The churches of Asia greet you, Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord, with the church that is in their house. (1 Corinthians 16:19, N.K.J.V.)

Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea, and Nymphas and the church that is in his house. (Colossians 4:15, N.K.J.V.)

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Apphia, Archipus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: (Philemon 1:1-2, N.K.J.V.)

Elbert Hubbard was a prominent American writer, publisher, and philosopher before his untimely death aboard the Lusitania, the ship that was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland in 1915. Hubbard was known as a man of profound quotes. One of those, in particular, strikes a chord with me. He called tradition “a clock that tells us what time it was.”

As we study the gospels, we find that Jesus was frequently in conflict with the man-made traditions of the Jewish religious elite. In particular, many incidents involved Him purposely breaking the time-honored but erroneous rules that had been established for keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest (Matthew 12:1-13; Luke 13:10-17; Luke 14:1-6; John 5:1-16). What caused all that conflict regarding the keeping of the Sabbath? Let me explain.

In the Old Testament Hebrew, the Sabbath commandment consists of 39 words. In accordance with those 39 words, the Jewish rabbis devised their own list of 39 ways in which a person could break the commandment. Then the rabbis took the whole process one step further by dividing those 39 ways into 39 divisions. This produced a grand total of 1,521 ways by which one could break the Sabbath. For example, getting a tack in your sandal was considered carrying a burden on the Sabbath. Killing a flea was considered hunting on the Sabbath. Even eating an egg that was laid on Saturday was considered a violation because the hen had worked on the Sabbath. It’s no wonder that Jesus railed against such traditions.

While I certainly wouldn’t say that the traditions of the American way of “doing church” are as bad as those the Jews used to keep their Sabbath, our traditions do sometimes seem about as entrenched. Try changing something in the typical local church and see what you get! But what’s surprising is that so many of our traditions have little or no scriptural basis.

Consider that for the first 300 years or so churches were simple “house churches” (Romans 16:3-5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15; Philemon v.1-2; James 2:1-3; Acts 2:1-2; 2 John v.10). That means no: committees, deacon boards (even though the churches did have deacons), business meetings, Sunday Schools, Bible Schools, Bible conferences, revivals, church budgets, choirs, Christmas plays, Christmas cantatas, Easter dramas, Easter cantatas, Fall Festival parties, missions boards, youth missions trips, senior-citizen outings, or Christian schools. The congregations didn’t have pew-filled sanctuaries, baptisteries, education buildings, fellowship halls, gymnasiums, or life-activity centers, either.

So, how did those early churches “do church”? Consider the following:

