Carl Westerlund

Name Significance…

CIRCLES – A circle is a focused group of people aiming to fulfill an objective.

PRAISE –  These circles would not function as discussion groups, but rather coming together to worship.  They would emphasize the vertical relationship of God speaking to us and the group responding to Him.  They would not concentrate on the horizontal relationship with each other.  That would come in the time of sharing a meal together.

NETWORK – The goal would be to develop several groups all tightly related with periodic meetings together.

A Structure…

The objective would be to pattern the circles network after the early church.  The early church grew under persecution.  So the house church structure may have been for a season and rather than a rigid pattern that all must follow.

The decentralized church of the New Testament…

THE CHURCHES MET IN SMALL HOUSE GROUPS (Several groups in Rom 16: 3-5, 10, 11, 14-15, 23. Others may be found in 1 Cor. 16:19, Col. 4:15, Philemon 1:2, Acts 16:40.)

ALL BELIEVERS IN A CITY IN THEIR SMALL GOUPS WERE COLLECTIVELY CALLED THE CHURCH IN THAT CITY (Jerusalem, Acts 1:8; Corinth, 1 Cor. 1:2; Thessaloniki, 1 Thess. 1:1; the churches of Rev. 2,3)

EACH SMALL GROUP HAD AN ELDER (Acts 14:23; 20:17; Titus 1:5)

COLLECTIVELY THEY FUNCTIONED AS A PLURALITY OF ELDERS, though there is no evidence that they ever functioned as a board of elders. (Acts 20:16,17; Titus 1:5; 1 Timothy 5:17)

EACH CITY FROM THE END OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE HAD AN OVERSEER OVER ITS NETWORK OF ELDERS AND ASSEMBLIES

(Rome – Clement of Rome (?-99); Antioch – Ignatious (35/50-110); Smyrna – Polycarp (69-155); Ephesus – Timothy (19-97) and at some point John the Elder, who was probably John the Apostle; Jerusalem – James(?--62); Hieropolis – Papias (70-163) The angels of Rev. 2,3 could have been city oversees.

An adaption of the structure for today…

OVERSEER (Bishop)

(Bishop — title given to the city leader for network of house churches from apostolic days).

The overseer is really a super-elder.

LEADER (Elder)

The leader must meet the qualifications of Titus 1:5-9 and 1 Timothy 3:1-7.

A married letter and his wife model parenting to their circle, which functions as  family. A single leader would demonstrate how a single household should function.

HOST/HOSTESS (Deacon/Deaconess)

The deacon and his wife must meet the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3:8-13 and Titus 2:6-8. While we have no biblical record of a woman serving as an elder, we do have Phoebe serving as a deaconess (Room. 16:1).

When the meeting would take place…

Saturday evening would be a good time.

I read recently that a majority of those involved in house churches, also maintained their association with a traditional church. We would not want to force a choice.

The early church met on the first day of the week from the time of the resurrection. All the identifiable times of meeting of the church were the first day of the week.

(John 20:1, 19, 26; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:1,2)

The meeting would occur on Saturday night. The Jewish day began at sundown the night before. The one case where we have the time of day of the church meeting was in Acts 20, where Eutychus fell out of the window. The service went until after midnight.

The Sabbath formed a covenant sign with Israel (Ex. 31:12-17). The early church would go to the open-forum synagogue meetings on the Sabbath to preach the gospel to Jews who had not yet believed.