welcome to this episode of real Christianity my name is Dale Partridge reach week I offer 15 to 20-minute answers to tough the illogical and pastoral question this is 100% listener supported audio Ministry of relearn. Org and for those who don't know our mission a tree learn.org is to educate and equip ordinary Christians to plant biblical confessional and missional house churches for more information just visit relearn. Org forward slash house are you guys curious to learn more about how a Biblical House Church Works have you ever wondered what's the difference between say a Bible study and a house church or Home Group you don't have you thought about joining or planting a house Church in your area but you just don't know where to begin what we're going to be discussing all of this and more on today's episode before we dive in I like to make just too quick announcement
 the first is about supporting our ministry financially some of you guys might know relearn. Org offers a growing library of Articles videos podcast sermons and PDFs that are completely free of the public we just built a brand new and beautiful new website so go ahead and check out relearn. Or if you have not seen it that we also offer paid courses on church planting marriage addiction etcetera but that said none of these are free to create at all cost money and time and as of now we really do need your help to meet the demands of our annual budget and to serve those who need these resources that can always afford them you know if our ministry or this podcast has been packed full to your spiritual growth would you prayerfully consider supporting relearn. Org financially just you can do this by just making a $10 per month you know reoccur
 donation for a one-time donation maybe $100 but these donations of really do keep us in Ministry we have probably 200 300 people that just get $5 a month or $20 a month or $50 a month and if this interests you and you would like to support the work that we're doing here you can make a tax-deductible donation I just go into relearn. Org forward slash donate again. Sorry learn.org donate the second resource that I want to talk to you about just briefly is something I think will be helpful with today's episode and you know a lot of people are curious how traditional church doctrine Works in a house like what does it really look like I'm if you want to learn more about that I wrote along with our theological Advisory Board a copy of a little book called a book is like a booklet it's less than 100 Pages it's titled House Church
 doctrines convictions and Liturgy of a Biblical House Church it's a living document meaning that it's constantly growing and you know changing especially here in the beginning phases of our ministry what is a great resource for many people who have been a part of our ministry is so far you can go and get that a tree learn.org for house just scroll down you'll see a copy of it there all right so we're going to dive into today's question is from Jared and he's from Chicago Illinois and he asks Dale I know you're a house Church planter and pastor and the idea of Christians Gathering and Holmes is becoming more intriguing to me these past several months tell me what does an average house Church Gathering look like do these types of gatherings have a certain structure or is it more organic like a Bible study
 alright Jarrod thank you for writing in well in light of the coronavirus pandemic and the increasing political hostility here in the west that were seen some of you guys may have seen there's more more church or hostility people are yelling at people going into churches people are burning down churches people are riding in front of Church's so there's that there is an increasing hostility that's going on in the west around church and more and more Christians are asking this exact question in fact that are free pdf the basics of biblical House Church has been downloaded over 2,000 times in the last 90 days so it more and more people are for sure finding an interest in the idea of how church and it's my experience that the homeschooling world has really paved the way for our comfort for home churching any that it's
 done things at home for schooling. That's not that different so maybe we can do it with church as well so I think is a correlation are my article Jared or anybody that's listening on the predictions of how the coronavirus might change the local church forever you can do that and I think it would be a really good resource for you it's at st. Justin's. Org forward slash coronavirus and that's just s t Justin's. Org coronavirus I'll put a link in the show notes there for you as well my dear companion Ministry we had about twenty-five thousand maybe even thirty thousand people read that article since I wrote it in April and so far every prediction has been generally accurate but only time will tell if the Long Haul predictions rain true but it's a it's a good read for those that are interested but the answer your question what does an average biblical House Church Gathering that look like well let me let me begin first and I'll get to your
 why should at least be in first with expelling a few negative claims about House Church when they people especially pastors for the term House Church they usually think of a group of angry Church hurt at anti traditional church folks who are disorganized lock doctor in and sit in a circle with their Bibles in the coustic guitar and I know that for two reasons first I talk to a lot of pastors and that's generally generally they're their perspective when I tell him that I'm a house Church planter you know they're very hesitant with the idea of how church and I have that usually explain my way of why what we're doing is actually biblical and that were actually quite unified with them second is that was actually my experience for some time 10 years ago I I became really frustrated with the institutional Church particularly the mega church because I live in Southern California that became part of a house Church of church hurt
