When approaching the concept of simple/organic church, many people ask, “What do your meetings look like?” If you look outside, you’ll notice that not every plant responds to wind the same way. Not all flowers look alike. Similarly, when you approach something that is organic, the expression will not always look the same.

When I was a kid, I used to enter contests in events at family reunions, 4Th of July celebrations, summer community youth programs, Girl Scout camps and the like. There were two contests that I usually had a chance at winning; one was the water balloon/egg toss, and the other was the three-legged race.

Years of sitting in traditional church has not prepared us to do church in the manner described in the New Testament. We have been taught to come. To sit. To watch and listen to what others have prepared. Someone described it as “sit, soak and sour.”

How do you know if you’ve been to church? Is it when you go to a meeting in a building with a pointy top? When a preacher gives a sermon? When there is a choir/worship team that sings? When you get dressed up in your Sunday clothes? When there is a bulletin and an order of service?

Roger Gehring in “House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity” demonstrates that the concept of household (oikos in Greek) is a critical and significantly under-appreciated element in understanding the meaning of “church” in the First Century.