by Paul » Fri Nov 19, 2010 6:39 pm
Jennie,
There is no strict format on how to do church in the house church movement. There are primarily general guidelines. In America, we have a church community called the Amish, who have been in the country for many centuries, and they follow the house church design. However, they do have a separate building, which they call a meeting house, not a church. This is for special occasions where the whole church meets. Most Sundays, however, they meet in cell groups in various houses for worship services.
Yongi Cho's church in Korea is basically a house church, although it has something like 750,000 members. They have a formal service in a building in downtown Seoul every Sunday, which I think is for about 30,000 people, and while this is going on, the rest of the members meet in houses throughout the city. Each Sunday a member decides if he/she wants to attend the downtown meeting or a local house meeting. Note in referencing this church, (as with the Amish church), I am making no statement about this church's denomination or theology – I am merely using it as an example of a type of church structure.
The article I referred you to sets out a house church/whole church structure. Week to week, there are Sunday meetings in houses at various locations, but at times all the people from these meetings gather at one location for a special event. A whole church meeting can be at a larger house, a rented hall, a separate building, or not uncommonly, even in a park.
Scripture indicates the Lord's Supper is an example of a special whole church occasion. However, local house churches can make their own decisions on having communion within their house meetings. I've known some house churches which have communion every week, because that is what they believe should be done regarding this ritual. However, most Protestants do not believe in having communion weekly.
In the house church, the meetings are conducted as the people attending want them to be. There is no required and particular format for a service. It could be a sermon --- or it could be a guided discussion. Usually, there is singing or some kind of music. And usually there is prayer, or there may be even special prayer events for healing for the sick. However, in the house church some form of dialogue preaching is much more common than a monologue. It's just the nature of the environment. However, whole church meetings usually rely on monologue preaching.
(Dialogue preaching is actually becoming more common in the congregational church as well. I've been meaning to start a thread on this subject, and maybe, I will do so soon. )
However, there is also another approach to the house church, which is called the Simple Church. These people believe there should be no church building, no membership, no church government, no formal clergy. I do not think this concept of the house church is supported in Scripture. My experience with people from the Simple Church is, that in general they have had particular experiences of being abused at a congregational church, and they commonly hold that abuse arises naturally from any formal church government. Abuse actually can occur at any church. However, I think that a church which follows the biblical pattern most closely has the best chance to avoid abuse. I think all churches should have a philosophy on what can be done to best avoid the possibility of abuse – there are ways to deal with the abuse issue and to minimize it possibly occurring. Actually, a church government functioning properly is the best way to avoid abuse in the church.
Paul