Why House Church

Scripture Romans 16:5 Likewise greet the church that is in their house.

Why am I talking about house churches? Because I think all believers should start churches that meet in homes. You may ask if I understand who are the people that I am talking to. We are nursing students and medical staff you say, we are not pastors.

I know that you are not pastors, but you know sometimes nursing students and medical staff start more churches than the pastors I speak to. I know one young man who has started so many house churches. He was not a pastor or chaplain. He was a young man who worked in the hospital canteen and served meals to the patients.

By the way he came to Christ in this chapel where we are now. He was just a single young man working in the canteen below here, but he, named Kumar, went back to his village and has started house churches. So many people have come to Christ and many new house churches have started through his ministry.

Probably you come from areas all around the state. You can go back to your town or village and start a house church. You can not imagine what God can do with you when you have a vision to start house churches that multiply.

Look at Romans 16:5 it says “greet the church that is in their house.” Now a lot of people have an inferiority complex about the house church. Some feel bad that their church is one that just meets in the home. But who was this who had this house church Paul is greeting? It was Priscilla and Aquila. It says they risked their lives for the gospel.

These were not unknown figures in the first century church these were heroes of the first century church. Why did they have a church in their house? Because that was the will of God. Theirs was not a substandard church, but a church that was everything that God intended in the New Testament church.

Sometimes I will go and visit or speak in a church that meets in the home. I am excited about that because when I look into the New Testament I see churches that met in homes. Before I can affirm them on having a house church the leaders of the church come to me to apologize.

They say, “We are sorry sir, our church here just meets in this home. Now we have a vision to buy land and build a building for our church. The owner of the lot nearby is willing to sell and we hope to buy it and construct a building with a cross on top and a scripture in the front.” They think then they will become a real church.

But when I look into the New Testament I see that they already are a real church. They already reflect what we see in the New Testament for a church. We see a group of believers, the body of Christ, who met in homes, is what we see in the New Testament as a church.

There are many of us who have been challenging believers to start house churches. So we have been telling believers who meet together as church that you do not need to buy a piece of property, you do not need to construct a building, and you do not even need a formally theologically trained pastor.

All you need is a group of believers covenanted together in a house who take responsibility for the leadership of the church and you have a church. So we began traveling around and promoting house churches. But we were convicted that we were telling people you don’t need land, or a building, or a pastor with a seminary degree. But we ourselves were attending churches with land, buildings, steeples and seminary trained pastors. Can we say that a is Ok for others when we have all those things. We were having a double standard.

So we stopped attending the churches with land, buildings, crosses on top and seminary trained pastors and began our own house church. We call our church Rajaprasad Baptist Church. Why do we call our church Rajaprasad Baptist church? Well we are Baptists and the church has Baptist doctrines. As for Rajaprasad, the house we meet is owned by Mr. Rajaprasad. That is the name on the sign on the house he has on the front of the house. We have been astounded by what God has done since we started this church. We have seen so much spiritual fruit as a result of starting this house church.

So we are changing the way we are looking at ministry. Here is what we used to say, “We believe in the local church, now find a good Bible believing church and join it.” What were we saying? We were saying you were like my friend Kumar who came to this hospital worked in the canteen and became a believer in Christ. We used to say to Kumar, when you go back to your home town find a church. Go back and visit the district capital and find the Church there with a huge compound and towering steeple and join that church or some establish church that teaches the Bible.

We are no longer telling new believers like Kumar to join an existing church. So what are we saying? Now we are saying we believe in the local church and go back to your home town and start a church there. Maybe you feel like since you are a nursing student you could not start a church. It may be you could work with one of your uncles there or another believer can help you. We are finding that any believer can start a house church and that it is part of God’s plan for spiritual multiplication and we are seeing it happen all over.

Once house churches start, they begin to multiply. If you start a church where you buy land, build building and pay a seminary trained pastor it takes a long time. How long does it take to start a new house church? It can happen right away. So once we see people go back to their home town and start a house church we are seeing it multiply. I have been studying the growth and multiplication of house churches and how the multiplication happens.

I am organizing a research project next month where more than 2,000 house churches have sprung up. We want to find out more about how new believers become house church leaders, how Bible study takes place, the doctrinal soundness when churches spring up this fast and insights that help others start house churches that multiply.

Let me show you another verse, Colossians 4:15

Give my greetings to the brothers in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.

Now Priscilla and Aquila were, leaders, heroes of the faith, known to us from the New Testament, but here is a church that met in Nympha’s house. She is unknown to us. Just a woman who had a church meeting in her house. So what has happened when we started meeting together in our house church? What can God do with a house church?

