In the casual and open forums of small church gatherings, all teaching can be scrutinized by anyone who can read. Brothers and sisters who know and love each other are inclined to respectfully consider viewpoints that differ from theirs, and even if the group doesn’t reach a consensus, love, not doctrine, still binds them together. Any teaching by any person in the group, including elders/pastors/overseers, is subject to loving examination by anyone else, because the Teacher indwells every member (see 1 John 2:27). The built-in checks and balances of a biblical model help prevent it from becoming doctrinally derailed.

This is quite a contrast from the norm in modern institutional churches, where church doctrine is established from the start and not to be challenged. Consequently, bad doctrines endure indefinitely, and doctrine becomes the litmus test of acceptance. For this same reason, one point in a single sermon can result in the immediate exodus of dissenters, who all jump ship to temporarily find some “like-minded believers.” They know there is no sense in even talking to the pastor about their doctrinal disagreement. Even if he was persuaded to change his viewpoint, he would have to keep it hidden from many in the church as well as from those of higher rank within his denomination. Doctrinal differences within institutional churches produce pastors who are some of the most skilled politicians in the world, orators who speak in vague generalities and avoid anything that could result in controversy, leading everyone to think he is in their camp.

The nature of the elements of the Lord’s Supper are not the most important thing. If we must strive for perfect imitation of the original Lord’s Supper, we would have to know the exact ingredients of the bread and the exact kind of grapes from which the original wine was made. (Some of the church fathers during the first few centuries strictly prescribed that the wine had to be diluted with water, otherwise the Eucharist was being practiced improperly.)

Bread and wine were some of the most common elements of the ancient Jewish meals. Jesus gave profound significance to two things that were incredibly common, foods that practically everyone consumed each day. Had He visited another culture at a different time in history, the first Lord’s Supper may have consisted of cheese and goat’s milk, or rice cakes and pineapple juice. So any food and drink could potentially represent His body and blood at a common meal shared among His disciples. The important thing is the spiritual significance. Let us not neglect the spirit of the law while succeeding at keeping the letter of it!

It is not necessary that common meals be deathly solemn. The early Christians, as we already read, broke “bread from house to house…taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart” (Acts 2:46; emphasis added). Seriousness, however, is certainly appropriate during that portion of the meal when Jesus’ sacrifice is remembered and the elements are consumed. Self-examination is always appropriate before eating the Lord’s Supper, as indicated by Paul’s solemn words of warning to the Corinthian believers in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. Any transgression of Christ’s commandment to love one another is an invitation to God’s discipline. Any and all strife and division should be resolved before the meal. Every believer should examine himself, and confess any sins, which would be the equivalent of “judging yourself,” to use Paul’s words.

This leads to the second advantage that house churches have over institutional churches: The house church model promotes godly stewardship of its members’ resources, which is certainly an extremely important aspect of discipleship.^[1] No money is wasted on church buildings, owning, renting, repairing, expanding, remodeling, heating or cooling them. Consequently, what would have been wasted on buildings can be used to feed and clothe the poor, spread the gospel, and make disciples, just like it did in the book of Acts. Think of the good that could have been done for God’s kingdom if the billions of dollars spent on church buildings had been used for spreading the gospel and serving the poor! It is almost unimaginable.

Moreover, house churches that consist of no more than twenty people could actually be overseen by “tent-making” (that is, “non-paid”) elders/pastors/overseers, a real possibility when there are a number of mature believers in a house church. Such churches would require virtually no money at all to operate.

Of course, the Bible seems to indicate that elders/pastors/overseers should be paid in proportion to their labor, so those who devote their full time to ministry should make their full living from it (see 1 Tim. 5:17-18). Ten wage earners in a house church who tithe can support one pastor at their average standard of living. Five tithers in a house church can free up a pastor to devote half his workweek to his ministry.

