Jump to content
  • Welcome Guest

    For an ad free experience on Online Baptist, Please login or register for free

Is a home church a biblical church?


Recommended Posts

  • Members

The form of coming together in a public meeting run by a religious organisation is only one way for believers to gather, I believe. In the early gatherings of the believers there were many ways they shared, prayed and were taught. Also there was participation by all.  It seems to me that the lecture type services that have developed over the years have come to mean - legitimate and all else not legitimate. 

Something to bear in mind is that an organisation is actually a `business/charity` and as such they are coming more and more under the control of the governments, requiring them to bow to their worldly values. Eventually the government will shut down those that do not adhere to their demands.

regards, Marilyn. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I suppose another question would be that should a church meet in a dedicated building?

When in France some years ago, we met a man who said he followed J N Darby, who when we invited him to come to a church service with us, he gave us a list of scriptures which spoke about the church that met in a home.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • Members

Being an outsider, i am reluctant to write anything, but for some reason cannot resist.  This is my first post.  My family tree is full of Anabaptists.  After trying everything else, and being baptized in an independent Christian church, i joined a small Mennonite church but it turned out that Mennonite Church USA is just as far gone as the UCC.  The last church i visited was a New Testament IBC and it seemed right, but we have been trying to relocate as my wife grapples with the idea of retirement.   It is a protracted process. Our future retirement home is located in a town that has an IBC.  So, I have been browsing this website for several weeks.

For over a decade I have been hosting a small group in my home.  This has been a highlight of my life because i love scripture, but i will be the first to admit that it is not really a substitute for church.  I am not a pastor, despite having some relevant online graduate education.  Heck, i would not qualify as an elder since my notion of being hospitable is to open a package of fig newtons or oreos.  On the hand, the folks who developed Victory Bible Study got it right when they said that pastors can ruin the group process.  

Anyway, a couple of posts on an older thread here were made by people who were not able to attend churches regularly due to distance.  At least one asked if it was ok to be satellites linked to a distant church.  That idea was shut down, but it seems like a practical solution to me.  Would it be unwise to suggest it to a pastor?  

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators
On 11/10/2019 at 9:13 PM, JimR said:

One asked if it was ok to be satellites linked to a distant church.  That idea was shut down, but it seems like a practical solution to me.  Would it be unwise to suggest it to a pastor? 

The Bible talks about a local church, with pastor(s) deacons, answerable to God. It seems to me that a distant pastor and deacons would be unable to live with, serve and lead a congregation as they are supposed to.  Any satellite churches would then, practically, need their own pastor, etc., and when they have a pastor, they are now a church in their own right and don't need to be a satellite!  That's my thought on the issue, anyways. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
4 hours ago, Salyan said:

The Bible talks about a local church, with pastor(s) deacons, answerable to God. It seems to me that a distant pastor and deacons would be unable to live with, serve and lead a congregation as they are supposed to.  Any satellite churches would then, practically, need their own pastor, etc., and when they have a pastor, they are now a church in their own right and don't need to be a satellite!  That's my thought on the issue, anyways. 

I suppose the same could be said for living miles away from the church that you are a member of.  I would say that goes against the "local church".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators

I think that "local" church speaks more to the issue of "Universal"  vs  "Local, rather than distance. For instance, when I moved to the location I am now in it was mandatory that I live here, I had no choice. But I consider my church membership to be local simply because it is not part of any Universal movement. I drive 1 1/2 hours one way to go to church. There is one church pretty close to me, but it is a community church, which is a denomination and not a valid NT Church.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators
18 hours ago, Invicta said:

I suppose the same could be said for living miles away from the church that you are a member of.  I would say that goes against the "local church".

I guess it depends whether your distance precludes you from being regularly involved (as in, are you willing to drive there a lot?). That could depend a lot on where you live, too. City people are less likely to drive into the country, but country folk can be used to driving 1-2 hours to get to town/church. (That's a Canadian assessment; I noticed that in England acceptable distances seem shorter. I visited a church that was a 1.5 hour commute away from my hotel. That's a bit of a way in Canada (I wouldn't want to drive it every week), but we've had church members that regularly drove that far or further. The pastor there, though, seemed to be quite surprised that I had come so far to attend).

