House Churches. Why Start a House Church?

I. Introduction

If we were to interview the average Christian who attends a Church of 50 plus people and ask them about their spiritual gifts and role in the Body of Christ, many would have no real idea of what we meant. Many Christians sign a membership card when joining a Church, which may have a list of ministries, but most membership covenants emphasize two things; attendance and tithing/giving. The vast majority consider the paid pastor as being responsible for teaching, preaching, pastoral care, overlooking the administration and maintenance of the Church building, etc. Churches with congregations of 150 plus often have a 'church staff', church office, and possibly more than one pastor.

For the vast majority of Christians, especially in Churches of 300 or more, they can find themselves sitting next to people who are almost complete strangers, they never contribute to teaching, except in their analysis of the sermon to family on the way home, may have agreed to be an usher or mow the lawns periodically, and perhaps attend a voluntary bible study if they have a deeper interest in theology. 

Added to this is the mega church model which is becoming popular especially, but not exclusively, in the US. Churches are building huge auditoriums to accommodate thousands. The worship part of services are carefully arranged to create an atmosphere for participation. Dozens of stage lights, smoke machines, professional musicians, and the lead singer an expert in crowd participation, ensure that attendees have an emotional experience fuelled by the atmosphere of thousands of voices singing in unity, and usually songs which are fundamentally focused on self. As some have pointed out, in these services it seems that people are worshipping worship, not Christ.

And most often the preaching in these services is also all about feelings and emotions and thoroughly centered on self, but not on self-sacrifice, sin or self-denial, for such could offend attendees who may leave and go to the mega church down the road. It’s all about the budget, paying for the building investment, professional pastors, musicians and church staff, indeed the mega church model is often just a religious business posing as Christianity.

Is any of this the Body of Christ model we see in the Early Church? Do we really believe that God has given every member of the Church gifts to be used, do we provide opportunities for them to develop and use those gifts, do we understand what Paul meant when he said we 'belong to each other' (Romans 12:5), or are we fiercely independent and individual? Most simply attend a Church, listen to the sermons, evaluate the worship, atmosphere and programs available, and if they find the preaching or services don't agree with them, or have a difference in theology, just find another pew in another Church. 

As a result, paid pastors cannot afford to preach sermons which may offend their supporters in case numbers drop, often feel that they are always being evaluated by their performance, and Church attendants believe they have the right to demand to be spiritually fed, taught, entertained and shepherded because they are paying their tithes and offerings. This is not what the Scriptures teach as the Body of Christ, but is the current paradigm that the vast majority of Protestant Christians belong to. 

And please don’t assume I am against large gatherings for celebration or teaching, indeed the Early Church met daily in the temple courts to hear the apostles preach. My concern is simply that churches provide REAL opportunities for EVERY person to discover and use their spiritual gifts for the mutual benefit of the Body of Christ for the Lord has ‘prepared in advance good works for each one of us to do’ (Ephesians 2:10) and that does not happen in large gatherings. In these videos I want to address these issues in depth.

II. Why Start a House Church?

When I ask people this question I get multiple answers. Some will cite the reasons I’ve already discussed regarding the one-man-ministry model and rightly state it is not biblical. Others will tell me they have a desire to get back to the simplicity of the early church model, yet have little or no real idea of what that model entails. Others will say that they want everyone to have the opportunity to use their God-given gifts and talents in service to Christ so that all members will grow in discipleship. And still others will state that they want to see their tithes and offerings used to extend the kingdom of God in supporting missionaries and evangelism, instead of paying professional Christian staff and seeing no real growth in the Church they attend. 

And of course there are many who are incredibly frustrated about the theology being preached which is too often diluted by pastors so as not to offend; they want to see the cross of Christ back where it belongs, in the center of all we teach and preach. And finally, many people say they just want to be part of a small gathering of like-minded people who love and support each other and gather around God’s word as a family.

All of these are good reasons for wanting to start a house church. Here, I would like to share my own personal journey and offer some advice.

III. My Personal Journey

I was born again out of New Age demonic religion on 19th of July 1982 in a small town in southern New Zealand. I immediately had a powerful desire to study Scripture, and also to share my faith with others. My father, who was a retired Baptist pastor and excellent Greek scholar, put together a study program for me which included learning Greek.

