House churches

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I learned from another poster that there is a new movement called “House Churches”. Here is the intro. to the FAQs on the housechurch.org site (the underlined sections are not my doing):

Home churches, also known as house churches, describe small groups of believers - even as few as 2 or 3 - who gather in the name of Jesus Christ. They are very similar to the earliest churches which were customarily designated in the Scriptures as household units. These first Christians, you will recall, reveled in the fact that they personally had become the new dwelling place of the Almighty - living stones in God’s spiritual temple.

What sort of networking: Our continual encouragement first and foremost. The House Church Network has just entered the eighth year of operations. We offer complete referral and informational services. A usenet newsgroup, two email discussion groups, web-baseddiscussion boards, a prayer list, a bulletin board, and an automated Registry of House****Churches are now operational. Anewsletteris being offered as are some other fine publications.

The Basic Rationale? The undergirding principle here is that all authority in heaven and in earth reside in Jesus Christ who reveals Himself through scripture, nature and by supernatural means, as well. Knowledge and all ethics are thus derived from Jesus Christ through the His Holy Spirit.

If you click on FAQ at housechurch.org you will be able to read this in its entirety.

So, my question is have Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism all got it wrong? Is the “house church” really what Christ founded?
 
I think this is just a reaction to the view that Christianity is any form has gone south and isn’t worth the effort to change and so it’s just better to start a ‘new, just like the original’ church and call it ‘real Christianity.’

It’s rather unfortunate that there are people out there that believe that Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism (any form of it) has got it completely wrong, that it has ‘apostasized’ and that by getting back to the ‘original’ form and practice that ‘real Christianity’ will flourish and the bad Christianity will die.

There are people (very few, hopefully though not so in my experience) that believe that this and that if you aren’t a member of their particular church (usually though not always of the non-demon sort) then you are going to hell regardless. I feel sorry for them.
 
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BrianH:
It is certainly the most prevalent form of worship in the NT.
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When Bishop Pompallier came to New Zealand there were no Churhes so when he and the early priests celebrated the holy Sacrifice of the Mass it was in private homes. Just as the first Christians experienced in the NT after they were denied the synagogues.

House churches, and later the catacombs, were the norm until the persecution of Christians ceased. It is also the norm in countries today where Catholics are persecuted (try China).

Jesus and the first Christians were devout Jews. Jesus praqyed daily, He attended his local synagogue and He took part in Temple liturgies.

Acts 10:7, “On Saturday evening we gathered together for the fellowship (communion) meal” (NEV). They started by worshiping in Synagogue on the Sabbath morning, and then gathering together again in the evening (the next day — Sunday) for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

The early house church worship had the following order:
The Synagogue worship structure, consisting of a litany of prayers, a confession, eulogies, readings from the Scriptures, an address or homily, and a benediction.

Added to this, if someone who had been given the authority to do so was present, was the Eucharist (which, incidentally, was the fulfillment of the Temple worship).
 
Agreed. I should think until the movement became more gentile then Jewish, the synagogue would have been dominant.
BH
 
Many Jewish converts to Catholicism have commented on how the Mass is structured on the seder meal and Passover feast, and synagogue and Temple liturgies.

Here is what one convert said to his family:
"I told my family that where the synagogue has a tabernacle with the written Word of God in it, the Church has a tabernacle with the Word of God made Flesh. Where the synagogue places a red candle above the tabernacle representing God’s protecting pillar of fire, the church tabernacle has the same. Where the Jewish home has a yahrzeit candle to remember the dead, Catholics place memorial candles in the church. The Catholic priest continues, as the Messiah instructed, the final sacrifice that the ancient Jewish priests prefigured. - “A Kosher Ham Finds Christ” Envoy Magazine
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The early house church worship had the following order:
The Synagogue worship structure, consisting of a litany of prayers, a confession, eulogies, readings from the Scriptures, an address or homily, and a benediction.
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Added to this, if someone who had been given the authority to do so was present, was the Eucharist (which, incidentally, was the fulfillment of the Temple worship)
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I have not heard this addressed with that much certainity Eileen.
What was your source of that please. I am very interested in the topic. Thanks
BH
 
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BrianH:
I have not heard this addressed with that much certainity Eileen.
What was your source of that please. I am very interested in the topic. Thanks
BH
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Jean-Marie, Cardinal Lustiger who was a convert from Judaism, in his book The Mass for one.
 
