Dilemma of Growth

     One of the best blessings of gathering in homes is the opportunity to welcome people into that part of God's family. Because numbers are limited and celebrating the Lord's Supper as a full meal allows for longer times together, one can make deep relationships. People feel less inhibited in participating in that environment, and the need for structure and organization is minimal. Those who wish to disciple others in the faith are not tied up in endless meetings. House churches don't have the expense of buildings and professional staff so financial resources can go to the New Testament priorities of ministering to the poor and aiding itinerant ministers. And one can follow the apostolic patterns found in Acts & the Epistles.
     But what happens when we grow out of the apartments or homes that are gathering in? People wish to preserve the relationships that have grown out of the house church environment so they look for a facility to rent. Now we begin to lose what God has used to bring us to that point. We have ongoing expenses- making a landlord's mortgage rather than giving to the poor or itinerants. With more people we lose the intimacy of the house and begin to require more structure and organization. Only a few can share publicly.
     Unfortunately the pages of the New Testament do not instruct us in what to do when groups grow out of the homes. We only know from history that the early church did not move into larger buildings until the 4th century. This implies that the existing home groups must have multiplied into other homes. Hardly any American home groups with whom I am familiar have done this in a healthy way. Most have never grown to a size where they had to think about it. However, most regular churches started in someone's living room.
    Are we willing to experiment with multiplication, which is admittedly harder, for the sake of welcoming in people as we were once welcomed, or is the larger building model inevitable? As I am learning the hard way, if one believes that God would be pleased by multiplication, then that must be placed into the spiritual DNA of a group from Day One, and reinforced at regular intervals. Otherwise the inevitable will occur.