Following the house church model, money that would be used on buildings is freed to support pastors, and so institutional pastors should not think that the proliferation of house churches threatens their job security. Rather, it could mean that many other men and women could realize the desire God has placed in their hearts to serve Him in vocational ministry.^[2] That in turn, would help accomplish the goal of making disciples. Moreover, a house church with twenty wage earners could potentially give one half of its income to mission outreach and the poor.^[3]

If an institutional church transitioned to a network of house churches, the people who might lose their paying jobs would be church administrative and program support staff and perhaps some staff members with specialty ministries (for example, child and youth ministers in larger churches) who would be unwilling to trade ministries that have little biblical basis for ministries that do. House churches don’t need child and youth ministers because parents are given that responsibility in the Bible, and people in house churches generally strive to follow the Bible rather than the norms of cultural Christianity. Christian youth who don’t have Christian parents can be incorporated into house churches and discipled just as they are incorporated into institutional churches. Does anyone wonder why there are no “youth pastors” or “children’s pastors” mentioned in the New Testament? Such ministries didn’t exist for the first 1900 years of Christianity. Why are they suddenly essential now, and primarily in wealthy western countries?^[4]

Finally, in poorer nations in particular, pastors often find it impossible to rent or own church buildings without being subsidized by Western Christians. The undesirable consequences of this dependency are manifold. The fact is, however, that for 300 years the problem didn’t exist in Christianity. If you are pastor in a developing nation whose congregation can’t afford your own church building, you don’t need to flatter some visiting American in hopes of striking gold. God has already solved your problem. You really don’t need a church building to successfully make disciples. Follow the biblical model.

^[1]

^[2] Although it may sound radical, the only real reason that church buildings are needed is because of the lack of leaders who would oversee smaller house churches, which is the result of poor discipleship of potential leaders within institutional churches. Could it be that pastors of large institutional churches are actually guilty of robbing God-called pastors within their congregations of their rightful ministries? Yes.

^[3] This one-to-ten or -twenty ratio should not be considered pastoral overkill in light of Jesus’ biblical model of discipling twelve men and Moses’ delegated judges over ten people (see Ex. 18:25). Most institutional pastors oversee many more people than they can effectively disciple on their own.

^[4] We might also question why there are no “senior pastors,” “associate pastors” or “assistant pastors” mentioned in Scripture. Again, these titles that seem so essential in the modern church because of its structure were unnecessary in the early church because of its structure. House churches of twenty people don’t need senior, associate and assistant pastors.

Interestingly, more and more institutional churches are developing small group structures within their institutional models, recognizing their value in discipleship. Some churches go even further, basing their core structure on small groups, considering them to be the most important aspect of their ministry. Larger “celebratory meetings” are secondary in importance to the small groups (at least in theory).

These are steps in the right direction, and God blesses such steps, as His blessing upon us is proportionate to the degree that we line up with His will. Indeed, “cell churches” are better structured than standard institutional churches to facilitate disciple making. They stand halfway between the institutional church model and the house church model, combining elements of both.

How do modern institutional churches with small groups compare with ancient and modern house churches? There are some differences.

For example, small groups within institutional churches unfortunately sometimes serve to promote much that is wrong within institutional churches, especially when the real motive for starting small group ministry is to build the senior pastor’s church kingdom. He consequently uses people for his own ends, and small groups fit that plan nicely. When this occurs, small group leaders are selected for their tested loyalty to the mother church, and they can’t be too gifted or charismatic, lest the devil fill their heads with ideas that they can make it on their own. This kind of policy hinders the effectiveness of small groups and, just like in any other institutional church, drives off the truly called and aspiring leaders to Bible schools and seminaries, robbing the church of true gifts, and taking such people to a place where they will be lecture-taught rather than on-the-job discipled.

Small groups in institutional churches often evolve into little more than fellowship groups. Disciple-making really doesn’t occur. Since people are supposedly being spiritually fed on Sunday mornings, small groups sometimes focus on other things besides God’s Word, not wanting a repeat of Sunday mornings.

