Early Christians found new family — by staying at home

House churches in earliest Christianity played an important role, writes Paul Trebilco.

The much-loved theme song from the  television show Cheers ends, "You wanna go where everybody knows your name". The early church was just like that. It was  about 200 years after the time of Jesus that Christians first owned special buildings where they held services. Before this time, the early Christians met in each other’s homes for teaching, for worship and for all facets of their life together. Understandably, these groups are generally referred to as "house churches".

House churches were quite small household-based groups. The nucleus of the group would often have been the particular family in whose home they were meeting. Other families would join, along with those who might have been the only Christians in their family.

The size and structure of house churches had a considerable impact on church life. The average number of people that could be accommodated in a wealthy person’s house was probably 30 to 40. But probably there were few early Christians who were wealthy enough to own such large houses, and so some house churches would be much smaller — perhaps having 10 to 20 members.

The house church would have met together over a meal, and "the Lord’s Supper" that was at the heart of their worship would have been part of that meal. They would have recalled the way Jesus took bread and said  it was his body given for them, and then a cup of wine and said  this was his blood poured out for them. Then they would have shared in bread and wine together. Leadership of the house church was often provided by the people in whose home the group met. Hence, often husband and wife would together lead the church. But many of the members would contribute — a song or psalm or a word of encouragement or teaching. There were probably no passengers in the group.

There was no back row — everyone was sitting around the table. If you weren’t there you would be missed, and someone would find out if you were all right. What difference did it make to early Christian life that their meeting was in someone’s home, and involved sharing food together? Given  they were meeting in a family home, we can understand that the early Christians regarded themselves as a new family. They weren’t all biologically related to each other — in fact there would be "Jew and Greek" together.

Jesus talks about his followers leaving "house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields" to follow him, but then receiving "a hundredfold now in this age — houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecution, and in the age to come eternal life" (Mark 10:29-30). They left their biological families, but received a new — and much larger — family.

Notice that they don’t receive new "fathers" in this new family. They leave their father, but Jesus does not say  they will receive  100 "fathers" in this new community. They all become "brothers and sisters, mothers and children". So the new family was to be one that was no longer ruled by the patriarchal head of the house, but rather men were to become brothers to sisters. This was a whole new way of thinking about a family, in which "the first will be last and the last will be first" (Mark 10:31). This fits with Jesus’ radical practice of teaching women, debating theology with women and of having women followers.

So when people joined a house church, they weren’t joining an institution or an organisation but rather were joining a family meeting in a home. They would share food together, and life as well. Sitting around the one table, or sitting in a circle sharing one bread and one cup was symbolic of their shared life. They all had a place at the table, where slave sat beside master.

This pointed to the fact  they were all one in Christ. Here was a place where people could belong, and where deep and personal relationships could be formed — with God and with one another.

It was probably this strong sense of belonging that was one of the key factors in the growth of the early Christian movement.

We all need a place to belong, a place where everyone knows our name. Being this sort of community is an  ongoing challenge to the church.

But this is also a challenge to our society. We’re all part of systems where we’ve become numbers, or usernames with (forgotten) passwords. But we all need to be part of groups where we’re much more than that, too. The Church at its best provides this type of community.

- Paul Trebilco is professor of New Testament studies in the department of theology and religion, University of Otago.