House Church Network – Ade Sobanjo

What is a Simple Church? Is God speaking to you?

A simple church is also known as a House Church or Organic Church. Simply put, it is a group of disciples of Jesus who live out their faith together in a network of small groups. Simple churches have a simple structure. They meet in homes or other free locations and encourage every member of the church to participate in the ministry and to multiply disciples.

In a previous post, I shared the 9 reasons why our new church plant is a house church or simple church. Yes, we started already. I have also answered the question about children in a simple church.

In this post and ongoing, I plan on editing this post to share the details about simple churches and share how we operate as a network of simple churches in 3 countries.

House Church or Simple Church vs Traditional church in the Home

What makes a simple church different from a traditional church set up in a home? There is a difference. Here are some of the major shifts that you would need to think about.

No 45 mins sermon – In the simple church, the scripture is read and everyone shares what God is speaking to them from the scriptures. This imprints on the mind of everyone, that every disciple of Jesus has the Holy Spirit in them.

Breaking of Bread (Holy Communion) is done at every meeting. This is done in obedience to the instruction of Jesus to do it as often as we can in remembrance of Him.

Food in the weekly meeting (Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner). We eat together before or after the meeting.

Simple and Flexible Program Structure – The order of service or flow of events is quite simple. It varies from church to church but there are some things that always happen in every meeting (Scriptures, Singing or music, Food, Breaking of Bread, and prayers).

Flexible meeting days – In many nations of the world, the weekends are usually the best times to meet. However, with simple churches, some meet at other times of the week because most of the people in the group are unable to meet on the weekend. In some nations, the meet on Fridays, others meet on Saturdays etc. We meet on Sunday mornings in Cornwall.

Non Christian are not invited to church gatherings – This not typical of all House Churches. This is more typical in some Disciple Making Movements. This is the model we have been led to follow.

So how do we make disciples if we don’t invite the lost?

We start what is called Discovery Groups and help the people who are interested in knowing Jesus (people of peace) discover Jesus in scriptures. Every member of the church is encouraged to start discovery groups and as a church, we pray for these people to become disciples of Jesus and get water baptized.

In many places, many members of the discovery groups get baptized together and form a simple church (with ongoing coaching from a pastor in the network). If just an individual gets baptized, them they are invited into the simple church that the person who baptized them is part of.

All disciples are encouraged to make disciple and baptize new disciples – In traditional churches we usually reserve water baptism to the ordained clergy. In simple churches however, we just encourage disciple to baptize new disciple just like Jesus commanded in Matt 28:18-20.

This post is going to get very long. But I’ll stop here right now.

Here are some resources that I used to learn more about simple churches. When God began to speak to me about simple church networks in 2019, I thought it was new. Oh boy, was I wrong? I keep discovering new house church networks that have been doing very well for many year.

Video Resources about Simple Churches

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Is God calling you to a simple church? Find out what that means! Life changing.

What about children in the house church?

We have been doing something called church in the home for a few years now. We take one Sunday and we have our meetings in the home. Thanks to the pandemic we have been having virtual church in the home every week for many months now.

Church in the home can be scary for some people because they wonder what would happen to the children. What we do now is keep the children in the same room with the adults and we worship together and involve the children.

The very little ones can paint or do some craft on the rug beside their parents. I know it’s a little more work for parents but I believe that children will do well in the church at home and the extra sacrifice is worth the effort.

Here are the reasons why I know that church in the home is a blessing for the children as well.

Those who are already in grade one and above can participate in the meetings. Our children have been participating in our meetings since they could respond to questions. They are now 13 and 10 and they are doing well.
The children get to hang out with adults and see how God works with people. They also see other adults (closeup) with godly lifestyles to look up to.
They experience the manifestation of the Holy Spirit at the meetings and develop faith for these manifestations from a young age.
The older children can start to lead their own Discovery Groups when they get to high school because they have seen it modeled all their lives.
They don’t have to struggle to integrate back to the adult church after being in the kids church for many years.

There are some challenges which usually boil down to more work for the adults at first.

As it is, we are still in the pandemic and still having church at home and we are loving it. Our boys Demi and Damilola love it.

9 reasons why our next church plant is a house church

We sense the Lord wants us to plant a house church network in Cornwall! Here are some reasons why we are happy to do it. There are challenges as well, but this post is about the benefits.

“Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.” Colossians‬ ‭4:15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

It looks like what we read in scriptures (Philemon 1:2)
It is easier to start. You don’t need a big budget. You don’t need a budget at all 😀.
Everyone can participate in the meetings because there are usually less than 12 adults.
It’s easier to practice unconditional love for one another.
Leaders are always being trained because new leaders are always needed to lead new house churches.
It’s easier to train the members to receive and flow in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit because a smaller group is less intimidating.
It’s easier for friends and neighbors to attend because they already come into the house at other times.
The children get to participate in the church like they do in a regular family. I believe this helps them engage better.
The house churches replicate faster. This is one of the strengths of Disciple Making Movements.

Have you participated in a church that meets in the house? Please share your thoughts!