Adapt and Thrive: The Power and Opportunity of Home-Based Mission
By Bob Rognlien
In an unexpected series of events nearly all of us have been suddenly confined to our homes for the last couple of months where our direct contact with others has been limited almost exclusively to our own nuclear family members, roommates, or closest friends. And we all agree it is getting old fast! The growing desire to reengage with the wider world and people around us is forcing a national/global discussion about the pace and process of “reopening” our cities, states, and countries.
How ever reopening unfolds, one thing everyone agrees with is that it will happen in stages. We will not flip the light switch and instantly go back to the way things used to be. In fact, it is becoming clearer that things will never be exactly like they used to be, perhaps in both good and bad ways. As people begin to reengage with work and the marketplace there will still be significant restrictions on larger public gatherings, so smaller and medium-sized gatherings will become the norm for a season. This represents an unprecedented opportunity for 21st century church leaders to recapture something powerful from the first-century roots of our faith that has largely been lost in modern times.
When Jesus said, “Follow me” he was explicitly calling us to pattern our lives after his. One of the patterns of Jesus’ life was that he gathered with people in four distinct groupings: large crowds, housefuls of people he called family, his twelve full-time disciples, and his three closest confidants. It is interesting that these correspond to what sociologists have come to call the Four Spaces:
1. Public Space: large gatherings of hundreds or thousands like a sporting event or concert.
2. Social Space: medium-sized groups like a houseful of extended family and friends.
3. Personal Space: smaller groups of 6-12 people like a nuclear family.
4. Intimate Space: 2-3 people connecting closely, like a married couple or best friends.
Sociologists tell us that the healthiest societies and individuals are those who function in all four spaces. As we read the Gospels, we see Jesus intentionally interacting in all four of these kinds of groups. It is instructive that Luke tells us the first followers of Jesus in Jerusalem gathered together regularly in both Public Space and Social Space. “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:46-47)
The apostles organized large gatherings of thousands of new converts in the huge Temple courts where they gave eyewitness accounts of what Jesus said and did. In a more organic way, these new followers of Jesus would gather into extended family homes where they shared meals, prayed, and deepened their friendships with each other. In doing this they were explicitly following the pattern Jesus had set in Galilee where he taught to large crowds on the open hillsides and filled up Simon and Andrew’s home in Capernaum with a spiritual family of followers. It is fascinating to note that as the apostles followed this pattern of large gatherings at the Temple (Public Space) and medium-sized gatherings in their homes (Social Space) it resulted in new people coming to faith in Jesus and joining his movement of spiritual families on a daily basis.
But then something unexpected hit that would radically alter the lives of Jesus’ followers forever (can you relate?). The prominent Pharisee Saul oversaw the murder of Stephen and then organized a systematic persecution focused on the homes in which the followers of Jesus met (see Acts 8). This caused a scattering of the church which ultimately led to the Pauline and other apostolic missions that planted the Good News in new cities across the Mediterranean world and further east into Asia.
Although most of these new believers did not have a venue like the Temple for large public gatherings, they continued to gather in mid-sized groups, filling up extended family homes. About forty years later the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Some twenty years after that the Jewish followers of Jesus were formally expelled from the synagogues. Now the die was cast. The primary gathering place for the followers of Jesus was the family home. There were occasional opportunities for multiple house-churches in a given city to meet together in a larger group when an apostle was visiting. Paul rented a lecture hall in Ephesus to facilitate his wider teaching ministry and a few communities were able to build public places of worship. But for the next three hundred years the followers of Jesus met primarily in medium-sized groups in larger homes.
We can thank God that most of us today do not have to risk our lives to worship Jesus, but we have experienced an unexpected scattering as our church buildings have been closed to public gatherings. The latest research indicates that it will be much longer than we thought before it is safe for large groups to gather in church buildings to sing and listen to preaching. It is becoming increasingly clear for many of us there will be an extended period of time when we are allowed to begin gathering with smaller and medium-sized groups of people in our homes before we can return to the familiar weekend worship gatherings in our church buildings.
Some will see this as a frustrating delay of “getting back to normal.” Others will see this as an opportunity to regain something that Jesus began and the early church continued for centuries: gathering in homes as extended families for worship and mission. Those churches who have already been patterning their life and mission after the Way of Jesus will be ready for this season and can take this opportunity to welcome new people into their existing Missional Communities and multiply them by forming new MCs. Other churches will have to scramble to equip and empower their leaders to begin church members into their homes for times of prayer and study, and to welcome in neighbors and friends who don’t yet know Jesus. Either way, this next phase of the pandemic offers us an incredible missional opportunity if we will take it!
Many church leaders who have tried to build this mid-sized, home-based expression of Christian community that welcomes in outsiders have faced resistance or apathy from the members of their church. But now, people are open to new expressions of church as a matter of necessity, much like those who were scattered from Jerusalem by persecution. Don’t miss this opportunity! The critical question is are your leaders equipped and prepared to gather fellow church members into their homes, build a sense of spiritual family there, and welcome outsiders into that community? If not, the next question is how are you going to prepare them? I urge you to begin now making a plan for how you will empower leaders in your church to lead home-based communities on mission together.
If you are looking for resources, let me offer two that I hope will be helpful:
1. My book, A Jesus-Shaped Life, is an easy-to-read introduction to patterning our lives and our churches after the Way of Jesus, including information about building extended spiritual families in homes. This resource will help your leaders understand why gathering in homes is so helpful for our mission.
2. Gina Mueller and I, leaders in 3DMovements, will be offering a four-session online training course called, “Help, I’m Leading a Group in My Home!” which starts on Saturday, May 23 (click the title to register). This course will give your leaders practical tools and training they need to build spiritual families on mission in their own homes. We would love for you and your leaders to join us!
I am looking forward to the day when we can once again gather in our church buildings for uplifting times of worship together. In the meantime I am excited for the unprecedented opportunity we are being given to introduce people to a more Jesus-shaped way of living as part of a spiritual family on mission together. I pray you will find what you need to step into this unique Kingdom moment.