In the Church’s infancy, most local communities of Christians (or followers of the Way as they were originally known) met in peoples’ homes for communal worship, fellowship, meals, etc. [1] That is to say, for our spiritual ancestors, many of the activities and functions we think that churches engage in, happened in peoples’ homes and not in stand-alone buildings or multi-building campuses. In recent years, we have seen a resurgence of house churches in both the West and the East, but the focus of these posts remains on a North American setting, so I will not address groups like the cell church movement in South Korea or underground church in China. As many Christians move out of traditional denominational settings, their primary place of worship and ministry becomes the home. To a lesser but still important extent, the burgeoning small group movement found in churches of all kinds can also be understood as something like “House Church Light.” In these settings, certain activities that we can define as ministry take place: people share their faith, read the Bible, pray together, evangelize, perhaps take communion, etc. I applaud these activities, but again, my focus in this series is not just to take what we do in church buildings and place it in the homes. My aim is to look at how we can use the mundane bits of our homes as places of ministry.

We can find plenty of stories of Christians who have made their homes places of ministry. A former roommate of mine bought half a duplex in a rougher neighborhood of Sacramento with some friends who bought the other half of the duplex. Together they offer after-school tutoring for the kids of the neighborhood. Also my friend was very aware and careful about the effects his relocation would have on his neighbors. Like many US cities, the areas in and surrounding downtown Sacramento are experiencing gentrification as people with money buy into older neighborhoods. My friend bought into the duplex during the season when the Federal Reserve was dropping interest rates nearly every quarter. It was common to see homeowners refinance to get loans with better rates. When one considers the fact that the values of their properties increased, it made good financial sense to refinance to take advantage of the gain in equity and drop in interest rates. These activities, however, also contribute to gentrification and the possible relocation of people who have lived in the neighborhood for generations. My friend decided that he would not refinance his home. Transforming the neighborhood to him was not a matter of alleviating poverty by getting poor people to move out of the area. Transformation meant bringing a holistic gospel to the people there, an announcement of good news that also related to their lives as they currently existed, whether they were struggling with poverty or needing help to pass their next spelling test in the fifth grade.

Ministry in the home can take many forms and again, is deeply tied to the notion of hospitality. Any time we open ourselves to the other person and welcome them, we are acting as signposts of God’s kingdom. Sharing a meal with a neighbor reminds us of Jesus’ table ministry in which he ate with nearly every slice of society. Further, we are reminded that Jesus speaks of God’s kingdom as a table where people can come and receive gifts generously given (e.g., Lk 14.15-24). In our homes, we can welcome others into our faith as it is lived out. In seminary, a professor of mine invited students over for an end of the quarter party on a Saturday night. His family observes the Sabbath with an opening liturgy on Saturday evenings and instead of foregoing this tradition, they welcomed us into their practice of their faith. Carey and I brought that opening of the Sabbath into our observation of the Sabbath the next day and we talk regularly about that experience with fondness. We believe we learned something from my professor’s family that night. More importantly, we believe we experienced the rest that God gives us generously through that brief ceremony.

Our homes can and should be places where we proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Our routines can become ministry when we invite others in and direct the goals of our routines toward God and others. I want to continue to learn from people like my friend who seeks the transformation of his community and chose to use his home and the finances of his home to help bring that about. My desire is to make my home more welcoming like my professor’s family who were so comfortable in their home that it felt absolutely natural for them to include others in their worship of God.

Questions for discussion:

When you think of ministry occurring in the home, what comes to mind? How does the financial aspect of home ownership relate to ministry in the home? How can you take the routine aspects of home life and direct them towards God and others? What factors challenge the call for homes to be places of ministry? How is the ministry of a home similar to and different from ministry that occurs in church buildings, at work places, at schools, etc.?

[1] Other groups, mostly those still tied to their Jewish houses of worship, such as the Jerusalem church seemed to have gathered also in synagogues and the Temple. Gathering in the Temple would have obviously ceased with its destruction in 70 CE, if not earlier. Christians gathering in synagogues probably ended in 90 CE after the Council of Jamnia, in which Pharisaic Judaism—the precursor to rabbinic Judaism—emerged as the dominant school of Jewish thought, and a curse was laid on “heretics and Sadducees (and traducers, informers, and traitors).” Christians would have likely been understood to be a part of the heretics.