 The town I lived in had two Presbyterian/Calvinist churches which were spiritually dead, a charismatic/Pentecostal church which was trying to get everyone speaking in tongues and making false claims about miracles, and a little Baptist church of about 60 people where the average age was about 50 years old. I asked the Lord to guide me about which church I should join. I had no desire to go near the Calvinists as Calvinism had helped set me on a path to the demonic in the first place. After reading A.W Pink’s book entitled ‘The Sovereignty of God’ at 15, I decided the Christian God was a tyrannical being devoid of love and justice who I would never submit to.

I also decided not to join the Pentecostals. As a new age Transcendental Meditation siddha who had witnessed people levitating and speaking in tongues, 19 demons had come out of me the night I was born again. Speaking in tongues was common when siddhas were doing their yogic flying and specific words and phrases stuck in my head. When I heard two people using the exact same phrases in church, I felt the enemy’s presence and realized these people had no idea what they were saying. 

And no, I am not saying that all speaking in tongues is demonic, however, when New Testament commands for interpretation are ignored, don’t be surprised that the demonic will be there. Furthermore, the Pentecostals had zero idea of what had happened to me. They kept insisting I needed a ‘second blessing’, the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ and telling me God wanted me to be a great prophet or some such thing. The Lord led me away from that.

I decided to be baptized in the little Baptist Church and became a member.  I was a professional photographer at the time and had a camera shop. I had also been a musician for years, playing in bands for weddings, sport club functions etc. After closing my shop at 9pm I would stop by the local pub, buy an orange juice and talk to people about the Lord, people who were wondering why I had quit playing in the band. I had never used alcohol before meeting Christ as the martial art I practiced seriously for 10 years forbade it. One of the elders of the Baptist Church saw me in the pub as he was driving past and I was called to a disciplinary meeting just a month or two after being baptized. The church had an ex-salvation army pastor and many members were involved in the Temperance Society. They scolded me for being in a pub claiming it was a poor witness for the Lord, even though I explained that I purposely had orange juice so people would know I wasn’t there to get drunk.

This church has a strong fortress mentality. They saw themselves as a stronghold of righteousness in a world of sin. Sadly, when strangers happened to visit on a Sunday morning, they were treated with suspicion and the church had no practice of evangelism whatsoever. I told them that the Lord was with me in that pub so, unless they could show me from Scripture that I shouldn’t be witnessing, I would continue to do so.

I decided to give 6 week free photography courses when a person bought a camera, a thing which annoyed the other professional photographers in our town. Each week I would take the same 12 people and teach them portraiture, landscape and even night photography. I got to know them well, and on the last week, asked if they would be willing to come to a final session and let me tell them how God had changed my life. The majority came and some expressed a desire to know more. I invited them to my home one evening a week for food and discussion. When they asked if they could drink alcohol and smoke, I told them to bring their own but just stay sober.

Leading up to this I had been writing letters to an atheist in my town who was dying of cancer, a man who refused to speak about God to anyone. The letters started with explaining evolution versus creation, the flood, call of Abraham, prophecies concerning Christ, the Mosaic Law, coming of Christ and the Lord’s teaching. That man gave his life to the Lord 3 days before he died. Those letters became the outline of my first book which is now called ‘Time for truth: The Story of Salvation’ and I used this material for the meetings with seekers in my home.

My first weekly non-christian home group had about 9 people. The Baptist church refused to advertise it in the weekly news letter because I allowed people to drink alcohol in my home, although those that brought alcohol seldom drank it. Despite the churches lack of support, after being taken through God’s story in Scripture, several people gave their lives to Christ. These people were hungry for God’s word and discipleship. The Baptist church agreed to baptize them as these were the first new converts they had seen in years.

Then the problems began in earnest. The pastor, who was convinced born again Christians could lose their salvation, constantly preached legalistic sermons, devoid of the cross of Christ, sermons which came out of his mouth and fell dead on the floor in front of him. There was a lady playing a foot-pump organ as the solo worship, and to be frank, the entire Sunday morning service was boring, uninspiring and depressing.

The new converts pleaded with me to have a Bible study once a week together. The Baptist pastor wasn’t keen at all, didn’t want to be involved and insisted I did not have the qualifications. After further discussion, we decided to have an unofficial Bible study on Sunday evenings in my home with my father overlooking the material. We would decide which verses we were going to study each week in advance, people would make notes, and discuss the verses together, pray together, and because several of us were accomplished musicians, we learned Christian songs and hymns and had wonderful times of Christ-centered worship.

