House Assembly

Note: In Scripture the Greek word that is usually translated for ‘Church’ is Ekklesia. Meaning “Assembly” or “The Assembly”

Before we moved to Strasbourg the Lord gave us a framework and blueprint. I like to call it our assignment. If you have read our vision statement you would be familiar with the five things the Lord gave us as a ministry plan. If you are not, you can go to our dropdown menu and click “vision” to read them there.

I have stated many times publicly, that when we moved to the region with this blueprint for ministry we were not sure how we were to implement what God was telling us to do.

It was in our uncertainty, and to be honest, our fear, that lead us to join a local denominational group when we arrived.

We wanted to meet those in the region who loved the Lord. However, how we decided to meet and build relationships with other Believers was one of the mistakes we made upon arriving. Our hearts were in the right place but joining a local assembly was not what the Lord had asked of us. This decision caused a lot of heartache, delay, confusion and pain. We had to repent to the Lord.

Jesus called us to build.

If you look at number 4 of the mission the Lord gave us, it says this:

4. Establish geographic hubs where we can meet learn, train and fellowship. (Strengthen what remains).

Growing Pains

I did not know what a hub was in 2021 nor how to establish one. As we have lived and learned the last four years we have realized that in order to build the hub the Lord has asked us to establish we must start with a weekly gathering of the Saints. We have bristled against the idea of a house church for many years. We were living in Strasbourgh for over three years praying into the assignment that Jesus had given us and we were hitting our heads against the wall in a lot of ways. Just over a year ago we started to gain some clarity from the Lord and with prophetic confirmation we felt that it was time to start a house church in order to establish a greater geographical presence.

We have led bible studies, prayer meetings, taught classes, did weekend retreats the last four years in the region, but we always circled around the weekly Sunday gathering. Unfortunately for a good while we outsourced our responsibility to already established groups. We had to look this misstep in the face and own our mistakes. We are called to build authentic transformative communities for the growth and expansion of God’s Kingdom. This can’t be outsourced to those stuck in Babylonian systems.

Coming Out of Unhealthy Patterns

There is a lack of health the Lord is calling His people to come out of regarding the weekly “Church” gathering. This is why it is important to not define things prematurely.

With the call to start a house church we had to be careful not to fall into ungodly patterns that the Lord is looking to break. It’s our desire to break the dysfunction of how Canadians “do Church” by allowing the Holy Spirit to define what Church is to really look like.

We are to be the Bride of Christ! This is His Church. We felt a Holy fear of the Lord in that it was dangerous to define too early what the weekly gathering was to look like.

We sought the Lord and the first thing we felt Him say was to to start with Family.

We often see ministers ignore their children and sometimes even their spouse on the altar of ministry. For Jasmin and I it has always been apparent that the Lord has called us to disciple our children first. It’s a grave error to outsource your children’s rearing to the state and to denominations that many find themselves entrenched in. God Almighty has assigned the discipleship and rearing of children to Father and Mother.

Seth Dahl has said, “The kingdom doesn’t skip your house. It starts there.”

The foundation of what the Lord wants to start in the region, the reformation of His Bride in the weekly gathering, starts with family.

A Way Forward

For over a year and half we have been gathering every Sunday morning with our three boys, worshipping, taking the Lord’s supper, praying, and ministering to one another. The foundations of what Jesus wants His gathering to look like has started to take form in this stripped down act of simple obedience.

What I have often said is, “If it works for our family, it will work for the whole family of God.”

Our three children, in the last year and a half, have started to grow spiritually at a rate I have never seen in any Church Body. This is the spiritual health that has been cultivated in our weekly gatherings. If He can do this with our children, He can do this for all of His Children.

We have allowed the Holy Spirit to guide our services. We have not been in a hurry to gather people without the Holy Spirit breathed structures established. Jesus has been faithful to set the tone of our weekly gatherings.

Just as its unwise to define the perimeters of the weekly gathering too early, it can be as equally foolish to refuse to step forward and speak up when the Lord gives definition and clarity to what is unfolding.

We have allowed Holy Spirit to define what the weekly gathering of the Saints is to look like and He has been faithful.

Come Out Of The Institutional Church

In our western context of “doing Church” we get used to doing the same things week after week. We have the five songs and thirty minute sermon. We were called out of these structures years ago and could spend all day pinpointing all the dysfunction in these man-made structures.