Small groups in institutional churches are often organized by a staff member of the church, rather than birthed by the Spirit. They become one more program among many other church programs. People are put together based on ages, social status, background, interests, marital status or geographical location. Goats are often mixed with sheep. All of this fleshly organization does not help believers learn to love each other in spite of their differences. Remember that many of the early churches were a mixture of Jews and Gentiles. They regularly shared meals together, something forbidden by Jewish tradition. What a learning experience their meetings must have been! What opportunities to walk in love! What testimonies of the power of the gospel! So why do we think we must divide everyone into homogeneous groups to insure success of small groups?

Institutional churches with small groups still have the Sunday morning performance, where spectators watch the pros perform. Small groups are never permitted to meet when there are “real” church services, indicating to all that it is really the institutional services that are most important. Because of that message, many, if not the majority, of Sunday morning attendees will not get involved with a small group even if encouraged to do so, seeing them as optional. They are satisfied that they are attending the most important weekly service. So the small group concept may be promoted as being somewhat significant, but not nearly as significant as the Sunday institutional service. The best opportunity for real fellowship, discipleship and spiritual growth is effectively downplayed. The wrong message is sent. The institutional service is still king.

It is often said that in the Western world where Christianity has already become part of the culture that people will never accept the idea of churches meeting in homes. It is thus argued that we must stay with the institutional model.

First, this is proving not to be true, as the house church movement is gaining rapid momentum in the Western world.

Second, people already gladly meet in homes for parties, meals, fellowships, Bible studies and home cell groups. Accepting the idea of a church in a house takes a very small adjustment of thinking.

Third, it is true that religious people, “spiritual goats,” will never accept the concept of house churches. They will never do anything that might potentially make them appear odd to their neighbors. But true disciples of Jesus Christ certainly accept the concept of house churches once they understand the biblical basis. They quickly realize how unnecessary church buildings are for discipleship. If you want to build a big church with “wood, hay and straw” (see 1 Cor. 3:12), you will need a building, but it will all burn in the end. But if you want to multiply disciples and disciple-makers, building the church of Jesus Christ with “gold, silver and precious stones,” then you need not waste money and energy on buildings.

It is interesting that the greatest indigenous evangelistic movement in the world today, the “back to Jerusalem” movement of the Chinese house churches, has adopted a specific strategy to evangelize the 10/40 window. They say, “We have no desire to build a single church building anywhere! This allows the gospel to spread rapidly, is harder for authorities to detect, and enables us to channel all our resources directly into gospel ministry.”^[1] A wise and biblical example to follow indeed!

^[1] Brother Yun, Back to Jerusalem, p. 58.

It is interesting that when we read the New Testament epistles, we don’t find any impassioned pleas (as we often do today) for the believers to “get out there and reach the world for Christ!” The early Christians and Christian leaders realized that God was working with great effort to redeem the world, and their job was to cooperate with Him as He led them. If anyone knew this, it was the apostle Paul, whom no one “led to the Lord.” Rather, he was converted by a direct act of God as he journeyed to Damascus. And throughout the book of Acts, we find the church expanding because Spirit-anointed and Spirit-led people cooperated with the Holy Spirit. The book of Acts, although often referred to as “The Acts of the Apostles,” should really be referred to as “The Acts of God.” In Luke’s introduction to Acts, he stated that his first account (the Gospel that bears his name) was a record of “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1, emphasis added). Luke obviously believed that the book of Acts was an account of what Jesus continued to do and teach. He worked through Spirit-anointed and Spirit-led servants who cooperated with Him.

If the early Christians were not encouraged to “get out there and witness to their neighbors and help win the world for Christ,” what was their responsibility in regard to building God’s kingdom? Those who were not specifically called and gifted to proclaim the gospel publicly (apostles and evangelists) were called to live obedient and holy lives, and to be ready to make a defense to anyone who reviled or questioned them. Peter wrote, for example,

But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame (1 Pet. 3:14-16).

Note that the Christians Peter wrote to were enduring persecution. Unless Christians are different than the world, however, the world (of course) won’t persecute them. This is one reason there is so little persecution of Christians in many places today—because the so-called Christians act no differently than anyone else. They aren’t really Christians at all, and so no one persecutes them. Yet many of these kinds of “Christians” are being exhorted on Sundays to “share their faith with their neighbors.” When they do witness to their neighbors, those neighbors are surprised to learn that they are (supposedly) born-again Christians. Worse, the “gospel” they share amounts to little more than telling their neighbors the “good news” that they are mistaken if they think that good works or obedience to God has anything to do with salvation. All that matters is that they just “accept Jesus as their personal Savior.”

