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This question is important because it is concerned with maximizing the possibilities for balanced healthy growth and multiplication without having buildings or space becoming limiting factors. It is also important in considering how to minimize the disruptions as future numerical growth leads to additional stages of multiplication.
The challenge is particularly great as new churches are started among very small population ethno-linguistic groups or small geographically isolated population segments. The planter must go into the project with some awareness of the links that already exist between the target group and other people groups or population segments. It would be very difficult to find examples where no such links exist.
Teaching new churches to think about worship and appropriate space and how to provide it has great implications for continuing healthy balanced growth and multiplication of the Kingdom of God.
The New Testament has many references to where believers met. There are references to synagogues and churches. They met in the temple in Jerusalem and were frequently in the homes. There is a reference to a school. Four times there are references to the church that meets in someone`s house.
Never does the Bible refer to a “house church.” It refers to many churches, but seldom describes where they meet. One of the most detailed descriptions of the worship experience in New Testament churches is found in 1 Corinthians 14, but as is most often the case nothing is said to describe the building.
When Paul was saved and instructed in Damascus he very quickly began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue. In almost every city he entered he began in the synagogues of the Jews. As a result, most of the people that Paul and his team initially reached had experience with the Jewish synagogue, whether they were Jews or gentiles.
It should not be surprising then if the meeting places of early churches might have looked much like the synagogues. If the building were of great importance, surely the Bible would have had something to say about it. It certainly does not say anything that would prohibit the use of homes or of buildings that are specifically built for the use of a church.
Because of a few references to houses, some contend that all churches should be small simple churches meeting in houses. Some have specified 12 to 15 people as the number that should be in the churches. The Bible never suggests a numerical size for churches.
History demonstrates that churches through the centuries have met in a great variety of locations. Some of the locations where selected for safety reasons related to persecution. The Bible gives no specific guidelines for considerations in determining where a church will meet.
This does not mean that the determination of where a church meets is unimportant. Where a church meets is important, but who determines where the church meets is even more important. How the determination is made is as important as who makes the decision.
There are three very important responsibilities that the church planter should teach the new believers. 1) How to make responsible decisions—self-government; 2) To be prepared to accept responsibility to pay for what you decide to do—self-support; and 3) To proclaim the Good News to the lost and bring them to faith in Christ—self-propagation. All three of these important responsibilities should be considered in determining where the church will meet.
The new believers who are becoming the church should make that decision. That is the who. How should the decision be made? The church planter needs to lead the church to depend on God and prayerfully seek His guidance. He also needs to help them make the decision based on the three important areas of responsibility of the church.
The church needs to consider its financial resources. The church planter should have taught the church about tithes and offerings and how they are related to the personal stewardship of servants of God. They need to think about a meeting place as a part of all the financial stewardship of the church.
If the church considers having a building, they should be led to consider how the building will affect all they are to do as a church. What expenses will be involved with having a building? How will the building affect their primary tasks as a church? If they do not choose to have a building, they will need to consider the alternative possibilities. One thing is very clear. If the church meets, it will meet somewhere. Usually some type of building will be the meeting place.
Each option needs to be carefully considered. Many times the church planting will have begun with home Bible studies. It may be very natural when the Bible study group becomes a church to consider continuing to meet in a home or homes. The evaluative questions that have already been mentioned would still apply, but there would be additional questions. Will there be room for all the people that the church will be reaching?
How can the church continue to grow with the limited space in most homes? Most people do not have homes with the amount of space in the home mentioned in Acts 1:15 where 120 were gathered. Thought must be given to the people who still need to be reached with the gospel and how that can be best achieved in the context.
Several years ago a rancher in the interior of Brazil opened his home to start a church with the people who worked on his ranch and on nearby ranches. He had a lot of space and was willing for the people being reached to meet in his house. Some of the poor workers would have been willing to meet there, but most were not.
In that very sparsely populated area it was not difficult to find a piece of land to build a small building for the few people in the area. The new believers were already reaching out to nearby small clusters of people like themselves, and sharing the gospel. The people did not have much money, but not much was required.
It was very hot and dry in that part of the country, and many preferred a lean-to on the side of a house rather than actually being in a house. Some houses had large covered areas where the family spent more time than they did inside the house. Options for a “house church” kind of approach were many.
In that context a network of churches meeting in homes would have been a good approach. The church planter could have trained someone to be a coordinator in the area. The coordinator could have developed leaders in each of the churches. He could provide theological education in a simple format for men who could have overseen three to five of these works.
In a small town near this same area, another group was forming in a house. It met on and around a large porch that was ground level. It was a growing group of 35 to 40 people who were the ones responsible for working with the new church starts out on the ranches. This emerging church had originally planned to meet in a house. However, as they began to reach more people they decided to find a building that they could rent or buy. The decision was made based on a good understanding of their responsibilities as a church. They were depending on God to make provision.
Not long after that, over a thousand miles away in the city of São Paulo, another church was emerging. Two church planters came together to form a team to start a church among some of the most affluent people of the city. Though they initiated their team formation and initial evangelization in homes, they were offered the opportunity to start their public worship in one of the best known business and convention centers in São Paulo. They paid for the space they used for the hours they used it.
This work was developed with indigenous principles and has started two new works in three years. Leadership is being developed from within for multiplication within their body of believers, as well as in other areas of the city and metro area.
In another area of metro São Paulo a pastor who had attended a conference to introduce indigenous principles and the need to multiply had started to apply what he had learned. Working with the emerging middle class, he had started churches with no outside help in a restaurant, a bar, and a school.
When new churches are started the planter needs to consider his target, his process, and his vision for the future. The decision of a place to meet needs to be based on Bible principles, the preferences of the people who are being reached, and what is easily reproducible in the context. In other words, the decision on where to meet at the beginning and permanently needs to be made in the same way that all important decisions will be made throughout the life of the church.
Many who start churches that meet in homes are doing so thinking about their own individual and family needs. Often they do not think through what it will be like to have a church in their house week after week over a period of months and years. Thought is not given to the value of living in fellowship with a larger body and all the gifts that the whole body benefits from as a result of the multiple members of the body.
In addition, many do not think in terms of the role of each believer taking the gospel to everyone and the continuing discipleship responsibility related to evangelization. However, in most contexts in the world the church planter must consider the larger picture. Those who have associated churches meeting in homes to church planting movements do consider the larger picture, and are usually primarily motivated by that view.
Unfortunately there is often a failure to adapt that view to each context. Even in China the adaptation has been enormous. It does not mean uniquely a little home with 12 people. They run into the hundreds and even thousands. That is appropriate adaptation born out of the indigenous principles that should be considered in an effort to take the gospel to all people.
Throughout the world, as we attempt to reach all people with the goal of involving all disciples in that task, it is imperative to use easily reproducible methods grounded in Bible principles. The present need of winning people to Christ and starting a church is a continuing part of the present need of winning all people to Christ. Wherever we are in the world, where we will meet is just one of the questions that must be considered.
Teaching new churches to think about worship and appropriate space and how to provide it has great implications for continuing healthy balanced growth and multiplication of the Kingdom of God.
Submitted by Dennis Blackmon
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