The first few centuries of the Christian era were some of the most dynamic and powerful in our history. Starting at Pentecost with less that 150 people, within 300 years, Christianity conquered the entire Roman empire and sent missionaries throughout the world. In the succeeding centuries, nation after nation came to faith in Christ. Even admidst trials, persecutions, martyrdom and social chaos, God was pleased to use the Church to reach the entire known world by the year 1000 AD.

How did the church manage to accomplish so much in such a short span of time (relatively speaking)? Obviously, it was a time of great outpouring of God’s grace. God is sovereign and works His will according to His own plan. But was there also something different about the Church in those days that may give us some insight as to why God blessed them so powerfully? How did the massive evangelism take place? What sorts or training programs did they use? Without printing presses, videotapes, advertising budgets or computerized mailing lists, how did they ever get the Word out so effectively to so many people?

Though they did have some powerful evangelists, mostly the Church evangelized through individual households. One family told another family, who told another family, who told another family, etc. It may be surprising to the modern day churchman, but the individual household was the center of the Christian life for the first Christians, not the church. In fact the argument could be made that when the church finally got organized and started programs, that evangelism declined, discipleship ceased and the church entered her dark ages. But in the early Church, before cathedrals and popes and monasteries and all the rest, Christians met in homes, fathers led their families in worship and individual households took personal responsibility for reaching out to their lost neighbors. The result was that the world was turned "upside down."

Look how we do things today. First we create endless programs that we hope will get people attracted to or involved in our church. The assumption seems to be that if people aren’t totally committed to our church activities, they aren’t really committed to Christ. So the more committed the Christian, the more activities we make him attend. A really dedicated Christian, in a active church, often finds he has no time for his family, evangelism or discipleship ministries. He’s always busy, but he never seems to accomplish very much.

The nominal Christian or the unbeliever, just isn’t all that interested in the programs we create. After all, he’s always got the goggle box at home that can entertain him much better than anything the Church can come up with. Meanwhile the entire committed body of the local church spends its time and energies on events, programs and activities that only they themselves attend!

We also separate the children from their parents as soon as we can for as long as we can. Parents today often want to get away from their children as often as possible so the church offers cheap childcare. We have Sunday school, young people’s activities, youth groups, etc. which all separate children from their families. We assign whoever is willing, the job of teaching and instructing them. Sometimes we get very dedicated, gifted people who have a real heart for ministering to children. Usually we end up with people who are sincere but have little more understanding of Christianity than the children themselves!

But values are caught, not taught. So what kinds of values are we giving our children? Values that say they are not important, preaching, teaching and worship are irrelevant, church is supposed to entertain rather than edify. Furthermore, we undercut the family by giving people the message that the Church will teach the child all he needs to know about the Christian life in a few hours a week. Some churches keep their children out of worship services until they are teenagers. Thus they’ve never been taught how to listen to a sermon, how to take notes, how to sing songs that are worshipful and meaningful. They have been entertained and kept out of the parents’ hair, but they have not been discipled into mature worship. Then we wonder why our teenagers fidget, pass notes, whine about Church attendance and find it boring!

Next, because we have to keep people interested in our nonstop programs, we have to water them down so that nominal people will attend (even though they usually don’t). Thus we emphasize fun, entertainment oriented activities that are non-threatening. We have special music, and skits and entertaining homilies filled with warm anecdotes and pious platitudes but seldom instruct or challenge. Christians, who are never challenged, never grow. Then we wonder why adults fidget, pass notes, whine about long sermons and find them boring!

In order to maintain our programs we need committees to meet and discuss various needs. The committees are full of sincere, but often clue-less people who do their best. But since they have never been trained how to have a ministry themselves, they end up running the same old programs year after year. Meanwhile, people are so tired out from endless committee meetings that they have no time left to actually do any ministry! Worse yet, committees require compromise to work, therefore if a good idea ever does manage to come up, you can be sure that someone will shoot it down because "we’ve never done it that way before!"

Then we have to staff the programs. Usually, Pastors see committees as a way of getting nominal Christians involved in Church activities. It certainly does make people feel important to be asked to serve on a committee. And it’s usually the most immature and untaught people who are willing to serve. Therefore, how much wisdom, spiritual guidance and leadership are they going to be able to provide? Usually none.

