What Is the Typical Structure of a House Church?

The question of what a simple gathering like a house church looks like in terms of a typical structure is difficult to answer. There is no one-size-fits-all structure. More important than any specific structure are the principles that any structure is based on. So we want to highlight healthy biblical principles for how we should gather as the church.

In other words, principle ought to dictate practice. When we understand this, we can be flexible and adaptive about the structures, methods, and practices we adopt when we gather.

In this post, we'll take a look at the following principles for gatherings. While this isn't comprehensive, these core topics address some of the most important aspects we should expect:

• Fellowship and the one anothers

• Hearing from God

• Obedience

• Disciple-making

• Accountability

Fellowship and the One Anothers

When the earliest church gathered in Acts 2:42–47, we see that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers; had all things in common so none had needs; praised God; had favor with the people around them; and God added more to their number.

There is a lot here, but much of what is happening is captured by the idea of fellowship and obedience to the "one another" commands of the New Testament. A priority of gathering is to be together, to serve one another, to encourage one another, to love one another, and so on. This is captured in the 59 separate commands in the New Testament repeated approximately 100 times about what we are to do for and with one another when we are together under the headship of Jesus Christ.

This principle of being in fellowship first of all with God through Christ, so that we can be in fellowship with one another, as explained in 1 John 1, ought to permeate most everything we are doing together when we gather. We are helping each other to persevere in being the people of God and orienting our lives around him. To live such a life on our own is unnecessarily difficult, perhaps even impossible. We need each other. That's why we gather.

To foster fellowship, we should talk with one another and ask each other about our concerns, joys, and needs. We should pray for one another about these topics. It can help to share meals when we gather, to support the social nature of our gatherings, and to slow down together to discuss these topics.

This need for fellowship and the one anothering activity is exactly why the author of Hebrews says, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Hebrews 10:24–25)

Hearing from God

In addition to relating with one another when we gather, we can also help each other in our relationship with God. Jesus explains in John 10:27: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." To be his people means to seek to hear from him and be obedient to what we are hearing. So a core principle of what we should seek to do when we gather together is to help each other, as individuals and as a community, to hear from him.

We can hear from Jesus primarily through studying his Word in the Bible. So just as the earliest church devoted itself to the apostle's teaching (Acts 2:42), we should do so as well. We now have that teaching bound in the Bible. Opening the Bible together should be something that happens virtually every time we are together.

But we can hear from Jesus not only through the Bible. We hear from him by his Holy Spirit through prayer, the body of Christ, and the circumstances of our lives. Gathering together helps us grow in our ability to hear from him and discern whether what we are hearing is from him.

1 John 4:1 instructs us: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world." One of the best ways we can test whether what we are hearing is from God is to bring these impressions to a group of believers, which is why Proverbs repeatedly urges us to seek counsel from many advisors (Proverbs 11:14, 15:22, 20:18, 27:9).

To help each other hear from God, consider making space for silent prayer when we gather, giving each other time and space to seek God individually in listening prayer, and then coming back together to share what God is putting on our hearts. It can help to do this toward the end of a gathering to meditate on all the things we have discussed, sung, and heard while together.

Obedience

In addition to hearing from Jesus, we need to be not only hearers of the Word, as James explains (1:22–25), but also doers. One way we help each other is to "stir up one another to love and good works" (Hebrews 10:24) by helping each other discern what the good works God has prepared for us to walk in are (Ephesians 2:10).

In addition to making intentional space to hear from God, we might take time in a gathering to share what each of us believes God is asking us to work on and to commit to taking specific action. If we share these topics of obedience with each other, we can lovingly hold one another accountable to these commitments. We will discuss accountability below, but before we look at accountability, an extension of obedience is disciple-making.

Disciple-making

Our church body ought to have a sense of being a mission team together. This is because one of the main things Jesus commands us, that we need to not only hear but also obey, is to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). Of course, there is an aspect of disciple-making for one another when we gather, but our disciple-making extends beyond our group. We all need to face outward to "all nations" as Jesus commanded.

It helps if disciple-making is not a solo pursuit, but rather if we know our church is there, pursuing this mission together with us. Therefore, in addition to hearing from Jesus about what we need to be doing in our own lives, we all need to hear from him, both individually and as a community, about who he wants us to be engaging to make disciples.

We do well to share these pursuits with each other when we gather: the names of the people we are concerned for, the frustrations we face trying to share Jesus with others, the celebrations about progress we are seeing in the lives of others, and how we can help each other or go together in our disciple-making. And of course, we ought to pray for each other about these efforts and the people on our hearts.

Accountability

It is one thing to say we know we ought to do something or to talk to someone about Jesus. But unless we check in with each other about these topics that we bring up, we may still hear without tangible obedience. For this reason, one of the most important things we do together when we gather is hold each other lovingly accountable to our personal obedience and disciple-making activity that we have shared in previous gatherings.

The topic of accountability sometimes has a bad reputation in certain Christian circles, and often for good reason. By accountability, we do not mean anything one-sided or legalistic. We are all holding each other lovingly accountable for the things each of us is bringing up that God has put on our hearts. We are not taking anyone to task with manufactured rules. Rather, we hold each other accountable only to what God is telling us to do.

So, in addition to making intentional space in our gatherings for hearing from God and sharing obedience and disciple-making commitments, we also ought to be intentional about checking in with each other about how these things are going. This type of accountability, when we gather, is a powerful way to live out the one-another commands mentioned above. And again, it should be done in love with mutuality. If someone is struggling with a commitment, we can pray for them and offer to help.

Concluding Thoughts

Once again, this is not a comprehensive treatment of the structure of a house church. There are other principles we could bring up. And one could use a variety of structures to ensure these principles are applied.

The main point is that a healthy house church will have the following core elements at play throughout each of its gatherings: fellowship, chiefly in the form of living out the one another commands; hearing from God; obedience; disciple-making; and accountability. If a church ensured these principles were present whenever it gathered (no matter the particular structure for doing so), its people would serve one another well, grow in maturity as followers of Jesus, and multiply their impact in the lives of others.

If you appreciate this post, we encourage you to share it with someone else who might benefit from it. You can also read similar posts on similar topics here and here. And we encourage you to join one of our upcoming coaching cohorts to learn more about how you can start gathering with others in simple ways.