I think a pastor needs to be closer, though. Although some people around here do drive 1-2 hours to work everyday (crazy)!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
6 hours ago, Salyan said:

I guess it depends whether your distance precludes you from being regularly involved (as in, are you willing to drive there a lot?). That could depend a lot on where you live, too. City people are less likely to drive into the country, but country folk can be used to driving 1-2 hours to get to town/church. (That's a Canadian assessment; I noticed that in England acceptable distances seem shorter. I visited a church that was a 1.5 hour commute away from my hotel. That's a bit of a way in Canada (I wouldn't want to drive it every week), but we've had church members that regularly drove that far or further. The pastor there, though, seemed to be quite surprised that I had come so far to attend).

I think a pastor needs to be closer, though. Although some people around here do drive 1-2 hours to work everyday (crazy)!

Hi Salyan. 

Thanks for your reply.  Your last point is what I was intending to convey, that of pastoral visits.  

In the past (19th century)  People used to walk vast distances to church.   Samuel Eyles Pierce rote in his memoires that on Christmas Eve 1813 he walked a fair distance into London, caught the stage to Maidstone (not a comfortable journey I should think as there were no made up roads) then walked to Faversham about 26 miles, preached twice the next da, and three times the following day, "It being the Lord's Day" then walked 10 miles to Canterbury for the new year.  5 years later he founded the first Baptist Church in Faversham.  In the  mid 1840's Jonathan Reeves of Rochester wrote that he was planning to walk to Faversham from his home , about 17 miles,  to hear a particular  at the Baptist Church. He and his friend got up at 6.00 am but it was such heavy rain that they had to delay their departure. Eventually they had to call their trip off as the heavy rain continued.  Some time after I read that I read elsewhwere that with his mum he walked from Rochester to Faversham to hear William Huntington preach.  As Huntigton died when Jonathan was about 11 and was not in good health for his last two years, he musyt have been quite young when  he made those journeys.

There is also an account that the pastor of a baptist church in the  village  of Egerton in Kent used to walk from his home in Sheerness to the chapel and back every Lord's day, a distance it is said was 20 miles. I looked it up on Via Michelin and that said the distance was more than that.  

My wife had a friend whose grandmother used to walk large distances to services, not because they were poor, but because they refused to pay a fare on Sunday.

Having thought of that I guess I should perhaps withdraw my previous post.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
On 7/29/2017 at 5:42 PM, Alan said:

“Our latest work, Victory Baptist Church, as our previous works, was started in our home with just me and my wife and children.

....”

 

 

Alan, what would you have done if you were not ordained?  Most here would say it would not be a NT church unless you had an ordained pastor involved.  But something is better than nothing.  On the other hand,  some would say that those not following the NT model in every particular are on the path to perdition. But maybe not.  Maybe a lay person could start an independent Baptist home church that is not fully IAW the NT model.  Taking an idea from another topic thread, lay people can baptize in a pinch.  Besides, ordination is not an ordinance.  Ordination is an example to follow but it should not be done willy nilly to every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to carry out the Great Commission.  

 

On 7/29/2017 at 5:42 PM, Alan said:

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Jim,

Thank you for reading my 7/29/17 post. Wow! It has been over two years since I wrote that testimony. My 7/29/17 post was just a personal testimony on how we started two churches on Taiwan. For your information, we are missionaries to Taiwan and are sent by our home church to start churches on the field that God has called us to. I did not write that post to take sides in this issue and if you notice I have not commented on the "home church movement" here in the Sates issue for my own personal reasons. Also, I rarely answer "what if" type questions nor do I answer for other people and what they think.

If you want my thoughts on ordination you may want to visit this thread:

I will not probably discuss much more on this thread.

Alan

Edited by Alan
deleted a phrase
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...