Mini Mega
“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 at their house.”
Today’s Text: 1 Corinthians 16:13-24 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
What a good reminder on this Friday, when all our house churches will be gathering this evening. I am constantly in prayer for all the house churches that meet in the houses of James and Esther (APAC, we’re going to miss them), Jae and Julie (South Asia), Kyle and Christine (Toyohashi), Mike and Gina (OCI), Nathan and Grace (NAMB), Paul and JoAnn (Istanbul), Peter and Grace (Busan), Sam (Kobe), and Sung and Nancy (NCM).
In the beginning, every church was a house church. No one is really quite sure how larger corporate gatherings started. At least, I don’t know. It may be worth looking into one day.
There is an organic beauty and elegance to the house church model that we practice. Many churches have small group ministries. But most of those churches still place the vast majority of their energy and resources and ministry on the central, corporate body. Really, the small group ministry in those churches exists to provide relational stability for the congregants to encourage them stay plugged in to the central, corporate body.
Our house church ministry is not like that. We are striving for and working toward something closer to a healthy New Testament church—a church structure where the house churches and the corporate church are in a healthy balance.
Most of the ministry should be happening through the house churches (ministry is always for the people, not the other way around). The corporate body is there to help leverage resources for Sunday corporate worship and larger ministry activities and projects, including discipleship.
In our house church model, discipleship provides the guardrail of God’s word so that none of the house churches will veer off into leadership abuse and heresy.
And if you think about it, having small house churches (10-12 adults) is a good guardrail against heresy and leadership abuse, especially. We ought to be a little suspicious of any shepherd who just wants to grow a bigger and bigger house church. If anyone wants to do that, that’s fine. Let them do that, but not here at GCC Canvas.
The New Testament bears witness that the house churches must have multiplied pretty rapidly—and oddly enough, especially through periods of persecution. Who knows, God may have brought on the persecution to multiply house churches.
Of course, God is sovereign in all things. The church is what it is today because of God’s sovereign hand. I mean, when we consider the messiness of church, a messiness caused by human sin, that’s an amazing miracle.
Jesus wants His Church (big “C”) to grow. All we need to do is to read the Book of Acts to know that that is true. But when we study the New Testament, I would suggest that Jesus doesn’t want A church—that is, any given church—to grow into a huge megachurch, so much as Jesus wants His churches to multiply.
Mini is the new mega.
Father, You are sovereign over Your church. And You are certainly merciful. Your Church has continued to grow despite our sinfulness. But we long to be a church that pleases You and lives according to Your ways and Your word. Multiply our house churches, Lord. Help everyone to see the beauty and elegance of this ministry, and stir our hearts so that our greatest joy would be to serve You and build up Your church. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
