In this episode of How We Do House Church, Dr. Jason Barker and Dr. Dale Partridge discuss the difference between a biblical house church and a traditional church, and why a house church is a church that meets in a house.
00:07:37.560and to stay in alignment with historical,
00:07:41.600confessional, biblical Christianity. Right. And so, like I said, there's kind of those
00:07:46.860two things to contrast it with. And you mentioned the second one, the first being kind of that rogue
00:07:51.260house church, right, led by who knows what doing who knows what. The second one you already
00:07:56.380mentioned is a Bible study. Now, one of the traditional churches' pretty good solutions0.99
00:08:01.500to trying to fix that intimacy and loneliness problem has been Sunday school or small groups
00:08:06.580or life groups or community groups, whatever name they happen to go by at the church.
00:08:11.600Um, this, what we're talking about is different than a Bible study, but why and how?
00:08:17.840Yeah. So this is not a small group either. Um, imagine someone trying to exercise church
00:08:23.640discipline at a small group. You're like, wait, are you, are you an elder? Um, and, uh, or just,
00:08:31.720you know, maybe doing communion or having a baptism or some of these things that are
00:08:37.520traditionally, and I would say theologically connected to the church, trying to do those
00:08:42.640things at a Bible study. A Bible study is a Bible study. And my, just a quick kind of sidetrack on
00:08:50.460that is that we don't generally see Bible studies or small groups anywhere in church history.
00:08:58.780The only time we would see a Bible study is that a pastor, an elder at the church was leading them
00:09:03.600in like the Puritan era. Matthew Henry would lead a Bible study for his church throughout the midweek
00:09:09.280to young adults and to older adults, for example. But we don't see Christians getting together with
00:09:17.600their Bibles without the oversight of elders in their life to do Bible studies or small groups.
00:09:22.820This is a very new concept. I'm talking 1900 and something years goes by. We've never done this.
00:09:29.060And now, I think it's actually a big part of the problem of the church today. If you search on YouTube how to start a Bible study, it's the top videos are 21-year-old girls teaching you how to do the Bible study.0.97
00:09:43.440And so it becomes this disconnected opportunity for the church to gather and learn doctrine without the oversight of biblical elders.
00:09:53.100And so these Bible studies become these really rich environments for people.
00:09:59.260People actually, if you go to the average Christian, you say, where do you feel like you've grown most and feel most connected?
00:10:04.780It's going to be in their small group Bible study.
00:10:07.940They're going to say their small group.
00:10:08.740So they're getting the half of the element of the house church where they're getting that closeness and the connectedness, but they're typically lacking that doctrinal, biblical, authoritative church oversight on those small groups.
00:10:24.140So yes, the small group has been essentially the traditional models, the traditional church's way to compensate for the inadequacy of the connectedness in the traditional model.
00:10:34.740And so, you know, we can't get connected on Sunday.
00:10:38.200So get connected with your small group.
00:10:39.940Where in a house church, you don't need a small group.
00:11:18.220We have a liturgical order of worship that we follow that is rooted in Scripture.
00:11:24.080And I mean, we print it out and hand it to you when you're at the door.
00:11:27.100I mean, so it's traditional church, but it's just in a house.
00:11:30.900But the environment itself creates an opportunity to fulfill some of those longing desires and inconsistencies that people are feeling between what they read and what they experience.
00:11:42.360Right. And so really the biblical house church then is an attempt or a way, a method of trying to have the best of both worlds.
00:11:49.960still being very much rooted in the history of the church and historical doctrines of the church
00:11:55.140and practice of the church, but also working to capitalize on that smaller dynamic that has been
00:12:02.540present throughout most of the church's history. And one of the things, I think the things that is
00:12:07.600key to keeping these biblical house churches on track is the Reformation Fellowship Network,
00:12:15.040but we don't have time to talk about it. Yeah, we're going to have to talk about that on the
00:12:19.040next episode or later down the line. Absolutely. So I'm excited to get into that dynamic because
00:12:24.140that network is really one of the keys because it's one of the things that keeps the churches
00:12:28.920connected, keeps them accountable, and really answers a lot of the questions that people have
00:12:33.160about how do we keep house churches walking on the straight and narrow. But we will get to that
00:12:37.540in a future episode. So all of that said, thanks so much for joining us again for this episode of
00:12:43.000How We Do House Church. We are so excited and blessed to be bringing this to you on a regular
00:12:47.000basis. Dale, thank you again for your time today. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So
00:12:51.400that's a wrap on this one. If you would like more information on how to start a house church in your
00:12:56.900area, you can head to reformationseminary.com for more information or pick up a copy of Dale's book,
00:13:02.540How We Do House Church. Just as a reminder, these episodes are available in both podcast
00:13:08.720and video format across all platforms. So keep checking us out and we'll talk to you next time.