Contrasted with that, the early Christians (whose Lord truly was Jesus) stood out like lights in darkness, and so they didn’t need to take classes on witnessing or get up the courage to tell their neighbors that they were followers of Christ. They had plenty of opportunities to share the gospel as they were questioned or reviled for their righteousness. They only needed to set apart Jesus as Lord in their hearts and be ready to make a defense, just as Peter said.

Perhaps the primary difference between modern Christians and the early Christians is this: Modern Christians tend to think that a Christian is characterized by what he knows and believes—we call it “doctrine,” and we thus focus on learning it. In contrast, the early Christians believed that a Christian was characterized by what he did—and thus they focused on obedience to Christ’s commandments. It is interesting to realize that practically no Christian for the first fourteen centuries owned a personal Bible, thus making it impossible for him to “read his Bible every day,” what has become one of the cardinal rules of a contemporary Christian responsibility. I am certainly not saying that modern Christians shouldn’t read their Bibles every day. I’m only saying that too many Christians have made studying the Bible more important than obeying it. We ultimately pride ourselves for having correct doctrine (as opposed to those members of the other 29,999 denominations who aren’t quite up to our level) yet still gossip, lie and lay up earthly treasures.

If we hope to soften people’s hearts so that they become more receptive to the gospel, we are more likely to do it by our deeds than our doctrines.

The fact is that most of those who practice false religions are not sincere seekers of truth. Rather, they are religious because they are only looking for a justification or a covering for their sins. As they continually violate their consciences, they hide behind the guise of religion. By their religiosity, they convince themselves that they are not worthy of hell. This is just as true for religious “Christians” (including cheap-grace evangelical Christians) as it is for Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus. Even as they practice their religion, their conscience condemns them.

When the Buddhist bows reverently before his idols or before monks who sit proudly before him, his conscience tells him he is doing wrong. When the Hindu justifies his lack of compassion for a diseased street beggar, believing that the beggar must be suffering for sins committed in a previous life, his conscience condemns him. When a Muslim extremist beheads an “infidel” in the name of Allah, his conscience is screaming at him for his own murderous hypocrisy. When the evangelical “Christian” lays up earthly treasure, regularly views sexually-explicit television, and gossips about fellow church members, trusting that he is saved by grace, his heart condemns him. All of these are examples of people who want to keep on sinning and who have found religious lies to believe by which they can continue sinning. The “righteousness” of unregenerate yet religious people falls far, far, far short of God’s expectations.

All of this is to say that God does not consider people who are following false religions to be ignorant people who are to be pitied because they’ve never heard the truth. Neither does the blame for their ignorance lie at the feet of the church for not having effectively evangelized them.

Again, although we know that God wants the church to preach the gospel all over the world, we should follow the leading of His Spirit to where “the fields are ripe for harvest” (see John 4:35), where people are receptive because they’ve been softening their hearts to God’s relentless effort to reach them.

When Abraham proved his willingness to offer up his beloved son, Isaac, God made a promise to him:

In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice (Gen. 22:18).

The apostle Paul points out that this promise was made to Abraham and to his seed, singular, not seeds, plural, and that the singular seed was Christ (see Gal. 3:16). In Christ all the nations, or more accurately, all the ethnic groups of the earth would be blessed. This promise to Abraham foretold the inclusion of the thousands of Gentile ethnic groups around the globe into the blessings of being in Christ. Those ethnic groups are distinct from each other in that they live in different geographical areas, are of different races, conform to different cultures and speak different languages. God wants them all to be blessed in Christ, which is why Jesus died for the sins of the entire world (see 1 John 2:2).

Although Jesus said that the way is narrow that leads to life, and few find it (see Matt. 7:14), the apostle John left us with good reason to believe that there will be representatives from all of the world’s ethnic groups in the future kingdom of God:

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9-10, emphasis added).

