From Acts 2 and onward, the early church was seen as a people who follow Jesus together through regularly gathering to read Scripture, pray, sing, and share meals. Due to intense persecution in the first few hundred years, the church would often worship in homes and risking their lives to be the hands and feet of Jesus to one another and to their city.
It was out of these circumstances that the house church movement was born.
In fact, it was this subversive way of living that drew so many people into the family of God. Where the Roman government drew up divisions between race, social class, and gender, the early church opened up their doors and called each other family. When the government preyed on the marginalized and vulnerable, the church gave them a literal house and home. Within a couple of hundred years, followers of “the Way” went from a small, fledgling movement to the dominant religion of the West. [1]
Jump ahead a couple of thousand years, and for many Americans living in the 21st century, we’ve been blessed with religious freedom and the physical means to gather in larger spaces. This is something that is easily taken for granted but is a rare phenomenon both historically and globally in Christendom. [2]
For most of the global church, house churches are still the norm either due to a lack of physical space and/or due to religious persecution - (it’s worth noting the global church experiences more religious persecution now more than ever. [3]) It’s also no coincidence that many of these modern house churches modeling themselves after Acts 2 are quickly becoming the next great epicenters of Christianity.
So, while this pandemic feels like an interruption for many, we see this as an opportunity to be the church all the more. By worshipping from home for a season, we step into an ancient practice brought down by our spiritual ancestors and we stand in solidarity with the global church.
[1] From a sociological perspective, see Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries
[2] For a visual breakdown of the global church, see “The World as 100 Christians” https://www.gordonconwell.edu/blog/100christians/
[3] In just the last year there have been “over 260 million Christians living in places where they experience high levels of persecution, 2,983 Christians killed for their faith, 9,488 churches and other Christian buildings attacked, 3,711 believers detained without trial, arrested, sentenced or imprisoned” https://www.opendoorsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2020_World_Watch_List.pdf