“Greet the Ekklesia in the Home” - Victor Choudhrie
We were about fifteen believers and a few seekers from other faiths, seated comfortably on mats in the pastor’s living room. The pastor wanted to start by singing songs of praise. However, he was gently reminded that in the New Testament Ekklesia, there was open worship with NO PRESET ORDER OF SERVICE. We decided to function according to 1 Cor. 14:26-31, which says that everyone can participate. So instead of singing we started by studying these scriptures passages.
We then asked if there were any prophets in the group, because it is the prophets who do most of the speaking and not the pastor. Initially there was an embarrassing silence. But then we realized that in the house Ekklesia, every believer could freely prophesy (vs. 31). We also learned that prophecy has essentially three components. Firstly, edification is about the growth of the Ekklesia; secondly, we can exhort or challenge each other; and thirdly, we can comfort each other.
If we do these, then we are actually prophesying (vs.3). All this time we thought we were only lay people and we were to sit quietly and listen to the pastor, but suddenly we all felt encouraged and prophetic. We further discovered that the spiritual gifts start operating from day one of being born again and are to be used on a daily basis. (1 Cor. 12:6-7)
We also found out that God does nothing unless He first reveals it to His prophets (Amos 3:7). There was a very audible silence as the impact of this revelation hit us. We understood that God had been speaking to us for a long time both individually and corporately about what He wanted to do in our city, but we had been deaf. From the beginning, God spoke directly, or through dreams and visions to His prophets. He spoke to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua and a long line of major and minor prophets, and told them what He wanted to do. Even in New Testament times, the Lord speaks through dreams, visions and through the Holy Spirit to all His saints and to Gentiles like Cornelius. God even spoke to nonbelievers like Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and many others.
During the discussion, we realized that God communicates with His people even today in dreams, visions, revelations and prophecy etc. This is in fulfillment of the promise: “It shall come to pass afterwards that I will pour out My spirit on all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” (Joel 2:28,29; Acts 2:17,18) So we asked people to share their dreams, visions or whatever God had been revealing to them in the recent past. In the beginning, there was some hesitation. Then the pastor read from one of the Psalms, which he had been meditating for the past week. Its theme was God’s love for all nations (Psalms 2:8). Then a brother said that he had seen in a dream a huge serpent covering his city with its hood. Another person told us that he had seen a big, bright light in his dream with many small lights like stars shining around it. One sister said that she saw many empty vessels waiting to be filled.
Together we tried to discover the meaning of all these revelations, and understood that God is expressing His concern for the unsaved Gentiles. Satan has a dark hold over them now, but Jesus is the bright light and the house churches are the little light houses. Together we are capable of overpowering the darkness. The empty vessels are the Gentiles, waiting to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and whoever brings them to the Lord will shine like the stars. (Daniel 12:3) The pastor stood up to give his sermon, but before he could start speaking, his little daughter came crawling on her knees and started talking to him in “tongues.” We reminded the pastor that God was saying through his daughter (Psalm 8:2) that there would be no sermon that day (1 Cor. 14:30). Everybody laughed and the sermon came to an end before it even got started. A brother of another faith remarked that he was utterly amazed that God speaks to us. He wanted to know more about this God. We thanked the Most High God (1 Cor. 14:24,25). Then we sang songs of praise and prayed for each other (Eph. 5:19-21). Later we took up a collection for a widowed sister to help with her children’s school fees.
We then broke the bread, thanking God that, as the Lord’s body, we can break into small groups to go and witness to lost people. Then an elder passed grape juice around in a cup, and reminded us that the blood of Jesus Christ was shed for people of all nations, even for those who are outside the fold. People opened their lunch boxes and shared the contents with each other as a simple fellowship meal. They then happily greeted each other with a holy kiss.
People were amazed at how quickly the time had passed. We were equally amazed at the number of prophets among us. Many difficulties and problems came to this small house Ekklesia. The next day, the house owner asked them to vacate the house as he did not want an Ekklesia in his house. So they all prayed with one accord, and the very soon they found a better house. Some members joined another church because they preferred the traditional way. But within a month, many more members joined the Ekklesia and even the ones who had gone away gradually came back. (1 Thess. 1:5-8)
THERE IS NO STANDARD MODEL OF HOUSE EKKLESIA:
Joshua never fought two battles the same way. Jesus did the same miracle differently, every time. Similarly there are different models of the churches:
1. The University model: This is the commonest and the least effective with the a professor giving lectures to a captive audience.
2. Bollywood/Hollywood model with lots of filmy style singing, dance items and dramatic orations.
3. The Bazaar model of mega-congregation, like a market place.
4. The Committee model with everything having to go up to the boss.
5. The OPEN CHURCH model like the one described above which is the FASTEST GROWING model.
Les French·Tuesday, May 30, 2017 Victor Choudhrie. “Greet the Ekklesia in the Home”
