House Churches - a PrimerIsampula

Can anyone set up a house church?

The short answer as to who can set up a house church is…pretty much anyone!

All you really need is the desire, some time, and a place to run the meetings. And you don’t necessarily have to be the one running the meetings. The Lord gives ministries to different people as He chooses. If you want to run a house meeting, your role may just be to supply the place to hold it.

The way house church meetings operate is different and varied. The following are some examples of how some house churches are run.

Some rotate the venues between members. This reduces the stress of having people traipse through one member's house every time there is a meeting. It can be a great blessing, but sometimes you might just want a break and let someone else do all the preparation work.

Some house churches are basically just prayer or Bible study groups that meet regularly. (You can’t have too much prayer or Bible study.)

Others run meetings that are a scaled-down version of the more traditional churches.

Meeting days and times vary, too—some on Saturday, Sunday, or another day of the week. The timing of your meetings is really up to each house church.

Anyone can set up and run a house church meeting, regardless of the type of meeting. It requires no training, and there are many Internet resources that can help (more on that later).

Some people shy away from setting up a house church because they don’t feel qualified or feel intimidated by the idea of running a meeting. If this is you, the best thing to do is to pray about it. Ask the Lord and seek His insight to know what to do and how to go about it. Christ is the head of the Church, and He should be consulted as to how He wants it run.

Seek out others who may be interested in establishing a house church, too, and see what gifts of the Lord they can bring to the table. The Lord may bring along people who already have gifts to teach, preach, or pastor or who have administrative skills to ensure everything runs in an orderly manner.

Call to Action:

Anyone can set up a house church. You don’t need anyone’s permission or any kind of qualification. The Lord will guide your efforts when you put all matters into His hands and trust Him to lead you. All you really need is the desire, the will to do it, the preparedness to “be there” every week/meeting, and a place to have the meetings. Meetings may just start out as a simple Bible study or prayer group and then evolve over time into something else.