 who were lacking sound Doctrine and had a sense of spiritual elitism and you don't mean that we thought that our way of doing church was the right way or a better way or the best way of doing church and that is the kind of position of a lot of house churches out there and it's not right it's not healthy. Season for me was both prideful and wrong it was not healthy it was it was it was divisive and God has humbled me over the years to appreciate the Mosaic of Expressions within the church we have to remember guys that the church is big and if you haven't read a book on church history that'll show you how big the church is there's a book called church history in plain language is a really great book at 600 pages but would give you a full breadth of the church
 I'm a great place to start but you know there is diversity you know you know in in these interpretations of secondary and tertiary issues but the Protestant Church of the Reformation what I would call the biblical church is Unified in the gospel and that. That makes that's the core of what I want to talk about right now Unity is critical when when you have size it looks massive and you might have some some you know different interpretations again on the secondary and tertiary issues but as long as you're unified on the core Essentials that is what's important I think of a quote from Saint Augustine who says in Essentials unity in non-essentials Liberty in all things charity it's basically you know in the essentials like the gospel to Trinity the doctrine of God the state of Maine hypostatic Union etcetera we must be unified those are essential
 those are Big Blocks of the Christian faith in non-essentials think that's ketologie pay dover's credobaptism style of church government institution of a Sacramento that's supposed to be done you know these things we can celebrate the liberty and latitude in the church but then he says in all things charity meeting that you know whether unified or Diversified we must be loving about that stuff and I think the lesson of this whole concept is really that we can be unified without being uniform and we need to remember that as we look at different denominations now personally I have a conviction that biblical House Church due to its size and intimacy produces a very fruitful and mature congregation that has been my experience I'm is it better or right of course not it's no. That's not that's not my claim that it's better or right
 Christian's Thrive and smaller and more intimate Church environments absolutely are there large biblical churches that are fruitful and mature as well absolutely I think about you know John MacArthur's church for John Piper's previous church or Tim Keller's church right is a bezoar healthy churches with my point is this biblical House Church is not supposed to compete with a traditional church is supposed to compliment it I'm it's not better or different church doctrine it's simply a different location and smaller expression wear that church doctrine is walked out and insides really does change things right so you know the house church it's less of a monologue and more of a dialogue it's less consumer-centric and more contributor Centric it's less visitor Centric and more committed Centric it's less Outreach focused and more discipleship Focus so there's some things that do change in the walk
 out of of that ecclesiology that biblical theology the same ecclesiological convictions different location and so we can be unified with the the traditional church and be complimenting to it not competing against it but we need to be clear that we are a Biblical House Church movement and I'll explain what that means it in just a minute but again Jared you're asking what it really look like at the ground level so to be honest if you go to a b League round of church now like a traditional Church it probably looks very similar to that just in a different location in any biblical House Church that's in our relearn. Org House Church Network which is still very small at this point is what's called a confessional church that means that these churches adhere to certain historic statements at face and
 standards for church practice which is really helpful cuz you can bring identification to what these churches believe because house churches don't have a website where they can post their statement of faith is an church doctrine that they adhere to do knowing that you know any church that you would maybe find in the future which we don't have a church located at this point but in the future you would know that these churches are in in alignment with the certain statements of face which is very helpful and what that means really is that we have elders and deacons at these churches in and you know of a queasy ossicle convictions biblical order worship prayer pastoral preaching giving the Lord's supper and and even you know an order of worship or liturgy in other words that you know a Biblical House Church is not a Bible study or small group is a full functioning church that just happened to meet the home
