The first few centuries of the Christian era were
some of the most dynamic and powerful in our history. Starting at
Pentecost with less that 150 people, within 300 years, Christianity
conquered the entire Roman empire and sent missionaries throughout
the world. In the succeeding centuries, nation after nation came to
faith in Christ. Even admidst trials, persecutions, martyrdom and
social chaos, God was pleased to use the Church to reach the entire
known world by the year 1000 AD.
How did the church manage to accomplish so much in
such a short span of time (relatively speaking)? Obviously, it was a
time of great outpouring of God’s grace. God is sovereign and works
His will according to His own plan. But was there also something
different about the Church in those days that may give us some
insight as to why God blessed them so powerfully? How did the
massive evangelism take place? What sorts or training programs did
they use? Without printing presses, videotapes, advertising budgets
or computerized mailing lists, how did they ever get the Word out so
effectively to so many people?
Though they did have some powerful evangelists,
mostly the Church evangelized through individual households. One
family told another family, who told another family, who told
another family, etc. It may be surprising to the modern day
churchman, but the individual household was the center of the
Christian life for the first Christians, not the church. In fact the
argument could be made that when the church finally got organized
and started programs, that evangelism declined, discipleship ceased
and the church entered her dark ages. But in the early Church,
before cathedrals and popes and monasteries and all the rest,
Christians met in homes, fathers led their families in worship and
individual households took personal responsibility for reaching out
to their lost neighbors. The result was that the world was turned
"upside down."
Look how we do things today. First we create
endless programs that we hope will get people attracted to or
involved in our church. The assumption seems to be that if people
aren’t totally committed to our church activities, they aren’t
really committed to Christ. So the more committed the Christian, the
more activities we make him attend. A really dedicated Christian, in
a active church, often finds he has no time for his family,
evangelism or discipleship ministries. He’s always busy, but he
never seems to accomplish very much.
The nominal Christian or the unbeliever, just isn’t
all that interested in the programs we create. After all, he’s
always got the goggle box at home that can entertain him much better
than anything the Church can come up with. Meanwhile the entire
committed body of the local church spends its time and energies on
events, programs and activities that only they themselves
attend!
We also separate the children from their parents as
soon as we can for as long as we can. Parents today often want to
get away from their children as often as possible so the church
offers cheap childcare. We have Sunday school, young people’s
activities, youth groups, etc. which all separate children from
their families. We assign whoever is willing, the job of teaching
and instructing them. Sometimes we get very dedicated, gifted people
who have a real heart for ministering to children. Usually we end up
with people who are sincere but have little more understanding of
Christianity than the children themselves!
But values are caught, not taught. So what kinds of
values are we giving our children? Values that say they are not
important, preaching, teaching and worship are irrelevant, church is
supposed to entertain rather than edify. Furthermore, we undercut
the family by giving people the message that the Church will teach
the child all he needs to know about the Christian life in a few
hours a week. Some churches keep their children out of worship
services until they are teenagers. Thus they’ve never been taught
how to listen to a sermon, how to take notes, how to sing songs that
are worshipful and meaningful. They have been entertained and kept
out of the parents’ hair, but they have not been discipled into
mature worship. Then we wonder why our teenagers fidget, pass notes,
whine about Church attendance and find it boring!
Next, because we have to keep people interested in
our nonstop programs, we have to water them down so that nominal
people will attend (even though they usually don’t). Thus we
emphasize fun, entertainment oriented activities that are
non-threatening. We have special music, and skits and entertaining
homilies filled with warm anecdotes and pious platitudes but seldom
instruct or challenge. Christians, who are never challenged, never
grow. Then we wonder why adults fidget, pass notes, whine about long
sermons and find them boring!
In order to maintain our programs we need
committees to meet and discuss various needs. The committees are
full of sincere, but often clue-less people who do their best. But
since they have never been trained how to have a ministry
themselves, they end up running the same old programs year after
year. Meanwhile, people are so tired out from endless committee
meetings that they have no time left to actually do any ministry!
Worse yet, committees require compromise to work, therefore if a
good idea ever does manage to come up, you can be sure that someone
will shoot it down because "we’ve never done it that way
before!"
Then we have to staff the programs. Usually,
Pastors see committees as a way of getting nominal Christians
involved in Church activities. It certainly does make people feel
important to be asked to serve on a committee. And it’s usually the
most immature and untaught people who are willing to serve.
Therefore, how much wisdom, spiritual guidance and leadership are
they going to be able to provide? Usually none.