You can also read The Mass of the Early Christians by Mike Aquilina.
 
This “movement” is an outgrowth of the Reformation, centuries later. the idea that we have to “get back” to the original Christianity. The problem is that the early Church was good but has grown and developed closer to the fullness that God offers. Just as I no longer look like I did in my mother’s womb, at birth, starting school or getting married so too the Church but it is still Her.

I often ask this of homeschoolers but for non-Catholic homeschoolers it would be very logical to have a house church. The Duggers home church and home school because all they need is the Bible. Fortunatley, to be Catholic necessitates the Sacraments and a priest so Catholics have shied away from the house church idea.

Using the situation in China is a good example to the NT Church but that is not the situation in the USA. If you house church you are making a statement that ALL other Christians have gotten something wrong and you and you and your group alone are the Church. If you’re right grreat but if not you are very arrogant.
 
Using the situation in China is a good example to the NT Church but that is not the situation in the USA. If you house church you are making a statement that ALL other Christians have gotten something wrong and you and you and your group alone are the Church. If you’re right grreat but if not you are very arrogant.
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Why would that be the case? Would everyone who starts a church…regardless of the denomination… be guilty of the same thing(ie you should go to an existing one)?
Are you saying that when a person picks a church, that meets in a home, they are some how different than a person who picks a church in an established building? Why?
thanks
BH
 
Lets take this to its logical extreme:
You are at work and invite someone to church.

** Sam** Hey if you don’t go anywhere to church, stop by mine sometime.

John Where is it?

Sam At my friends house.

John WHAT!!! That is arrogant. You guys think ALL other Christians have gotten something wrong!!!

Ted, entering, Hey John, come to my church, its in a big building on Main, been around 100 years.

John Ok, thank goodness you guys do not think that everyone else has it wrong. I am sure I can make it.

John What denomination by the way?

Ted Its nondenominational.

John WHAT. None of the existing denominations good enough for you or something??!?!
 
Is the house worship like the Mass? What exactly happens from beginning to end at such a church? Is there a valid Consecration? Who is the minister? These are all questions one must ask to determine if they are worshipping as the early Christians did. If you don’t have a valid Consecration, which was central from the beginning, how can you say you are worshipping as the early Christians did?

I heard a program on BBC Radio 4 several weeks ago about the Didache. Apparently, groups in England have created new churches based on the model of Christianity presented in the Didache. Their communion service (obviously) does not have a valid Consecration but they believe by having dinner and then sitting around to have the “bread and wine” is the same worship that the early Christians had. One needs only to read the Early Church Fathers on Transubstantiation and see how wrong these new groups are. But I think it’s great progress to see Protestants rejecting their churches and searching for the early roots of Christianity. The logical step for many can only be the discovery that the Church still exists and that it’s the Catholic Church.
 
It seems that the reason the very early church met in houses was that they were not welcome in the synagogs and did not have the funds to build churches. Later, they were severely persecuted and had to meet in secret - sometimes in houses, and sometimes in the catecombs under the city. It was only when the persecutions ended that the Church was blessed with the freedom to build beautiful buildings in which to worship God.
 
