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    House Church Essentials
    House Church Essentials
    House Church Essentials
    Ebook113 pages2 hours

    House Church Essentials

    By John C. Fenn

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    About this ebook

    House Church Essentials gives scriptural/practical help for house church startups and existing house churches. Areas covered in this book include the scriptural basis for church in the home, the names of the hosts in the New Testament, what to do about someone who dominates discussions, finances, how house churches grow, leaders and hosts, working through differences, multiplying out and more.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn C. Fenn
    Release dateJan 7, 2016
    ISBN9781310216640
    House Church Essentials
    Author

    John C. Fenn

    John and Barbara Fenn were born in Kokomo, Indiana and grew up just a few miles from each other. They attended the same kindergarten, went to many of the same neighborhood birthday parties growing up, and had mutual friends. Barb even attended John's confirmation in the Episcopal Church when they were twelve years old. They began dating as teenagers and were born again together and baptized with the Holy Spirit at age sixteen. Each attended Indiana University after graduating high school and were then married in 1978. In early 2002 John and Barb founded the Church Without Walls International of Tulsa (CWOWI), a house church network, emphasizing relationship-based Christianity. The seeds of CWOWI were planted in 1992 during a time of prayer. The Lord Jesus appeared to John in a visitation and shared some of what He would be doing in the future. Part of the Lord's plan was an exodus from many of the "para-church" organizations that were raised up after the Charismatic renewal of the 1960s and 70s. This would produce a movement of more "para-church" organizations, home prayer meetings, and also home-based churches. On November 4, 2001, during an evening church meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, Jesus appeared again to John. As both John and the host pastor fell to their knees, Jesus laid hands on John and told him to start a home church network "based on my Word and the things you've learned through the people I've brought across your path this year." The Lord said He wanted it to be called The Church Without Walls International. The next month, CWOWI began meeting in the Fenn home, and is growing and gaining affiliate house churches as relationships develop. Known for teaching with anointing and by revelation and flowing with the gifts of the spirit, his heart's desire is to make known the ways of the Father God. Church Without Walls International (CWOWI) is dedicated to making disciples of Jesus Christ through the establishment of a network of related house churches around the world.

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    • 3/5
      While probably a good skim-through book, I don't think that the content is useful as maybe the title implies for it to be. The majority of this book is a composition of experiences and stories around the author's experiences with house churches, which is fine in some context, but I was looking more for a step-by-step guide to how house churches function. I feel like too much space is used to justify house churches at all.

    Book preview

    House Church Essentials - John C. Fenn

    House Church Essentials

    Copyright 2016 John C. Fenn

    Published by Docs2eBooks at Smashwords

    Cover Design by Melanie Smith

    Unless indicated, quoted Scripture is taken from The King James Version.

    Because of the dynamic nature of the internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and have become invalid.

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Table of Contents

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    About John Fenn

    Other Books by John Fenn

    Connect with John Fenn

    Chapter 1

    Is House Church Scriptural?

    People often ask: Is house church scriptural? Is it the legal thing to do? The traditional church, the auditorium-style church, is all we know. Yes, house church is scriptural. The first house church in scripture was Adam and Eve in the Garden: for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst. And certainly Adam and Eve were together there with the Lord in the Garden. It was the home that He built for them and planted for them.

    It is the relationships, home and family within the church that is the point, not the building or the house; it is, rather, the quality of life. The home and the family unit was designed by the Lord as the place where the essential truths about God were to be learned. He did not establish a building to be called the church.

    In Genesis 18:17–19, before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, the Lord and two angels had dinner with Abraham. As the angels went on toward Sodom and Gomorrah to rescue Lot, the Lord paused and said in Genesis 18:17, shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I am about to do? Seeing that Abraham will become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him. For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him and they will keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment so that the Lord can bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken.

    He said I know that Abraham will train up his household in my ways. So the Lord revealed His plans based on the quality of life in Abraham’s family. That is an important thing. And, of course, you can go all the way through the Old Testament and read about the commands of the Lord, and how we are to talk about the things of the Lord to our children as you rise up and as you lie down and as you go about your business. That goes without saying.

    I think it also goes without saying that most of Jesus’ miracles were done in homes. From His very first one at the wedding reception in Cana, and all the way through to where the resurrected Lord appeared in a locked room in someone’s home; and you could go on to the Day of Pentecost where it says that the Holy Spirit filled the house where they were sitting. That is Acts 2:2 where it says the sound of a rushing mighty wind and it filled the house where they were sitting.

    To say that the home is a central place for learning about God is beyond argument. It was established by God himself and is carried on throughout Genesis and all the way through Pentecost. So the questions then are:

    Question One —Are there essential, eternal truths that were started in Genesis and up to the Day of Pentecost that were laid aside to go into an auditorium style church?

    Question Two —Are these eternal truths starting with Adam and Eve in the Garden carried through the rest of the Bible?

    Question Three —Can we find evidence that the home was a continuation?

    Question Four —Or, did the house-based church have its place in history and the Lord moved the body of Christ into an auditorium style never to see the house church again?

    An Answer for Your Faith

    The purpose for addressing these questions is to give you an answer for your faith. When people ask you why you meet in a house church, and is it scriptural, I want you, the reader, to be able to relate the truth about house church.

    One way to answer these questions is to walk through the Book of Acts and the New Testament and share with people the house churches that are mentioned there. We are not taught this in our regular churches. We are not taught that Matthew through Revelation—the whole of the New Testament—was written to people sitting in living rooms. This escapes us. We have a mental picture of them sitting in an auditorium and the New Testament letters being read by some pastor in a pulpit somewhere. But, the auditorium style church we have today did not come to pass until the middle to late 300s after Christianity was legalized by Constantine!

    We can walk through the New Testament and see that not only for the thirty or forty years covered in the Book of Acts, but for a total of some 300 years, people met in homes and turned the Roman Empire upside down. Today, in China, Christians meet primarily in house churches; as do Indonesia and India. All over the world there are house churches. People are returning to their roots. And it is more than just persecution like in China or Muslim countries. The fact is that people are returning to the Garden of Eden, to Abraham’s family life, to what the Lord told Moses: talk about the things of God when you rise up and when you lie down.

    It is about community and co-workers, family and friends all meeting together in the things of the Lord; and realizing that you don’t have to go to an auditorium called the church. Because in Paul’s day when they said, where is the church, they would point to a group of people. That is what we need to see. So, I am going to walk through a few of them here just in the Book of Acts and some of Paul’s writings so we can see that all these letters were written to people; and some of these people we know by name.

    Now, allow me this time here to lay the spiritual foundation before we get into the practical areas of how to start a house church and what to do about children, or what to do with someone who dominates, etc. These are some essential truths that are important.

    Lydia, Seller of Purple

    In Philippians, we have the letter of Philippians and the famous scripture I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13), and Philippians 4:19, my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. In Philippians 2, we have the name of Jesus is higher than any other name. It is Paul’s warmest and most loving letter. It was written to a lady named Lydia and her household and the church that met there.

    The founding of the church at Philippi is found in Acts 16:14–15 where Paul had gone to the river to talk to people because they often prayed there by the river. And it says:

    A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city Thyatira originally, who worshiped God heard us whose heart the Lord opened. And she listened to the things that were spoken by Paul. So, when she was baptized and her whole household, she besought us and said if you judge me faithful come to my house and stay with me. And she constrained us.

    And so they did. And, of course, later you know the trouble Paul and Silas had when they were imprisoned and at midnight they

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