I mentioned that several of us meet at Rajaprasad Baptist church just almost walking distance from here. Now Mr. Rajaprasad, the owner of the house, had put a watchman there to guard and protect the house. This watchman is named Ganesh. He is a land owner but there are droughts in his area so he leased his land and came to the city to earn money as a watchman.

As we began to meet for house church and worship Jesus in our house church Ganesh noticed this. Ganesh’s idea of church was believers who met together on a compound in a cathedral like structure He was surprised that believers met together in their homes and worshipped Jesus. This concept of church was very attractive to Ganesh. He would have had difficulty going to the compound church in his home town. But to worship Jesus and have church in a home was attractive to him.

Ganesh received a Bible and read in his mother tongue. He became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. What did he do after that? He began to tell his friends that Jesus could be worshipped in the home. So he led Swami to Christ. Then he led Shrini to Christ, Muni to Christ. So these new believers where baptized in a makeshift baptistery on the roof of our house church.

Now if we can have a church in our home then these new believers new they could start a house church in the watchman’s quarters below the Rajaprasad house and that is what they did. They started their own house church and started to look at the scriptures and obey the scriptures. Then what happened? This became known and attractive to people in the area. One of the men, Muni who made a profession of faith took the gospel back to his family. So many of his family members accepted Christ that they started a house church at Muni’s house. Through this watchman there were thirteen house churches started in one year.

How can this happen? Because the house church concept in contagious. Now they know that house church is for them. It would have been difficult for these new believers go to the compound church and sit and listen to what the priest in charge said. But when they could meet in their own home and study and apply the Scriptures for themselves they began to grow in faith.

The gospel began to spread. It produced and atmosphere of spiritual growth because house churches are not second best. House churches are found as the pattern of the New Testament. House churches actually provide an excellent environment for people to grow in Christ and for believers to exercise their spiritual gifts. What do you see in the New Testament? You find house churches. Try to find one of the big cathedrals in the New Testament. You find the house church.

What else do you find in the New Testament? You find the gospel spreading like wildfire. You find churches starting all over the province of Asia in the New Testament. We are also finding churches starting and spreading rapidly when we get back to the New Testament pattern of the house church.

When we started our house church we wanted a church with no land or building, but met in a home. We also wanted our church led by someone who was not holding a seminary degree. That disqualifies me. I studied Greek and Hebrew and for three years I studied in the seminary and earned a Masters degree in theology. So I was not the pastor. It was one of the members of our church that did not hold a seminary degree and who was not ordained by an ecclesiastical body.

A lay believer to lead our church. Now that is a model that is easy to reproduce. It is difficult if these house churches were starting rapidly to find men trained in seminaries and they would expect salaries that house churches would not be able to afford. When we put lay believers leading the house church there is a power. Why? Is it difficult to understand the Bible?

Do you need advanced degrees to study and apply the Bible? No. The Bible is for the simple person. Even the person that does not read can understand the Bible when they here is read. The need is not for more advanced degrees, but the need is for more obedience. The problem has always been applying what we hear. So when we start house churches that simply obey what they hear we create a spiritual dynamic like we had in the New Testament where the churches grow spiritually and multiply.

Let’s look at another passage of scripture I Corinthians 16:19

The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord and so does the church that meets in their house.

Here again you find the church described as a body of believers that met in the homes of believers. Why is it that churches multiply when they meet in homes? One reason is that stay in their communities. I mentioned that man who worked in the canteen went back and started churches. What community of people did he start them with? His own community.

Now the watchman’s house church is with a diverse group from many different communities who have a variety of different languages as their mother tongue. But each one goes back and starts a church in their own community of people in their own languages and the house churches spread along those lines rapidly. What do we see in the New Testament? Cornelius the Roman centurion became a believer who else was their and came to faith. Others from the same community of Romans. The same held true when Lydia became a believer or the Philippians jailer. Right away the gospel begins to spread.

We see people exercise their spiritual gifts in the house churches. We know that God has given every believer a spiritual gift. Why has God given each believer a spiritual gift? To exercise in the body of Christ. Now what happens when the watchman Ganesh goes to his district headquarters and joins a cathedral style church? He is told to sit down and listen to what is preached.

Maybe in a year or two of listening to sermons he might get some responsibility and use his spiritual gifts. But what happens in a house church? Right away the new believer is involved in leadership and accountability and the exercising of the believers spiritual gift. So we see a dynamic in the house church that facilitates the spread of the gospel. This creates an environment of spiritual growth.

Let’s look at another passage. Philemon vs. 2

and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home.