 it doesn't want to just meet at home it actually intends to stay at a home because part of the DNA of the house shirt is the intimacy in a size the closeness is can be that can be accomplished in a small community like that I have to church grows and multiplies into another biblical Fellowship in the local area which again is slightly different than just getting a bigger building in a bigger building the bigger building suppress a typical House Church Gathering look something like this we get together at 10 a.m. on Sunday and we rotate houses every few weeks to share the blessing of Hosting you know we have anywhere between you know 7 to 10 family's pretty common in the house church with a few singles sweet we Fellowship for the first thirty minutes just kind of hanging out have how's everybody doing we start our meeting at 10:30 we have a printed out order of worship that we follow again kind of
 a program that you might have at your church I called this our free worship liturgy because it offers us a schedule of the day but are size two offers us the flexibility of it being adjusted on the Fly and by that I mean we're not in the listen to follow the schedule perfectly and in members are actually free to suggest additional songs or share something out of find that prompted by the Holy Spirit as we work through the Liturgy for the day but in our order of worship we will begin with prayer that we staying a few hymns and we do whether you are more modern songs that are scripturally accurate we we pray for the government in the persecuted church and get all these are shared role so it's not just the pastor speaking it's actually an orderly yet interactive and engaging meeting of the Saints so it's kind of distributed it responsibility of sharing these roles of doing these things
 next we read one chapter allowed from either the Old Testament or the New Testament and we discussed out a bit and we move into what's called are open meeting this is typically this is based off of 1st Corinthians chapter 14 26 through 40 or so and this is typically about 20 to 30 minutes of open discussion for prayer request personal Revelations testimonies press reports maybe even a mini teaching from one of the men in the room and so that's the the space right there it's very fun it's really it's by the best part of the meeting because we get a chance to see what's going on in their lives and pray for one another then one of the elders will preach an expository sermon verse by verse from a little Podium that moves with the church so if we move houses it just comes with it and then lastly one of the deacons of the elders will lead the congregation through a time of personal reflection little time of Silence of prayer and repentance
 prior to communion and will do communion together as a as a church and then we do announcements we closed a prayer and then we have two to three hours of Fellowship over a potluck and this is again just a wonderful time of connection and a really beautiful time of a fellowship where to get to do life with each other and talk with each other and get close this is not a Bible study or Home Group lots of churches I've noticed lately call their small groups house churches that's quite misleading that's not what our ministry is doing every church that will be in our house Church network is led by a theologically trained and qualified according to 1st Timothy 3 Titus One Elder / pastor and if you you know if you're interested in this in this is like a we want to check this out or you're just an average Christian but you know you're mature you've read your entire Bible you may be serving the church
 some other capacity and you might be interested in planting a Biblical House Church we offer a really great one-year training program at st. Justin's. Org you can check that out and we would love to to talk to you so hopefully that answers your question Jared and hopefully that gives everybody that's listening basic understanding of what House Church is you guys with two resources that you can find on the post page for this episode a tree learn.org this is episode 106 titled what is a Biblical House Church of the First Resource is again I said mentioned it earlier if you're uncertain what kind of what might happen with the western church of the next few years I consider reading my article how the coronavirus to might change the local church forever I linked the article for you there in the show notes 2nd is our free pdf ebook titled the basics of biblical House Church again that will be LinkedIn
 the show notes as well and if you guys are regular listener to the real Christianity podcast first want to thank you we're right about to pass 2 million download so what an incredible Community we have here but would you guys leave a review these reviews really do help the exposure of the show just didn't even need to write anything just tap the stars but if you just go to the podcast app and you just leave a review that would be very helpful for us also if you haven't yet follow us our ministry on Instagram by just going to a tree learn HQ on Instagram and we would love to have you following along with us there I hope this is helpful episode for you guys by name is Dale Partridge and we will see you next week
 thank you for listening to this episode of real Christianity if your regular listener to this show would you prefer we consider making a donation to support our ministry efforts simply visit relearn. Org forward slash donate again that's relearn. Org for donate and for those looking to explore the idea of joining or planting a church in your home you can download our free pdf ebook titled the basics of biblical House Church by visiting relearn. Org house lastly do you have a few logical question you would like answered on the show The Mayor question a tree learn.org for question thanks for joining us on this episode of real Christianity will see you next Wednesday