Perhaps because my grandparents had a church in their home and were always fond of conducting their own worship services, the idea of a home church is not shocking like it is for some people. If some people cannot get in their car and drive to a building with a steeple on it, if they cannot sit in pews, look out stained-glass windows, listen to oratory, and enjoy all of the carnal trappings that go along with organized religion, well, they just have not worshipped God. And don’t forget that it is a chance to dress-up to the latest style so others may see how good we look.

It is all silly nonsense, of course. 90% of going to church for most people is the benefit of social entertainment - a chance to catch-up on the latest gossip and business news. We call it fellowship.

I do not mean to be critical. Social gatherings are necessary and beneficial, but not mingled so closely with our worship. The motive for worship gets smothered with all the other baggage. We try to cram too much activity in our narrow time slots on Sunday.

Unfortunately, this vice is a deformed version of a Puritan custom. Being strung-out on the frontier, the Lord’s Day was the only time many of those pioneers could get together. To their credit, they made it an all-day affair, unlike us today. But the shortcomings are still obvious. In a home church, no one can put on pretensions like they can in a church group which meets maybe once or twice a week.

The rub with organized Christianity as it exists in the United States is its minimalism. We have just enough religion to get past the portals. Discipleship is a joke. Consider Deuteronomy 6:7 concerning God’s Law:

And thou shalt teach them diligently. . . and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thous liest down, and when thou risest up.

Now this is discipleship. Can a pastor do this for your family? Can your child’s Sunday School teacher? No. It is impossible. What God is describing in this text is a live-in spiritual tutor. One must live with the person that is being discipled. Jesus lived with his twelve disciples for three years. They ate and slept in his presence. When he had to use the latrine, they knew about it. When he bathed, they knew about it. They witnessed His humanity, and still feared Him, loved Him, and obeyed Him. They also knew He was sinless. All this talk about church discipleship is fantasy. So is the concept of home cell groups. These are phony substitutes.

There seems to be something lost in a relationship between a parent and a child, if it is the decision of the parent to commission a third party to provide religious instruction and spiritual nurture to the child in his stead. I argue that it is a dereliction of duty. Return to the above Scripture and read its context. Parents are to disciple their children. It is an immutable part of the vocation of parenthood. I believe the single greatest reason for our recent generations of atheism and secularism is that of parents who were unwilling or incapable to assume the intimate responsibilities of personally discipling their offspring. How many generations of Americans have arisen in this nation which have not seen their fathers pray?

And what of the Church? Consider the Sunday School. Conceived and slowly implemented during the late 18th Century, Sunday School was intended as a missionary’s tool to slum children - children whose home lives and opportunity for Christian influence were on the level of the heathen. Today, what was once considered the bare minimum for deprived children is the main course of spiritual instruction! How far we have fallen! Do we vainly imagine that a Christian civilization can be built on such pittance?

Certainly, our parochial schools are some improvement. 35 hours a week is vastly superior to 45 minutes. But again, in light of the standard found in the Scripture cited above, that is still insufficient. We cannot expect to rebuild our homes without loyalty. And we cannot expect undivided loyalty from our children if their spiritual needs are being met outside the home. Church schools produce strong churches, not strong families.

Just as multitudes of men and women across the nation have turned to home schooling - which is vastly superior to church schooling - so have they turned to home churching in the stead of institutional churching.

Now, there are three essential elements for the making of a church: 1) the teaching of the Word of God, 2) administering of the sacraments, and 3) an eldership to administer discipline.[1] All of these functions a man, with the assistance of his wife or firstborn, can perform on behalf of his children in his home. There is no principle in Protestant theology (at least Wycliffe’s Protestantism) which disqualifies a man from establishing a church in his home, if he is so inclined. At the heart of the Protestant Reformation was the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer. And the Celtic branch of Christianity was based upon the priesthood of the family patriarch (abbot). If a man is Biblically literate, if he is orthodox in his administration of the sacraments (baptism, Eucharist, liturgical prayers for healing, etc.), and if he is in agreement with his wife to do this, then there is nothing to deny him this right. If the Patriarchs of old were priests to their households, how much more may we, who are filled with the Holy Spirit, do the same?

I speak as one trained and one who has served in the ministry. It is easy for me to take this step. I realize that most Christian men are not in a position to pursue this option. They must respect the desires of their wives in this regard. Many men have not so much as read the entire Bible, let alone been trained in the rituals, government and creeds of the Church. They still have need of pastoral tutelage and should remain there until matured.

Sadly, however, most pastors are not aware toward what end they are to be maturing their people. It seems the ministries in many churches are calculated to keep their people in a state of permanent infancy.