I continued having my ‘non-christian/seekers groups’ as well, and within a short few months our little Bible study had grown to about 25-30 each week, the vast majority being new converts. The sad thing was that when these new people went to the Baptist church they were treated with suspicion and never felt welcomed by the majority. Then an amusing thing happened. The Baptist Union would send missionaries from the US to New Zealand once a year to tell us about their latest evangelism or discipleship program. They arrived and introduced the Church to TIE, ‘Total Involvement Evangelism’.

The idea was to invite seekers to your home, create an atmosphere where seekers could feel comfortable, and take them through a weekly course such as the alpha program which was very similar to my book Time for Truth, but without the apologetics stuff on evolution etc. One of the deacons proudly stood up and, trying to impress the Americans said, ‘we already have such a seekers group in our church which is bringing people to Christ’. Suddenly, I was mister popular and my seekers meeting were now advertised in the weekly news letter. Looking back, it was more sad than amusing.

There was a large river flowing through our little town so we decided to start a canoeing ministry where we took people 20 miles upsteam, loaded them into canoes and down the river. We invited non-christians and teamed them up in double canoes with a Christian. On arriving at our destination, we had a picnic and gospel presentation. As a wedding photographer, my only free afternoon was Sunday, before evening Bible study, and others were also busy on Saturdays. The disciplinary council got involved as we had dared to use the Lord’s Day for ‘sport’ and ‘fun’. Sometimes the greatest enemies of the gospel are self-righteous and unregenerate people sitting in pews. We simply ignored them and did it anyway, and the Lord blessed this ministry which lasted for years.

After my children left home and were married, I finally had the opportunity to fulfill my dream of studying Theology and Church History full time. After completing my Bachelors and an additional post-grad education I had two choices: To continue my academic studies and teach in a university, or go to the mission field. The Lord led me to Ukraine where I was invited to come and establish the Ukraine Evangelical Seminary in 2003. Having been a registered builder in my earlier years, I strapped on a nail bag, and with the help of some locals, built the seminary and then started training pastors. The President of the Seminary was a die-hard Calvinist, and when he discovered I was teaching the full spectrum of theology and having students decide the correct biblical stance on theological issues, decided to replace me.

I was a self-supported missionary, teaching English part-time, which gave me access to many non-christians. I was asked to teach at the International Christian University, a university which offered degrees in business admin and marketing, but had four compulsory Christian papers students had to pass. I accepted the job and turned those papers into apologetics courses. As a result, I ended up establishing seekers groups in my small apartment which soon became another Bible Study for new converts. Furthermore, I started a free English language course close to my home with the help of new converts who were fluent English speakers. The ministry grew to 150 students each year, and many came to know Christ.

The Baptist church we were attending was Korean, and they did not know how to handle these new people. After discussion with pastors, I joined a large evangelical Church in Kyiv as a co-pastor in their youth ministry. Every year we organized summer camps for non-christian university students and the Lord blessed this ministry incredibly. The youth ministry grew to such an extent that it had become like a church within the church, and this caused some issues. The church had about 1000 attendees, and most people, although they enjoyed the services, felt like mere spectators and wanted more personal discipleship.

At the time my wife and I were living in a 60 sq meter flat and having up to 30 young people every week packed into a 19 sq meter room to study Scripture, worship, pray and share a meal. After a long consideration, one of the co-pastors and I decided to establish house churches as we recognized this as the best way to fully do the work of discipleship. 

Added to this was the fact that over the years several young people who were now mature Christians, had identified that they had gifts of pasturing and teaching and wanted to be trained, but the opportunities for such training were very limited in Ukraine. I decided to write a full Systematic Theology textbook with an emphasis on practical theology which could be used in small group settings and give pastors and teachers a Bachelor level education.

That’s a brief summary of my story. We established three house churches, then Covid struck, which had a dramatic effect on our ability to meet. The Russians began their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Many families were separated as wives and children fled the country, and our services had to be reduced to weekly online meetings. My co-pastor has spent the last four years as a volunteer on the front-lines, taking the wounded to safety.

In the next articles I want to outline the incredibly important issues we had to deal with regarding House Churches, such as spiritual over-sight, the accountability and responsibility of members, dealing with heresies, and the many advantages of effective discipleship which house churches provide. And let me state here that I am not against large church gatherings for worship, prayer and teaching, and neither am I against individuals having financial support. I will also address these issues in detail in the subsequent videos on House Churches.

I welcome your comments and questions, and hope that these will all be answered in the next articles as we examine the biblical formula the early Church used.  God bless.

Steve Copland