Churches run by committees can never find enough
godly men willing to volunteer, so then we have to violate God’s
word and put women in positions of teaching and leading. Not only
does this bring God’s judgment against us, it also drives godly men
out of much church ministry so that the church becomes basically a
women’s organization. Then, more women have to take more
responsibility, making the church even less palatable to men who
then feel even less motivated which makes women take on even more
responsibility, etc.
Is it any wonder that churches that are
entertainment oriented seldom accomplish anything of significance
for eternity? Few people come to faith in Christ, few Christians are
seriously challenged to make Jesus Lord of every area of life, and
strong, godly leaders are never given the opportunity to develop.
Oh, craftily managed, and with the right mix of talented people, you
can grow a big church this way, in the right local. But sadly, such
churches often seem to be full of dead wood rather than living
branches.
The mark of a Biblical church is neither the size
of the building, nor the number of people we can get to attend our
services; but rather whether or not people are growing in love for
God and each other. Yet most churches suffer splits, divisions,
power plays and look and act just like the world! No wonder the
Church is so powerless in today’s society!
The Biblical model is that the family is the
training ground for godly dominion. Elders must first prove
themselves able to lead, nurture and discipline their own families
before they are to be entrusted with the responsibility of managing
God’s church (cf. 1 Tim 3:1ff). Yet elder’s children are notorious
for being discipline problems! The home provides basic training in
the Christian life and offers the best and most effective place of
ministry. Search as hard as you like and you’ll not find the
Scriptures teaching Christians to organize their lives around Church
activities. My concordance lists no references for committees,
Sunday school classes, cell groups, adult Bible studies, evangelism
programs, choirs, Christian softball or bowling leagues, etc. But
there are numerous references to fathers and mothers loving,
discipling, teaching and instructing their children (cf. Deut 6:4ff,
Eph 6:1-2, 1 Cor 14:35, etc.).
The early Church consisted basically of house
churches, small groups of believers organized around one godly
household. There were no Church buildings, temples or holy places
for early Christians. They met in homes. When a ministry needed to
be done, the early Christians did not organize a committee: but a
godly family assumed personal responsibility and then got on with
it. That’s how the early church won the known world for Christ. And
that’s one of the reasons why we’re losing it today!
Christians need to reclaim the centrality of
household ministry. But what exactly are we talking about here? The
bedrock of all Christian ministry is evangelizing the unconverted
and then discipling new believers into the faith. Everything else
revolves around these two fundamental ministries. And no matter how
"successful" a church may be, if it isn’t accomplishing these two
basic tasks, it’s a failure.
While there are many different gifts and abilities,
this two-fold ministry of evangelism and discipleship is the
responsibility of every believer. While God gifts some men with
special abilities of evangelism, He is pleased to bring most people
to saving faith in Christ through the personal witness of average
people. Furthermore, Christians are not discipled in a program, but
in a personal, intimate relationship (see related booklet on
Discipleship). Both of these basic ministries are best
carried out through Covenant households.
In a Covenant household, the father is the
spiritual head, responsible for leading the family in consistent,
daily worship (cf. Eph 5:18ff, 6:1, cf. Deut 6:4ff see related
booklet; Directory of Family Worship). Family worship does
not replace Sabbath worship with the rest of God’s people, but
enhances it. Much to some Christians’ surprise, Sabbath worship is
not something that we do to get God off our backs so we can live our
lives the way we want the rest of the week. Surveys show that 70% of
the average Christians polled believe their only spiritual
responsibility before God is to show up for services on Sunday.
Therefore they show up, do their spiritual bit and then go on their
way. While their lives are not necessarily immoral or scandalous,
such people seldom enjoy the blessings God promises.
However, in family worship, the Father begins
exercising dominion by leading first his own family in the knowledge
and praise of the One True God. He loves his wife and gives himself
up for her, working to present her perfect and blameless to Jesus on
the day He returns (Eph 5:19ff). In the same way, the father teaches
his children the hymns of the faith, how to pray, how to sit quietly
and attentively. The Father ensures that the children are catechized
regularly so that they grow up understanding sound doctrine.
Therefore when the children come to Sabbath services, they are
already prepared for corporate worship because they have been
practicing it daily at home!
Furthermore, when fathers teach their children
God’s commandments at home, the church can then reinforce that
teaching in formal services. Children so taught, then have a living
example every day of the principles the Church is trying to teach.
And if Dad teaches one thing, but practices another, there the
children are, innocently asking, "Daddy, why did you say (do) that?"
Thus men, by assuming their spiritual duties at home, also get their
own characters worked on. They then become the kind of men we can
entrust with spiritual responsibilities "For if a man cannot
manage his own household, how can he manage the household of God
(1 Tim 3:5)?"
