New Wineskin – The House

This series is reviewing Rethinking The Wineskin by Frank Viola. See my introduction to the series, if you haven’t already, for the background discussion about the book.

A good friend (who builds churches for a living) asked me recently what I would do if someone gave me a church building. I told him I’d sell it, or give it to a group to start a school. Even though he knows me pretty well, he was surprised by my response.

Most people who have grown up in traditional churches treat the idea of having a church without a building like it’s unfathomable. How will people find your church? How will you hold big events to attract people?

Yet the New Testament church didn’t have a building. They had their homes. When they met in larger groups, they used common, public, open spaces. If anything, a building would have limited the growth of the church described in Acts.

I’ve written plenty about house church, though, and I’ll continue to do so. So for the rest of this post, I’ll concentrate on sharing the five central points that Viola made about having church gatherings in a home:

By meeting in a home, we testify that “the people comprise God’s house.”

Both Judaism and paganism teach that there must be a sanctified place for Divine worship. Consequently, the Jews erected special buildings for their corporate worship (synagogues). So did the pagans (shrines). No so with Christianity…

The early church was the only religious group in the first century that met exclusively in homes. It would have been quite natural for them to pursue their Jewish heritage and erect buildings to suit their needs. But they intentionally kept from doing so.

Perhaps the early believers knew the confusion that sanctified buildings would produce. Hence, they kept from erecting them to preserve the testimony that the people comprised the living stones of God’s habitation.

The home is where the purposes and functions of the church can best be carried out.

The apostolic instructions concerning the church meeting are best suited for a small group setting like the home. Christian principles like mutual participation; the exercise of spiritual gifts; the building together of the brethren into an intentional, face-to-face community; the communal meal; the open transparency and mutual submission of members one toward another; the freedom for interactive dialogue; and the liberty-oriented koinonia (shared life) of the Holy Spirit all operate best in a small group setting like the home.

The home reflects the simple nature of Christ’s ministry.

The house is a far more humble place than the stately religious edifices of our day with their lofty steeples and elegant decor. In this way, most modern “church” buildings reflect the boastings of this world rather than the meek and lowly Savior whose name we bear.

It also better reflects Christ’s heart to use our resources to help those in need rather than bearing the heavy burden of building construction and maintenance.

The home reveals the church as a family.

The formal manner in which things are done in the basilica church tends to discourage the mutual intercourse and spontaneity that characterized the early Christian gatherings. Exegete the architecture of a typical church building and you will discover that it effectively teaches the church to be passive.

The church building is constructed like a lecture hall or cinema. It is arranged so that those in attendance focus on a particular point – the leader. This style of building “promotes a clergy centrality” and “feeds the spectator-mentality that afflicts most of the Body of Christ today.”

The home represents spiritual authenticity.

We live in a day where many, especially youth, are searching for spiritual authenticity. To these seekers, churches that meet in amphitheaters, crystal cathedrals, and ivory-towered domes appear superficial and shallow… the house church is a refreshing witness against those religious institutions that equate glamorous buildings and multimillion dollar budgets with success.

The final point Viola makes is that while the NT does describe some large-style meetings, these were evangelistic in nature and not a normal part of the church gathering. There is a function for large (and small) evangelistic events and efforts. But the purpose of the church gathering is not evangelism, it is mutual edification, and the location of the gathering can either aid or hinder the fulfillment of that purpose.