Knowing something is wrong and walking in the Lord’s reformation are two different things. It took the step forward with the question of, “How, Lord, do we break away from what You have called sinful to what You call healthy?”

That answer must come from living it out.

We can be so focused on method in the west that we miss the point of gathering.

We are not inviting anyone into a method. We are not saying, “There is a new method in town that you all should come into.”

It’s not about a new method or mindset. This is not a new method. It’s a person. We are inviting you to come into Jesus, not into “something new.”

An Invitation

What we are presenting only seems new because the majority of the Church has walked away from a corporate sphere of intimacy a long time ago. You may have made Jesus Lord of your life but Jesus wants to be Lord of His Church again.

This is not a shame thing but an invitation:

An invitation into the radical way of Jesus, Into the abandoned blueprint of scripture. What we saw in the Book of Acts was a people committed to the breaking of bread, of prayer and apostolic teaching, which is the message of Jesus.

What this looks like is life together. What it looks like is not sticking to a formula but allowing relationship with Christ and one another to flourish. This looks slightly different every week. If we want to allow Holy Spirit to really move, we need to be open enough, to be free flowing enough, to allow Jesus to put His finger on some things that need to change.

There are pillars and mandates to the weekly gathering.

There is a divine tension that must be held in balance. There is a freedom of the Spirit, yet God is still asking for a commitment of consecration, holiness and covenant. These are not in conflict.

Jesus is asking us in this hour to break free from the Pagan/ Roman structures that the western church has bowed down low to for hundreds of years. With this we must be careful to neither adapt a whole new set of demonic structures nor go to the other side and fail to adapt Holy Spirit ordained order and function. We can implement so much structure into our gatherings that we begin to worship our formulas at the expense of relationship. Or, we can plan and organize nothing at all out of fear of squelching the Spirit, failing to bring any Godly order to our gatherings.

Christ is not asking us just to get together and fellowship once a week as if simply being in a room together will somehow make us one in Him. Rather, we must come into the fullness and depth of His Holy Spirit. The two are not mutually exclusive. We gather to fulfill what it means to come into the maturity of the saints. We can “miss the trees for the forest” and make our Sunday gathering about the things we are doing rather than about coming into Oneness with Jesus.

The Sunday gathering is not even about just getting togther for a meal or for worship, though these are standard practices according to scripture. It’s not about the order of service or the structures in which we conduct a Sunday gathering.

The structure of God’s Church are to be the people of God. We are the living pillars of the new tabernacle. We hold His house up! Outside of relationship with Jesus, outside of the Father bringing us into the depths of His Son together, the gathering means nothing.

I preface all of this to announce that we believe now is the time to graft others into our gatherings.

We are going public!

With going public we see the need to share how the Lord has called us to function in our weekly gatherings. This is needed because most, if not all, “churched” people are accustomed to “how they do Church.” This is why it is beneficial for whoever decides to join us to first understand the gathering that they are coming into so that they can count the cost before they arrive. Secondly, it is our conviction that the 21st century concept of “How we do church” must be dismantled in order to come into the true and lasting Kingdom covenant that Jesus and the disciples wrote and spoke about.

What the Weekly Gathering Looks Like

These are the core directives that the Lord has revealed to us.

We will not have preaching at this time during our Sunday gatherings. This is not a set in stone mandate. It is something that has been highlighted for the short term. The Greeks had their famous philosophers and orators. The Church had teachers, prophets and apostles who led and taught the Body of Christ. However, scripturally we never see preaching in the local gathering of the saints. It was almost entirely done in the synagogues and public squares to make converts. To bring North America back to the scriptural blueprint, the Holy Spirit has told us we cannot have someone at the front preaching on a Sunday. This is to lead the North American church away from the idolatry of the ‘set man in’ heresy. (We are in no way against preaching only against a Church’s heart divided). New Testament gatherings did not have one speaker, nor did it have weekly sermons, it is our heart to point away from this set man in format (See 1 Corinthians 14:29, 31)
The Lord’s Supper is to be at the forefront of our gatherings. This was always to be given precedence during the gathering of the Saints. Paul reprimanded the Church in 1 Corinthians 11:20: “When you gather in the same place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper.” We are to gather together with Jesus at the forefront, His body and blood always before us in making us one in Him as we consume the bread and cup together, to remember His sacrifice and proclaim His death and resurrection until He comes again. ( 1 Corinthians 11:26).
There is no pew sitting, rather, engagement. The Holy Spirit will speak to each person present. The Sunday gathering is a time for not only worship and prayer but deep fellowship centred around the Lamb of God. This means that as we commune with the Lord we commune with one another. This involves vulnerability and speaking on what the Lord is saying to you. It’s not mandatory to share, but the expectation of the Ecclesia is that as you delve in deep with Christ you will join in as one of the conduits of what the Spirit is doing within the Body of Christ. We are all the Church!
We will teach through relationship not lecturing. There is a need for teaching on what the Holy Spirit is unfolding, however, it would be counter to what God is doing to continue teaching in the form of an academic exercise without relational integration into our lives. Teaching during our Sunday assembly is done with a focus on relational integration.

