley (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1980), 53-54.

5. Ibid., 55-57, 63.

6. Terry Taylor, Perspectives, January 1993.

7. Ralph Neighbour, The Seven Last Words of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1973), 164.

 

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