What does a home church look like? Well, it is very different from an institutional church, just like a home school is very different from an institutional school. It is much less formal and much less structured. People assume formality is necessary to reverence, and structure to stability. That is not correct. Witness the spiritual encounters the disciples had during Jesus' ministry. Not much formality there. And what most people mean by "structure" is really an elaborate command structure. The opposite of what we might expect is true. The shorter the command structure, the greater the stability. Direct communication with your superior makes for fewer mistakes and misunderstandings.

As to worship, Justin Martyr’s description of worship in the Early Church affords much insight into the value of home churches. Most of the early churches met in homes. The worship began with long readings from the Scriptures, followed by the sermon which was given in the sitting position. (What? No pulpits!). Can your congregation sit for 30-40 minutes of Scripture reading?

After the homily, the congregation stood with arms outstretched (sideways) and faces turned upward for congregational prayers and songs. The prayers were always extemporaneous with the congregation pronouncing the "Amen" with the person’s prayer. Concluding the prayers, the Elder (Bishop) chanted a recitation which he might have prepared.

Can you imagine how long a service would last in our larger churches if everyone who wanted to pray and sing, or who wanted to be prayed for, were allowed to do so? Yet, this was an integral part of worship in the Early Church: the giving of full opportunity to each member of the Body. We find here the obvious reason why churches must be kept small, and why home churches are so much better.

Then there was the "kiss of peace" exchanged among the members. How sad that this has been lost by modern Christianity (along with the ordinance of footwashing following the Communion meal). Can you imagine a large, public church trying to implement such a practice? It would be quite a scandal. In a home church there is a closeness and an openness where this can be done without fear of public ridicule or misunderstanding.

Following this, there was an offertory of food for the Agape Feast and the Lord’s Supper at the Altar. This consecration of prayer and thanksgiving was offered by the bishop, following the dismissal of catechumens. Then, the remainder partook.

Large churches cannot so much as manage a weekly Communion, let alone an Agape Feast. And the idea of a footwashing is simply out of the question. Not only would it be too time consuming, few people would want to do it (removal of hosiery, etc.). If you really want to know whether your church is a covenant body or just a group of strangers, try having a footwashing service. It is described in John 13:1-17.

American Christianity has become a spectator’s sport where a few stars shine and do most of the work, while the rest of us watch and cheer them on (if you’re a Pentecostal anyway - Presbyterians are more intellectual about it). Where else but in America can TV preachers so easily replace our local pulpits for so many people? It is much easier to be a spectator in front of the television than it is at church.

Having a home church does not mean one must disfellowship oneself from other churches. To the contrary, home churching provides a flexibility which enables greater participation in far more community-wide church events than would be available to a sectarian group. As for my household, we have had churches with which we have fellowshipped and supported more frequently than others, but we were not members. "Where is your commitment?", you ask. Well, it is to our home church first, and then to the entire Body of Christ in our community. Customarily, I have ignored denominational boundaries, which may serve a useful purpose for some, but are largely useless to me.

I close this chapter with one of Rushdoony’s descriptions of the Church:

The church, unlike the synagogue, was not only an Hebraic organization but was essentially an organic body, a corporation: the body of Christ. Now the members of a body (i.e. hands. feet, etc.) do not hold offices; they have functions. The words translated as office in the New Testament make this clear. For Romans 11:3, 1 Timothy 3:10 and 3:13, the word used is diakonia in Romans and diakoneo in Timothy. The word, in English as deacon means a servant, service; it refers to a function. In Romans 12:4, office in the Greek is praxis function. In Timothy 3:1, it is episkope and its meaning is supervision or inspection to give relief or help. In Hebrews 7:5, the reference is to the Old Testament priesthood, hierateia and refers to the sacerdotal function.

Thus, what we call church offices are in reality functions of the body of Christ in this world. This fact is very important. Offices lead to a bureaucracy and a ruling class, whereas functions keep a body alive.

- Chalcedon Report, May, 1988[2]

Footnotes:

[1] I should add a fourth element: a symbol of unity with the Throne of Christ. That would be the Episcopal office of the Desposyni.

[2] Rushdoony (now deceased) has come under extreme criticism in recent years from his son-in-law, Gary North, who does not share Rushdoony's Biblical patriarchalism. This very quote is denounced as an unscholarly treatment of Greek grammar. North fails to realize or acknowledge, of course, that Rushdoony was imputing an interpretation of these words based upon his understanding of the cultural milieu of Biblical times, and not upon a theological assessment of their usage in the Biblical text. Most seminaries teach Greek grammar from a theological bias, and their reference works are biased also. Even Strong's Concordance is not immune, as I demonstrated in my book, The Mother Heart of God.

See Answering Rushdoony's Critics which responds to North's book, Baptized Patriarchalism (1995)

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