So it is with great anticipation that the children of God look forward to joining a multi-ethnic multitude before God’s throne one day!

Many contemporary missionary strategists have placed great emphasis on reaching the remaining thousands of “hidden” ethnic groups around the world, with the hopes of planting a viable church in every one of them. This is certainly commendable, as Jesus commanded us to go into the whole world and “make disciples of all the nations (or literally, ethnic groups)” (Matt. 28:19). The plans of men, however, no matter how well-intentioned, especially when void of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, can often do more harm than good. It is vital that we follow the wisdom of God as we seek to build His kingdom. He gave us more information and instruction regarding how we are to make disciples around the world than what is found in Matthew 28:19.

Perhaps the most overlooked fact by those who strive to fulfill the Great Commission is that God is the greatest evangelist of all, and we are supposed to be working with Him, not for Him. He cares much more about reaching the world with the gospel than anyone, and He is working to that end much more diligently than anyone. He was, and is, so devoted to the cause that He died for it, and was thinking about it before He even created anyone, and still is! That is commitment!

Further proof that God holds people guilty even if they have never heard a Christian evangelist is the fact that He actively judges them. If God wasn’t holding them accountable for their sins He would not punish them. Because He does punish them, however, we can be sure that He holds them accountable, and if He holds them accountable, they must know that what they are doing is displeasing to Him.

One manner by which God punishes those who resist His call to repentance is through “giving them over” to their sinful desires so that they become slaves to even deeper degradation. Paul wrote:

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. (Rom. 1:21-32, emphasis added).

Notice how Paul stressed the facts of human guilt and accountability before God. The unregenerate “knew God,” but “they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks.” They “exchanged the truth of God for a lie,” so they must have encountered God’s truth. Thus God “gave them over” to ever-increasing degradation, to the point where people do the most bizarre, unnatural and perverted things as they become more deeply enslaved to sin. In effect God says, “So you want to serve sin as you should serve Me? Then go ahead. I won’t stop you, and you’ll become progressively more enslaved to the god you love.”

I suppose one could even consider this form of judgment to be an indication of God’s mercy, in that it would be reasonable to think that as people became more perverse and sinful, they would realize it and wake up. One wonders why more homosexuals don’t ask themselves the question, “Why do I find myself sexually attracted to people of the same sex with whom I can’t actually have a full sexual relation? This is bizarre!” In a sense it can be argued that God indeed did “make them that way” (as they themselves often argue to justify their perversion), but only in a permissive sense, and only because He hopes to wake them up in order that they might repent and experience His amazing mercy.

It is not only homosexuals who should be asking themselves such questions. Paul listed numerous enslaving sins that are the evidence of God’s judgment on those who refuse to serve Him. Billions of people should question themselves about their bizarre behavior. “Why do I hate my own family?” “Why do I find satisfaction is spreading gossip?” “Why am I never content with what I own?” “Why am I compelled to look at increasingly more explicit pornography?” God has given them all over to be enslaved to their god.

Of course, anyone at any point can soften his heart, repent and believe in Jesus. Some of the most hardened sinners on earth have done just that, and God has cleansed and freed them from their sins! As long as people are still breathing, God is still giving them an opportunity to repent.

One final principle that we can learn from the biblical truths considered earlier in this chapter is this: If God is actively judging sinners in hopes that they will soften their hearts, we should expect that some sinners, after enduring God’s judgment or observing others endure it, will be softening their hearts. Thus after calamities there are opportunities to reach people who were previously unreachable.

Christians should look for opportunities to share the gospel in places where people are suffering. Those who have recently lost loved ones, for example, may well be more open to what God wants them to hear. When I served as a pastor, I always seized the opportunity to proclaim the gospel at funerals, remembering that Scripture says, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart (Eccl. 7:2, emphasis added).

When people suffer from sickness, financial loss, broken relationships, natural disasters and the many consequences of sin and judgments upon sin, they need to know that their sufferings are a wake up call. Through temporal sufferings God is trying to save sinners from eternal judgment.