Churches run by committees can never find enough godly men willing to volunteer, so then we have to violate God’s word and put women in positions of teaching and leading. Not only does this bring God’s judgment against us, it also drives godly men out of much church ministry so that the church becomes basically a women’s organization. Then, more women have to take more responsibility, making the church even less palatable to men who then feel even less motivated which makes women take on even more responsibility, etc.

Is it any wonder that churches that are entertainment oriented seldom accomplish anything of significance for eternity? Few people come to faith in Christ, few Christians are seriously challenged to make Jesus Lord of every area of life, and strong, godly leaders are never given the opportunity to develop. Oh, craftily managed, and with the right mix of talented people, you can grow a big church this way, in the right local. But sadly, such churches often seem to be full of dead wood rather than living branches.

The mark of a Biblical church is neither the size of the building, nor the number of people we can get to attend our services; but rather whether or not people are growing in love for God and each other. Yet most churches suffer splits, divisions, power plays and look and act just like the world! No wonder the Church is so powerless in today’s society!

The Biblical model is that the family is the training ground for godly dominion. Elders must first prove themselves able to lead, nurture and discipline their own families before they are to be entrusted with the responsibility of managing God’s church (cf. 1 Tim 3:1ff). Yet elder’s children are notorious for being discipline problems! The home provides basic training in the Christian life and offers the best and most effective place of ministry. Search as hard as you like and you’ll not find the Scriptures teaching Christians to organize their lives around Church activities. My concordance lists no references for committees, Sunday school classes, cell groups, adult Bible studies, evangelism programs, choirs, Christian softball or bowling leagues, etc. But there are numerous references to fathers and mothers loving, discipling, teaching and instructing their children (cf. Deut 6:4ff, Eph 6:1-2, 1 Cor 14:35, etc.).

The early Church consisted basically of house churches, small groups of believers organized around one godly household. There were no Church buildings, temples or holy places for early Christians. They met in homes. When a ministry needed to be done, the early Christians did not organize a committee: but a godly family assumed personal responsibility and then got on with it. That’s how the early church won the known world for Christ. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re losing it today!

Christians need to reclaim the centrality of household ministry. But what exactly are we talking about here? The bedrock of all Christian ministry is evangelizing the unconverted and then discipling new believers into the faith. Everything else revolves around these two fundamental ministries. And no matter how "successful" a church may be, if it isn’t accomplishing these two basic tasks, it’s a failure.

While there are many different gifts and abilities, this two-fold ministry of evangelism and discipleship is the responsibility of every believer. While God gifts some men with special abilities of evangelism, He is pleased to bring most people to saving faith in Christ through the personal witness of average people. Furthermore, Christians are not discipled in a program, but in a personal, intimate relationship (see related booklet on Discipleship). Both of these basic ministries are best carried out through Covenant households.

In a Covenant household, the father is the spiritual head, responsible for leading the family in consistent, daily worship (cf. Eph 5:18ff, 6:1, cf. Deut 6:4ff see related booklet; Directory of Family Worship). Family worship does not replace Sabbath worship with the rest of God’s people, but enhances it. Much to some Christians’ surprise, Sabbath worship is not something that we do to get God off our backs so we can live our lives the way we want the rest of the week. Surveys show that 70% of the average Christians polled believe their only spiritual responsibility before God is to show up for services on Sunday. Therefore they show up, do their spiritual bit and then go on their way. While their lives are not necessarily immoral or scandalous, such people seldom enjoy the blessings God promises.

However, in family worship, the Father begins exercising dominion by leading first his own family in the knowledge and praise of the One True God. He loves his wife and gives himself up for her, working to present her perfect and blameless to Jesus on the day He returns (Eph 5:19ff). In the same way, the father teaches his children the hymns of the faith, how to pray, how to sit quietly and attentively. The Father ensures that the children are catechized regularly so that they grow up understanding sound doctrine. Therefore when the children come to Sabbath services, they are already prepared for corporate worship because they have been practicing it daily at home!