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PaulDupre:
It seems that the reason the very early church met in houses was that they were not welcome in the synagogs and did not have the funds to build churches. Later, they were severely persecuted and had to meet in secret - sometimes in houses, and sometimes in the catecombs under the city.
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That was my understanding, too; that meeting in houses and other hidden places was related to the persecution suffered by Christians in the early years before Christianity was legal. Meeting in catacombs or houses was not the critical part of worship. It is not WHERE it happens but WHAT happens.
It was only when the persecutions ended that the Church was blessed with the freedom to build beautiful buildings in which to worship God.
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That’s the key right there. 👍

Also, Church membership has grown since the early days of Christianity. I know that the parishoners at my local church would not all fit together inside my house to have Mass that way. Although I believe having Mass in a home is not contradictory to Church teaching. My family had a priest to our house on several special occasions when I was a child and we received Communion that way. The important point being that a priest with a valid ordination did the Consecration.
 
Brian H,

I would think that in 2006 in the USA that for eg. the Duggers(Christian family with 16 or so kids in AK all starting with the letter “J”) house church because the congregations in the local area do not measure up theologically with the Duggers. Yes there is an air of their is something wrong with the institutional school or church so we do it ourselves. Maybe that is the case but how does one discern that "he " is right and everyone else is the problem.

Just because you are “big” does not make you right but Christianity is a group religion just like OT Judaism was. No one was allowed to go off from Jerusalem and start their own worship sites and I think house churches outside of China and in the USA specifically are saying exactly what I said in my previous post. Now hypothetically they could be right. But would it be the Duggers or another house church in another city or state?
 
Maybe that is the case but how does one discern that "he " is right and everyone else is the problem.
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Picking a church, any church, involves a decision(ie discernment).

Granted one could always stay in the church they were raised in but at sometime, even if they stay in a life long church, they make a decision to be an active participant.

What is it about the discernment of someone who choses a house church that is so different from anyone else?

You have said, “ALL other Christians have gotten something wrong”. Why does that apply to Christians who worship in a house church? The Methodist who see the house church in a Christian magazine advertized next to a Baptist church, if they pick the Baptist church they are somehow different then if they pick the house church?
I do not know the Duggers, seems like an overgeneralization to apply their story to Christians who worship in a house church overall.
BH
 
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Eden:
Is the house worship like the Mass? What exactly happens from beginning to end at such a church? Is there a valid Consecration? Who is the minister? These are all questions one must ask to determine if they are worshipping as the early Christians did. If you don’t have a valid Consecration, which was central from the beginning, how can you say you are worshipping as the early Christians did?

I heard a program on BBC Radio 4 several weeks ago about the Didache. Apparently, groups in England have created new churches based on the model of Christianity presented in the Didache. Their communion service (obviously) does not have a valid Consecration but they believe by having dinner and then sitting around to have the “bread and wine” is the same worship that the early Christians had. One needs only to read the Early Church Fathers on Transubstantiation and see how wrong these new groups are. But I think it’s great progress to see Protestants rejecting their churches and searching for the early roots of Christianity. The logical step for many can only be the discovery that the Church still exists and that it’s the Catholic Church.
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Eden,
The vast vast majority are Sola Scripture and will only have those things found on the pages on the NT. That is why any interest in the Didache is odd to me, but anything can happen. I will provide a link I am sure you may have looked at that adresses the complexity of reconstructing the early church

newadvent.org/cathen/01200b.htm

Brian
 
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BrianH:
Picking a church, any church, involves a decision(ie discernment).

BH
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There really is only one church. Discernment is certainly required, as is grace, to land in the one Church founded by Jesus himself. Clearly, there is something wrong in the typical discernment process that it is going on in the world.

Shopping for a church or discerning which church to attend is no small matter, and it is an error to assume that picking one Church over another is automatically okay. This whole business of freedom, diversity, and discerment of a church is fraught with danger as opposed to doing one’s best to discover the one true Church. The whole scenario reminds me of an apostolic warning from Paul. In 2 Tim 4:3 Paul says:

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings,”

Naturally, the intention of people is not to do this, but there is too much subjectivism involved in the process for this to be easily avoided. The truth has to be our goal at all times. Diverse doctrines and teachings are not what Jesus calls for in John 17 and there is no room for all of the divisions and factions within Christianity. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism[Eph 4:5], and the “one Lord” established “one” Church[Matt 16:18]
 
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