House Church Elders

    As I continue to interact with the remnants of the house church movement in New England, at least as i knew it in the time frame from 2000-2013, one major reason for its demise is becoming more apparent. At the peak God gave me the opportunity to visit and attempt to encourage about twenty different groups in this region besides those that i was personally involved in. In addition during a year of travel thru the US I visited about two dozen other home based groups. Many of these attempted to follow the apostolic practice found in the pages of the New Testament, but as a friend said to me recently, we did not follow all of their practice.
     One key difference was in plurality of eldership. The word "elder" is the term most commonly used for the local church leaders in the NT although interchangeable words like overseer are sometimes employed. ( Acts 20:17,28) If one does a study you will find that this word, when it is in reference to church elders as opposed to elders of the Jews or the 24 elders in the book of Revelation, is always in the plural except in 1 Peter 5:1 and 2 John 1 and 3 John 1 where Peter and John are referring to themselves as individual persons. For example Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in every church ( Acts 14:23); Philippians 1:1 speaks of overseers, and Titus is told to appoint elders in every town. ( Titus 1:5) The NT pattern of plurality of local church leadership is very clear.
    The qualifications of these men is also very clear, both in detailed characteristics found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and in supplementary information found in Acts 20:17-38, 1 Peter 5, and 1 Timothy 5:17-20. In summary elders are to be spiritually mature men, humble, able to teach the Word of God, of godly character and having shown in their own families the fruit that would lead to their recognition by the church.
     As I think back over all the groups that I have known none had even three biblically qualified elders. For groups who did not want to follow a pastor led model, this was devastating. Almost all of those who did try to lead were working full time, married with families. The groups with one leader usually had someone who was very controlling or ultimately overwhelmed by all the responsibility. Those with two almost inevitably had clashes which could not be resolved, something a third elder might have mediated.
     For those who might currently be house churching or contemplating this, the failure rate is so high that I would dissuade you unless you have at least three genuinely Biblically elders to carry the load.