The Five Pillars of Our Weekly Gathering

Along with these, we note five things that we feel the Lord is saying that important in our gathering for the maturity of the Saints. These five things need to be happening on an ongoing and regular basis in order to see spiritual formation and maturity:

1. Worship. True worship in “Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24), This doesn’t mean someone is at the front leading worship. This means we shout, sing and praise King Jesus together as a Body. In the New Testament Church we read that the early Believers sang hymns together, in oneness, with one voice. We do not read of a person leading as the primary singer. Regardless, if we have a worship leader, we submit and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into worship.

2. Scripture. This does not mean a certain leader comes up every Sunday, teaching or giving a message. Our Scripture reading has been by the leading of the Spirit. What does Jesus want to say and do among us? He is faithful to bring the right passages to our hearts and He is the One who unpacks His words. This is about getting into the Word itself and having the Holy Spirit help us understand HIS scripture. How to engage, how to learn from scripture with Spirit led conversation around what we have read. This is not a message about a topic on scripture that people take notes on and never look at again. This is the Holy Spirit leading us on how to engage with the Bible itself. Not using formulas or teaching notes, but relying on the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit to come among us, showing us what He has for us in the day and the hour. He is faithful!

3. Ministry, We minister to one another. We are all Priests and Kings in Christ. (Revelation 1:6) During our weekly gatherings, we all minister to one another, (young and old). We share our struggles, our heartaches, our joys, our concerns. We confess and work through our un-forgiveness, resentments, disappointments and bitterness. The Holy Spirit wishes to use each of us as a scalpel in His hand, to unlock each person, releasing His Kingdom realities. He wants to unlock our Spiritual gifts. He wants to lead us into 1 Corinthians 14:26 (one has a song, one has a word, one has a tongue etc). We facilitate a time on Sunday mornings for engagement, and for ministry with one another; for prophetic words, for prayers of healing, for restoration and wholeness. Our times of ministry on Sunday mornings are also for equipping. When we minister one to another, we are more prepared to go out and be confident in what we have already practiced among our spiritual family. It’s important to give space and time to purposefully engage in ministry in the weekly gathering, where you are among those who know you and love you. This gives you the space to make a mistake so you can be disciplined more effectively in ministering to those around you during the week. We prioritize recognizing and developing the spiritual gifts each person possesses through Jesus.

4. Prayer. Paul instructed us to pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17) Intercession and prayer constantly flow forth in our gatherings. Prayer is not sidelined to a side room or before we begin worship, but flow forth from the Saint’s lips throughout every aspect of our gatherings.

“My house will be called a house of prayer.” (Matthew 21:13) As we model this, we grow in prayer, with modelling we teach how to pray, how to intercede, how to engage with Jesus, how to hear His voice. Intercession is an act of communion, prayer outside of relationship is just dry dead religion.

5. Communion (Life Together). All of the above are done in community. We are dedicated to the fellowship of the Saints, engaging and participating in life together. We join with each other in the highs and lows of life. Our hearts are to be united as we participate in every aspect of the life of faith, in Baptisms, the Lord’s Supper, baby dedications, funerals, weddings, etc. All of this in the unity of the Spirit.

If you sense the Lord calling you into this, we welcome you to pray, count the cost, and consider whether Jesus is inviting you into this reformation of His Church.

This is His Church.
We are His people.
And Jesus is washing His Bride clean. (Ephesians 5:27)