All godly women want their husbands to be spiritual
leaders. And when the man does his job, the woman is freed up then
to do hers. If she is confident that she and her children’s
spiritual needs are met in the home, she is far more understanding
about his ministry outside the home. She can then begin to think
practically how to use her home to minister to others.
Hospitality is not the same as entertaining. Hospitality is
meeting the needs of the saints; entertaining impresses people with
your domestic skills. A woman rightly takes pride in her home and
wants other people to see it at its best. Thus many women object to
their homes being used for ministry because that means more work for
her, cleaning, cooking, washing up etc. Thus if she is more
concerned with entertaining than hospitality, then the extra work to
make the house spotless can be a real burden.
But if the goal is hospitality, then she does not
have to impress anyone. Yes, she still has domestic chores (one
woman recently told me that the real drudgery of housework is that
once you make the beds, sweep the floors and do the dishes, six
months later you have to do it all over again!). However many
household tasks can and should be assigned to the children. The goal
is to serve rather than to impress. Sometimes the house will be less
than perfect. But hey, do you really think on the Day of Judgment
Jesus is going to be concerned about how much dust was on your
furniture; or whether you ministered to others?
What kinds of ministry then does the Covenant
Household do? Well first, you work to build relationships with
non-believers with whom you can share the gospel. Relationships are
central to Christianity; i.e., we are to love God and love our
neighbor. One of the ways we can love our neighbor is by making time
for them. We invite them to our homes. We share a meal with them. We
take a personal interest in their lives. No, we don’t allow pagan
values, speech or practices to infiltrate our home nor do we
associate with pagans because we secretly want to do the same things
they do. But we can share with them not "only the gospel, but our
very lives as well (1 Thess 2:8)."
For example, after getting to know some people, why
not invite them to a home Bible study based on the book of John? Say
a four-week study on who Jesus is and what is required for
salvation? Any, and I mean any, reasonably mature Christian can lead
such a study with a minimum of preparation and training. And if we
prove faithful in making ourselves available, God will bless our
efforts. As a result of your witness, God will eventually bring
someone to saving faith in Christ. Then what do we do, enroll them
into the new believer’s class at church? NO!
Instead we continue to invite them into our home
for discipleship training! We teach them how to memorize Scripture,
how to have daily devotions, how to lead the family in worship. In
fact we might invite them to share in our family worship for a
while. In the course of the relationship we will discover their
areas of weakness and need. We can then help them find the Biblical
answers for their problems. Then, before you know it, they’ll have
friends that they will also want to come to know
Jesus. They’ll then know how to use their homes as
an outreach and before you know it, whole communities will come to
faith in Christ.
Of course with family worship, and personal Bible
study, and reaching out to others, you won’t have a lot of time left
over to sit on evangelism committees that never evangelize,
hospitality committees that never show hospitality, Christian
education committees that never educate, etc. You won’t have time
left to have your self esteem pumped up artificially by being given
mindless and useless church work that accomplishes nothing except to
make the participants feel self important. But your life will be
richer, your rewards will be eternal and you’ll be investing your
life in the lives of others.
In the same way, there are thousands of sincere but
untaught Christians whose lives are really messed up because no one
ever loved them enough to disciple them. You can use your home to
minister to these people as well. Have them over for meals, include
them in your family worship, challenge them to Scripture memory,
work with them on their finances, their work habits, their marriages
and their own child rearing practices. Show them how to do what God
has been doing in your life! You are creating a team of co-laborers
who can share your ministry burden. You are creating a group of
like-minded, committed Christians who are there for you when you
need support. You are helping people live the Christian life the way
it is supposed to be lived, with all the resulting joys and wonders
of supernatural Christianity.
Different families have different gifts and
callings. There are no hard and fast rules here. Some families may
have a vision for ministering to single mothers, others a heart for
the inner city. Some may have an interest in social or political
action. The point is that we see ministry as meeting needs, of
bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to bear on real life around us.
We need to get Christians to think of practical ways of using their
homes as ways of loving and serving each other, and the world.
Yes, Covenant Household Ministry is harder than
being appointed to a committee, smiling knowingly and impressing
people with your vast wisdom and experience. Yes, it’s more
challenging than sitting in a pew with a glassy look on your face
thinking about the ball game this afternoon. Yes, it’s a little
threatening getting involved in someone else’s life. But God
requires you to be a leader in your home. And He demands that you
reach out in love to your brothers and the sick and decaying world
around you. NOW’s the time to start. If you’re not ready, go to an
older brother and ask to be taken under his wing so that you can see
how it’s done. But start using your home for ministry today.