Furthermore, when fathers teach their children God’s commandments at home, the church can then reinforce that teaching in formal services. Children so taught, then have a living example every day of the principles the Church is trying to teach. And if Dad teaches one thing, but practices another, there the children are, innocently asking, "Daddy, why did you say (do) that?" Thus men, by assuming their spiritual duties at home, also get their own characters worked on. They then become the kind of men we can entrust with spiritual responsibilities "For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he manage the household of God (1 Tim 3:5)?"

All godly women want their husbands to be spiritual leaders. And when the man does his job, the woman is freed up then to do hers. If she is confident that she and her children’s spiritual needs are met in the home, she is far more understanding about his ministry outside the home. She can then begin to think practically how to use her home to minister to others. Hospitality is not the same as entertaining. Hospitality is meeting the needs of the saints; entertaining impresses people with your domestic skills. A woman rightly takes pride in her home and wants other people to see it at its best. Thus many women object to their homes being used for ministry because that means more work for her, cleaning, cooking, washing up etc. Thus if she is more concerned with entertaining than hospitality, then the extra work to make the house spotless can be a real burden.

But if the goal is hospitality, then she does not have to impress anyone. Yes, she still has domestic chores (one woman recently told me that the real drudgery of housework is that once you make the beds, sweep the floors and do the dishes, six months later you have to do it all over again!). However many household tasks can and should be assigned to the children. The goal is to serve rather than to impress. Sometimes the house will be less than perfect. But hey, do you really think on the Day of Judgment Jesus is going to be concerned about how much dust was on your furniture; or whether you ministered to others?

What kinds of ministry then does the Covenant Household do? Well first, you work to build relationships with non-believers with whom you can share the gospel. Relationships are central to Christianity; i.e., we are to love God and love our neighbor. One of the ways we can love our neighbor is by making time for them. We invite them to our homes. We share a meal with them. We take a personal interest in their lives. No, we don’t allow pagan values, speech or practices to infiltrate our home nor do we associate with pagans because we secretly want to do the same things they do. But we can share with them not "only the gospel, but our very lives as well (1 Thess 2:8)."

For example, after getting to know some people, why not invite them to a home Bible study based on the book of John? Say a four-week study on who Jesus is and what is required for salvation? Any, and I mean any, reasonably mature Christian can lead such a study with a minimum of preparation and training. And if we prove faithful in making ourselves available, God will bless our efforts. As a result of your witness, God will eventually bring someone to saving faith in Christ. Then what do we do, enroll them into the new believer’s class at church? NO!

Instead we continue to invite them into our home for discipleship training! We teach them how to memorize Scripture, how to have daily devotions, how to lead the family in worship. In fact we might invite them to share in our family worship for a while. In the course of the relationship we will discover their areas of weakness and need. We can then help them find the Biblical answers for their problems. Then, before you know it, they’ll have friends that they will also want to come to know

Jesus. They’ll then know how to use their homes as an outreach and before you know it, whole communities will come to faith in Christ.

Of course with family worship, and personal Bible study, and reaching out to others, you won’t have a lot of time left over to sit on evangelism committees that never evangelize, hospitality committees that never show hospitality, Christian education committees that never educate, etc. You won’t have time left to have your self esteem pumped up artificially by being given mindless and useless church work that accomplishes nothing except to make the participants feel self important. But your life will be richer, your rewards will be eternal and you’ll be investing your life in the lives of others.

In the same way, there are thousands of sincere but untaught Christians whose lives are really messed up because no one ever loved them enough to disciple them. You can use your home to minister to these people as well. Have them over for meals, include them in your family worship, challenge them to Scripture memory, work with them on their finances, their work habits, their marriages and their own child rearing practices. Show them how to do what God has been doing in your life! You are creating a team of co-laborers who can share your ministry burden. You are creating a group of like-minded, committed Christians who are there for you when you need support. You are helping people live the Christian life the way it is supposed to be lived, with all the resulting joys and wonders of supernatural Christianity.

Different families have different gifts and callings. There are no hard and fast rules here. Some families may have a vision for ministering to single mothers, others a heart for the inner city. Some may have an interest in social or political action. The point is that we see ministry as meeting needs, of bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to bear on real life around us. We need to get Christians to think of practical ways of using their homes as ways of loving and serving each other, and the world.