We see church as a body of believers that met in the home of a believer. One thing about house church is that it is less likely to have persecution that a church on a compound with a building and a cross on top. In my own neighborhood there was a mosque was planned next to my house. It bothered me because of all the people who gather there on Fridays.

The Hindus and Christians did not want the mosque and petitioned to stop the mosque. They did not want a mosque in their back yard. But I noticed that on Fridays people gather in homes and no one is complaining like they did about a mosque. I have noticed this with churches too. When there is a property bought a building built a cross on top and a sign with the church name it disturbs the area and the people feel threatened and sometimes that is when the church is persecuted. But when people meet in homes they are not threatened in the same way as when the church building is constructed. The house church becomes more persecution proof.

We find that house churches are reproducible because the homes are already there. It gives the church a power to do ministry. What do we see the offerings in the New Testament go for? Do we see them to pay for land, buildings and the salary of seminary trained leaders? No, we see them meet needs of others. In the house church the offerings can be used to meet the needs of believers or minister to unbelievers because they do not have to make payments on land, building or pay the pastor’s salary because he already has a job in the marketplace.

It is easy for the house church to sustain itself. It is easy for the house church to multiply. So I am not talking to church planters. I am talking to ordinary men and women. But think you could be like Nympha. An ordinary believer who had a church in her house. A church in your house like Pricilla or Lydia had. What if you went back and started house church in your home town, like the young man who worked in our canteen and came to Christ? You could experience the power of God is a way similar to what we see for believers in the New Testament. Think and pray about what could happen in your home town or village if there was a model of a house church that was reproducible.

The Mission Song, Psalm 67:1-7

When I served as Assistant Pastor of the Baptist Church, in Scotland, one of the first things I wanted to do was memorize Numbers 6:24- 26. Why the priority to memorize Numbers 6? This is because our Pastor would repeat this scripture as the benediction, at the close of every service.

I knew, as the young assistant from America, I would be leading the services when he was away. I realized that you just don’t read the benediction in the Highlands of Scotland. No way! You look directly at the congregation, raise your hands and you “pronounce” the benediction, loud and boldly. This meant that I had to really get to know Numbers 6:24-26. It would not be good to “mess up” on the blessing!

I learned this blessing and was able to pronounce it: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26) Pronouncing the blessing went well for me every time, but I always remained a little worried when I came to the, “lift up his countenance” part.

When I got over the intimidation of memorizing and pronouncing this verse, I realized its great significance. This is the blessing that God himself gave through Moses for Aaron to bless the Israelites. It was the blessing pronounced by Aaron, and later those who held his priestly office, at the public assemblies.

Our passage, Psalm 67 is derived from this Aaronic benediction. The Aaronic blessing is contained in the seven verses of Psalm 67. But here, Psalm 67 goes beyond the blessing in Numbers 6. Here in Psalm 67 we find the purpose of God’s blessing. This purpose, for all the peoples to know salvation, is what makes Psalm 67 one of the foundational scriptures as the Biblical basis of Missions. Psalm 67 is a glorious Missions song. Psalm 67:1 -7

I) Why to all nations? First Bless Us! (Vs 1-3)
Some Psalms are intended for individual worship. In these Psalms the individual worshipper of God should be alone pouring out his heart to God. Other Psalms are for corporate worship, when the assembly collectively gives praise. This Psalm is for corporate worship.

Psalm 67 was probably sung corporately every year at the Feast of Pentecost. As Christians, at the mention of Pentecost, we immediately think of Acts Chapter 2. Our minds take us to the time when the Holy Spirit came in power. This great event happened when Israel was celebrating the Pentecost Festival, thus we call the coming of the Holy Spirit Pentecost. This festival is also referred to as the Harvest Feast.

It came fifty days after Passover. We could compare our American Thanksgiving Holiday in November as something similar for us, as to what the Pentecost was for Israel. A time we thank God for the blessings he has bestowed upon us. The most Basic prayer for any of us is to ask God to bless us. We ask, “Father meet my needs, Bless me!” In celebrating the harvest, there is, especially for the agricultural society, a keen sense of dependence on God. Give us the rain and the sunshine needed to grow the crops and sustain our life. Protect us from natural disasters. A calamity that will destroy them is just a natural disaster away.

God is praised at the Harvest Feast. God has blessed Israel with an abundant harvest. But this kind of cry to God is not limited to the agricultural society. Everyone is crying to God, “help me, heal me, sustain me, Oh God, bless me!” Even the animistic societies are looking for a blessing. There is a basic human need to be blessed by God.