1. There were multiple house churches in a city. Since cities such as Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Smyrna, Colossae, and Laodicea boasted populations in the multiplied thousands, no one house could possibly have been large enough to host all of the Christians in a city.
2. Evidently, when a congregation grew too big for the confines of a home, that was seen as an opportunity to begin a new offshoot house church. This was a version of what we might call “church planting” in the early decades of the church age.
3. All of the house churches in a given city made up the one “church” of that city (1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 2:1; Romans 1:7). When the apostle Paul wrote a letter to the “church” of a city, he meant for that letter to be passed along to each of the house congregations in that city and read aloud in each one.
4. Each city had multiple pastors. These men were typically called “elders,” “overseers,” or “bishops” (Acts 14:23; 20:17; 1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; Philippians 1:1; Ephesians 4:11). It seems likely that each house congregation had one pastor as its overseer. The fact that Acts 14:23 says that Paul and Barnabas appointed elders (plural) in every church (singular) and Acts 20:17 speaks of the elders (plural) of the church (singular) of Ephesus is explained by the fact that all of the house congregations in a given city made up the one “church” of that city. In that sense, each “church” did have multiple pastors.
5. There were deacons, men who performed necessary menial acts of service in the congregations (Acts 6:1-7; 1 Timothy 3:8-13).
6. The congregations met each Sunday to commemorate the fact that Christ arose on a Sunday (Acts 20:7-8; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10). Since many of the early Christians were slaves, and since the Roman empire did not consider Sunday to be a special day during this time (this was before Constantine became the Emperor of Rome and changed that), it is likely that services were typically held on Sunday night.
7. The services were free-flowing ones wherein each Christian was encouraged to contribute by somehow using or exhibiting his or her spiritual gift (Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 14:26; Ephesians 4:7-11). However, everything was to be done in an orderly manner (1 Corinthians 14:40).
8. There was praying (James 5:13).
9. There was singing (Ephesians 5:18-19; Colossians 3:16; James 5:13; 1 Corinthians 14:15). Since the headings of many of the Psalms tell us those Psalms were written to be played on specific instruments, perhaps instruments were sometimes used in the services. Obviously, though, there wasn’t a piano or an organ sitting in the corner.
10. There were no pulpits, but there was certainly teaching and what we now call “preaching” (1 Timothy 1:3; 4:6,13,16; 5:17; 2 Timothy 4:1-5; Titus 1:9; 2:1).
11. It seems that the Lord’s Supper was observed each service. This was called “the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42-47).
12. In the earliest days of the church age, a “love feast” (a meal designed to help the poorer Christians) was served in conjuncture with the Lord’s Supper (Jude v. 12).
13. Real wine was used during the Lord’s Supper and the love feast (1 Corinthians 11:21). How else could some of the Christians of Corinth have gotten drunk during the observance of the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-34)?
14. The house churches were expected to practice church discipline (1 Corinthians 5:1-13). Perhaps they did this by using the guideline laid out by Jesus (Matthew 18:15-17).
15. As for the collection of monetary offerings, the Old Testament law’s elaborate system of tithing (Leviticus 27:30-34; Deuteronomy 12:5-7,17-19; 14:22-29; Numbers 18:21-32; Malachi 3:8-12) was not taught. Why would it have been since Christians were no longer under the law (Romans 6:14; 7:4; 10:4; Galatians 5:18)? For that matter, a Christian couldn’t bring a tenth of his harvests and livestock to a house church, and there was no longer a need to support the Levitical priests who ministered at the temple. So, what many now call “grace giving” replaced the commands concerning tithing. Under “grace giving” cheerful and generous giving was expected as each Christian gave in accordance with his or her prosperity (2 Corinthians 9:6-15; 1 Timothy 6:17-19).
16. The collected offerings went to aid the needy (Acts 20:35; Ephesians 4:28; James 1:27), help fellow Christians who were struggling (Acts 11:29; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2; 2 Corinthians 9:1-15; Galatians 6:10; Hebrews 6:10), support the apostles in their missionary work (Philippians 4:10-20; 1 Corinthians 9:1-14; 2 Corinthians 11:5-9), and meet the basic needs of the pastors (Galatians 6:6,10; 1 Corinthians 9:7,11; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13).
17. Each and every Christian was to be actively involved in hands-on service to Christ outside the confines of the church congregation. The primary role of the pastors was to equip all Christians with the doctrine and knowledge necessary for those Christians to carry out the work of ministry themselves (Ephesians 4:11-12).
18. The pastors did have authority to lead the congregations (Acts 20:28; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13; 1 Timothy 3:5; Hebrews 13:7,17,24).
19. Pastoral leadership was to be the kind of servant leadership that Jesus exemplified (1 Peter 5:1-4).
20. The ultimate authority in all the churches rested with the apostles (1 Corinthians 5:1-3). They were the ones who ordained the pastors (Acts 14:23).

Okay, so why am I telling you all this? First, let me assure you that it’s not because I’m trying to take us all back to those early days of the church age. Even if we wanted to go back to that time, we couldn’t because we no longer have genuine apostles the likes of Peter and Paul. Second, I’m also not saying that there is anything patently wrong with: church buildings, committees, Sunday Schools, Bible Schools, revivals, missions boards, youth missions trips, senior-citizen outings, Christian schools, etc. I mean, the fact that you are reading this via a very modern tool called the internet isn’t lost on me!

No, my purpose in this post is to help promote a little more tolerance among Christians when a church comes along and says, “We’re going to try something different.” Since what we consider to be the “traditional” way of “doing church” is as different from the churches of the New Testament as apples are from oranges, who are we to say, “Oh, that’s wrong, you can’t do that”? C’mon, we’re already so far off the New Testament blueprint that Peter and Paul would hardly recognize us. Therefore, surely we can use a lot less of the attitude, “Our way is the only way.”

Actually, the more I study the church, the more I realize that it is akin to a living, breathing thing, and as such is constantly growing and evolving. That’s why the Lord doesn’t want congregations who are trapped in the year 100, 1600, 1900, or 2000. Instead, He wants us out there on the cutting edge of society, relating to people where they are, and keeping up with the times. Think about it, isn’t that exactly how Jesus ministered to the people of His day?

So, even though there is certainly a basic, Bible-based template for what constitutes a local church and how that church should function and be led, there is a lot of God-allowed play in the particulars of how a specific congregation goes about its mission. And just because a church operates differently from your personal preferences or your tradition, don’t automatically assume that the church is in the wrong and you are in the right. Each church is unique because each of the individuals who make up each church is unique, and once we all realize that, maybe we’ll stop trying to mass produce “cookie cutter” congregations.