Missourimary,
You ask some very important questions. I’ll answer them as best I can; and your correct, there are various answers depending on the home and group that is gathering:
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Originally Posted by missourimary
A few questions, to which I assume there may be various answers depending on the home and group and city:
Where do you baptize people when you have converts?
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Many house churches baptize in natural water sources (rivers, lakes, and streams) near their homes. Others baptize in a pool or trough in their back yards. Still others have a working relationship with a local church that allows them to use that church’s baptismal. The house churches I’ve attended baptize using effusion (pouring). For example, when one is seeking to obey the gospel they are taken outside or they stand in a tub of water and have water poured over them. I used to not believe in “pouring” until doing some extensive study on the issue. For example, most say that a person has to be water baptized by immersion because it signifies being “buried with Christ”. Well, in saying this we assume that “burial” meant in Christ’s day what it means today. We imagine that people are put “under ground” so essentially a person should be put completely “under water”. However, baptism signifies being “buried with Christ”, not buried underground. Christ wasn’t buried in the sense of being put under dirt. When Christ died he was buried in “the manner of the Jews”. Which means they took his body and cleansed it with the “pouring” of water; then they anointed the body with oils and wrapped it in linen with fragrant spices. The pouring signifies the believer’s “burial” with Christ in that it represents Christ’s own burial process and the cleansing of uncleanness (remission of sins). It’s a really deep study and an issue of personal conviction so you’ll see a wide variety of ways house churches facilitate water baptism.
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Do most people who attend home churches start as oneness, or were they part of a denominal church, or were they unchurched?
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Again it varies. Most house churches have “charismatic” or “Pentecostal” roots. However, there is a growing number of people from various denominations choosing this form of church. Most house churches are not started by the “unchurched” unless they began attending in a house church.
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Teens in many apostolic churches are afraid they will never meet anyone and get married. How is this prevented in the smaller house churches?
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House churches should maintain fellowship with one another and local traditional churches of like precious faith. Most house churches form loose networks and gather for conventions or larger worship services periodically (once weekly or once monthly, for example). Most seek to make contacts outside of their home churches in these larger meetings. Or they choose to get to know people who may be “Christian” but un-churched, forming relationship and bringing them into the movement. So as with the answers above, it varies.
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Is communion or breaking of bread with a communion orientation (sorry, terminology escapes me) open or closed?
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Again, it varies. Most house churches I know offer open “communion”. Due to the sacramental aspect of traditional “communion” most house churches refer to it as, “the Lord’s Supper”. However, I’m sure there are those who have closed “communion” for lack of a better term.
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Are women allowed to be active participants even if they aren't married? Can they host, for instance?
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Some house churches are VERY conservative and ask that women gather in a separate room for teaching when the men are teaching. Others allow women to attend the main gathering but admonish women not to teach or ask questions during the teaching. Yet those I’m familiar with allow open participation of women that “all may prophesy”. Many women in Scripture weren’t called to teach or preach, however, they were called of the Lord to host or blessed with a gift of hospitality. These women opened their homes for the Apostles and the brethren to meet. Nothing wrong with this at all.
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If those who are interested are asked to host a meeting in hopes they will start their own, how do house churches grow?
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House churching has an entirely different concept of “growth”. Most traditional churches view growth in terms of “membership”. House churches typically don’t. House churches view themselves as teaching centers along the path for those in the faith. A house church doesn’t have “members” they have brothers and sisters who frequent for teaching. Many house churches see semi regular attendees from traditional churches who are looking for deeper fellowship while still attending their traditional church. In a house church one opens their home to equip the saints. The goal isn’t to “grow” in terms of “members” but to grow in terms of strengthening the universal “body of Christ”. The elders, or pastors, of a house church envision every member becoming equipped to at least host a meeting in their own homes. The vision is to grow by the multiplication of house churches and families ministering to believers… not membership where most are merely spectators. One motto among house churches is the vision of, “Every House a Church”. Every home in the community should be a place of prayer and worship and saints of like precious faith should be allowed to freely fellowship as they desire.
It might be noted that the term “house church” often restricts the concepts that people have. A “house” isn’t even necessary. Some prefer the term, “Simple Churches”. This is because “house churches” often meet not only in homes or apartments, but also in coffee houses, parks, restaurants, town squares, civic centers, …wherever the group wishes to meet next. One meeting took place in a Boston Stoker’s. Maybe 7 families met for coffee and snack, had a moment of prayer, and opened their Bibles for teaching and discussion right there in the cafe. Some of the patrons and employees naturally listened in - and so a few even began to participate since it was “open” discussion and teaching. Others just listened to the group and the tenderness of the teaching. One woman who was listening began crying and a couple sisters offered to pray with her right there in the café. It was powerful.
House churches are dynamic and powerful because they can take church to the lost instead of trying to drag the lost to a big building out in the suburbs for a formal organized service. So the mission isn’t to “grow a house church”. It’s to multiply house churches, while touching and ministering to the community as loosely networked families serving the Lord. It’s not an “organized” or “systematic” approach to church. Instead of “attending church” believers are challenged to “be the church”.
Think of it as advancing a very real and present "kingdom" one household at a time... not expanding the membership of an organization or building.
Hope this helps.
God bless and keep you.