The tribal, wherever they are, might not have a biblical view of God, but they share the basic desire expressed in this verse, Bless me God! The desire to be blessed by God is shared by all people in all places, of all religions.

The next aspect of this scripture though, is unique. The Hebrews don’t stop with their desire to be blessed. They don’t ask God just for mercy, grace and for God’s face to shine on them, like Aaron’s blessing. Here in Psalm 67 we find the deeper meaning behind God’s blessing.

That through those God has blessed, others will in turn be blessed with the salvation God gives! This Psalm reveals God’s missionary purpose that all nations may know God’s salivation! Here in this missionary Psalm the name used for God is different than what was used in Aaron’s blessing.

In Numbers Chapter 6 the reference for God is YHWH or Jehovah (strong # 3068). This name is Israel’s covenant name for God. It is an intimate name for the relationship Israel enjoyed with God. Numbers Chapter 6 is a blessing for Israel, the covenant people. In Psalm 67 the Hebrew name used for God is Elohim (Strong # 430).

If God himself gave the Aaronic blessing, why make a change in the name used for God? Because in Numbers Chapter 6 God is giving a blessing for Israel. In Psalm 67 we have the purpose for God blessing Israel. That is that all peoples everywhere are blessed with God’s salvation. This name, Elohim, used in Psalm 67 is used to refer to God’s relationship to all men. There is an important change in emphasis here.

That emphasis centers on the missionary heart of God, for all peoples to know Him. Psalm 67 asks that God’s purpose come to pass. That in blessing Israel all the nations of the earth might come to know Him as well. We are blessed by God in order to bless others. Gods blessing to us is meant to be a thoroughfare not a dead end street.

When we are blessed by God others should be blessed. They should see that our God, the God of the Bible, the God of the Psalmist, the God of Abraham is the one true God. We all have a universal desire to be blessed of God, but only Jehovah God can fulfill that desire. The blessing of Psalm 67 is similar to what we find in God’s blessing to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) God blesses Abraham, that all the families of the earth may be blessed. God blesses his people that his salvation may be known among the nations (Psalm 67:2).

This Pentecost blessing asks for God to bless, but the scope of this blessing goes beyond a good crop at harvest time. God blesses with spiritual Salvation to all nations. May the People groups be glad. (Vs 4-5) There are three different Hebrew terms used for people in Psalm 67. In verse 3 the word is the plural form of am, people ammim. (Strongs # 5971).

In verse 4 the Hebrew word for people is Ieow (Strongs #3816). This is a group of individuals with a corporate identity, like the people of Israel, or the people of Syria. In verse 2 the word for nations is goyim (strongs # 1471). This is sometimes translated heathen in the King James. This refers to a nation, a heathen nation, gentiles or a people.

This blessing goes to other people besides Israel and yes, Israel is asking for God’s salvation to go to the gentile when they sing this Psalm. We usually think of nations in terms of political nations. Because of this we often interpret God’s plan by political boundaries.

When Jesus said go and make disciples of all nations it is better to understand his command in terms of People Groups, rather than political nations.

Let’s define “a people group” and an “unreached people group”. A People Group is “a significantly large grouping of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another because of their shared language, religion, ethnicity, residence, occupation, class or caste, situation, etc., or combinations of these.” For evangelistic purposes it is “the largest group within which the gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance.” An Unreached People Group is “a people group within which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelize this people group.”

In Mark 11:17 Jesus quotes Isaiah 56:7, my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations. The Hebrew word used is the term peoples (ammin strong # 5971). When the phrase is found in the Greek in Mark 11:17 the Greek word is the one that we use to get our word ethnic (strong # 1484 ethnos).

Our churches should be places where we pray for the people groups of the world. We can understand that Jesus has called his church (us) to pray for all people groups. Another Missionary Psalm, Psalm 47:1 says, “Clap your hands all you nations (people groups). Clap your hands, Tibetans, Lingayats, Mina, Lambani. God has poured out his blessing that thousands of people groups will know Him. Our God is the God of the people groups! If only the unreached people groups knew what God desires for them. Let the nations be glad!

Let the unreached people groups be glad. God has in store for them what he announced at Christmas to the shepherds. The angels proclaimed it as the “good news of exceeding great joy!” God is a righteous judge. There is another crying need, a universal heartfelt plea for one who governs righteously. God is the fulfillment of all the hearts desire. Then the refrain of the mission song comes again.

We have it in verse 3 and here in verse 5. “Let thy peoples praise thee, Oh God, let all the people praise thee.” The Chorus in Vs 3 and Vs 5 uses the plural form of the word people. We can interpret this as people groups. Let all the people groups praise you. The Chorus, let the people groups praise you Lord. That chorus of Psalm 67 could be a theme song for any mission conference. It is the desire of God for all the peoples on earth to praise him. It is our privilege and mission task to carry the good news of Jesus Christ to the peoples.

Our missionary task is to take the Gospel to them in a culturally relevant way so that God’s salvation will be known to these people groups (nations) and they may be glad! When we see the Missions task from the Biblical perspective of People groups we can sharpen our focus. India is one political nation, but according to the Anthropological Survey of India, it is made up of 4,600 distinct people groups. This way of looking at our world brings us the real missions challenge.

This is why Patrick Johnstone can make a statement that, “sixty-percent of the world’s least evangelized people live in India.” (The Commission Magazine, April 2000, page 12) Your blessings are something to be joyful about. God has blessed you so that you may bless the unreached people groups with Jesus. Your righteousness in Christ, is meant to bless the nations.

III) The harmonious Plan (Vs 6-7)
Remember, this Psalm is a harvest festival song. There is so much here about God’s plan for the nations that we have to be reminded why Israel sung this song every year at Pentecost. It was to praise God for another year of provision. It was to worship the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God will bless us as we share the blessings. God will give us an abundant harvest when we follow his divine plan. In verse 7 the phrase, “ends of the earth” (strong # 657) refers to the remote places that will know God’s salvation.

We are reminded of the missionary plan that Jesus laid out in Acts 1:8, for his disciples to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the remotest parts of the earth. His missionary purposes extend to the remote places. Matthew Henry commented on the missionary significance of Psalm 67.

He said, “If nothing had been spoken in Scripture respecting the conversion of the heathen, we might think it vain to attempt so hopeless a work. But when we see with what confidence it is declared in the Scriptures, we may engage in missionary labors, assured that God will fulfill his own word” This is a harvest song, but not just about agriculture.

This is a song that is about the spiritual harvest and the plan and heart of God. God blesses us, in order that we bless others, the Lord our creator is worshiped and praise God, his plan is fulfilled.

God created man in the image of God. There was fellowship between God and man in the Garden of Eden. But sin damaged that relationship. Following the original sin things went from bad to worse. There was a human degeneration to such a state that God flooded the earth.

Again in the wickedness of man, following the flood man wanted the Glory for themselves that was due God. At the tower of Babel in Genesis Chapter 11, we read God scattered the people and scrambled the languages. People previously were one people speaking one language.

After the tower of Babel humanity was divided into people groups. Then God called Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3) and promised He would pour out his blessing on him to be a blessing for all the people groups (families of the earth). This promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:8). God’s purposes for all the families of the earth was continually announced in the Scriptures.

God did not set Israel apart for there own sake. They were the chosen ones through whom the Messiah for all peoples would come. This Psalm is a reminder of God’s purposes that Jesus so clearly articulated in the Great commission. Go and make disciples of all nations (peoples). When John looked at the conclusion of God’s saving activity he saw that the purpose of God fulfilled.

God’s salvation reached people from every tribe and language and people and nation. (Revelation 5:9; 7:9) We must share the Gospel with the unreached people groups. Israel sang in Psalm 67 of their great responsibility for the nations. Their actions were far from the missionary words they sung at the Harvest festival. William Carey complained about inaction of his day. “Multitudes sit at ease with no concern about the lost. We must not be content with praying, without exercising the means for obtaining of those things we pray for.”

After Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem and resurrected on the third day he appeared to his disciples on various occasions. His very last words to his disciples are recorded in Acts 1:4-8. He told them to wait in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit. When you receive the Holy Spirit you will receive power to by witnesses to the ends of the earth. Jesus ascended into heaven and the disciples waited in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost day.

Pentecost is the event where God poured out his Spirit for the church to carry the blessing to all the peoples! This Psalm may well have been sung by the Jews gathered in Jerusalem, fifty days after the Passover day when Jesus died on the cross. It was on this Pentecost, Harvest Festival day when the Holy Spirit fell to empower the Church to fulfill God’s purposes for the peoples.

The spiritual harvest began on the day of the Harvest Festival. Three Thousand were saved on that day. People heard the Gospel message in twelve languages that day. It is at Pentecost, the Harvest Festival, God enacted his announced plan to bless every tribe nation and people. God has blessed us in so many ways. We have salvation in Jesus Christ. We have the power of the Holy Spirit to empower us to share the blessing. We are part of God’s grand plan to bless all the peoples of the earth.

If we are available before God he will use us in incredible ways to spread the Gospel message to the unreached peoples. May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you!