Now, somewhat soberingly, there are plenty of surveys around at the moment which indicate that, largely speaking, churches that refuse to adapt are seeing their numbers decline at an alarming rate. Terry sets the scene in his latest book by referring to the startling statistic that “more than 1,000 churches could be shut down in the next decade” (‘Does the future have a church?’, p.9). Peter Brierley, paints a similarly bleak picture of the decline in Sunday church attendance between 1989 - 1998 (‘Church Next’, p.22). Even among non-institutional churches, average Sunday attendance has dropped by 15% over this period. He concludes that “We urgently need to focus on thinking future and plan to manage strategic change. If we do not change, we will not be here to change in twenty years’ time!”
 
However, I hasten to add, rather than being an occasion for gloom and pessimism, the situation we now find ourselves in is surely packed with potential. You see, if you think about it, the current pluralistic environment in which we live resembles the conditions in which the early church, small and marginalised as it was, grew and expanded with such dramatic potency back in the first century. Now, more than ever, we need to revisit the early church and glean from them lessons and principles that will stand us in good stead in our own current climate of volatility and change. If you like, we need to explore how we can adapt without losing biblical vision. We need to agree together which New Testament accounts of life in the early church are prescriptive and which are merely descriptive. Or, to put it another way, we need to define what’s the baby and what’s the bathwater - what we must cling onto and what we can change. 
 
Now, in many respects, Wolfgang Simson has got the ball rolling for us in so much as he sets out to do this very thing in his book, ‘Houses that Change the World’. With his strong view of the centrality of the church, his emphasis on apostolic ministry and his commitment to mission, it’s perhaps no surprise that this book, is being read and greeted with enthusiasm by an increasingly large number of people across our churches.  However, unfortunately, it appears that up until now, those who have embraced and actively pursued the conclusions of this book have ended up leaving our ranks. As such, this is potentially a very big issue for us and one that needs to be addressed with quite some urgency.
 
Now, obviously, to do this effectively, we need to return to Scripture and seek to interpret it without what Simson describes as “the spectacles of our own familiar tradition, our way of belief and practice” (op cit:p.10). While the natural temptation is to merely search for proof texts which underline what we already ‘know’, before then reading our assumptions and experiences into these passages, we must at least be willing to allow the Bible to contradict our previously held views. In order for this paper to be successful then, it will by necessity re-examine and quite possibly challenge some of the opinions and practices that, up until now, we have held dear.
 
With all of this in mind, I propose to begin by providing a summary of Simson’s position, explaining both his diagnosis of the problem in the church today and his solution. Having outlined his main arguments, I then wish to present a response to his core assumptions with close reference to the teaching of the New Testament. My aim will be to tackle a number of questions arising from the book, which may strike us as being slightly contentious. Above all, I set out to ascertain the extent to which Simson’s description of life in the early church is accurate. Among other things, I will touch on issues of size, venue, leadership, teaching and worship. Now, as we seek to piece together an accurate picture of the early church as portrayed in the pages of the New Testament, I’d suggest we must keep two questions uppermost in our minds: -
 
i) To what extent was the make-up of the early church a response to the world in
which they lived at the time - i.e. Is what we see prescriptive, or simply
descriptive?
 
ii) If perhaps not ‘the’ model for church, is Simson’s model nonetheless ‘a’ valid
one for us to follow? Finally, I will endeavour to outline some of the challenges which Simson’s book present to us as a family of churches.
 
1) A summary of Wolfgang Simson’s position. My assumption is that everyone will have read ‘Houses that Change the World’ and therefore a lengthy treatment of Simson’s arguments isn’t necessary. However, let me at least outline some of the main points.
 
a) The problem. In his introduction, Simson speaks of his passion to see us fulfilling Jesus’ commission to go and make disciples of all nations. He goes on to describe his conviction that this will only ever be achieved by having a church within walking distance of every person on the globe. He writes, “The church - the secret and powerful society of the redeemed - must again become the place where people can literally see the body of Christ, where His glory is revealed in the most practical terms, hands on, down to earth, right next door, unable to be overlooked or ignored, living amongst us every day” (op cit:p.xxvii). However, sadly, rather than observing the gospel going to the ends of the earth, disciples being made and churches being multiplied, Simson recognises the fact that the church is largely in decline. Now, in attempting to explain this trend, he pinpoints a number of reasons:
 
i) Lack of apostolic / prophetic foundations. Throughout his book, Simson refers to the absolute necessity of building churches on apostolic and prophetic foundations. He devotes a whole chapter to the important roles of each of the fivefold ministries described in Ephesians 4:11-13, underlining the fact that “this is standard biblical teaching and practice, and by no means only a speciality of particular denominations or of house church Christianity” (op cit:p.110). Simson’s view is that where these ministries are either missing or simply not working together, the church will end up neither healthy nor effective.
 
ii) Structure. Simson argues that the Reformation did not go far enough. He refers to the fact that Luther reformed the content of the gospel, but did not change the basic structure of the ‘worship service’. He claims that, “This reformed-Roman-Catholic-Jewish meeting pattern was baptized by Baptists, anointed by Pentecostals, misused by cults, renewed by Charismatic Christians, put into uniform by the Salvation Army, dry-cleaned by the Quakers - but was never radically changed. The ‘services’ were still essentially performances, audience-oriented masses, usually formal and liturgical religious events, where many spectators and consumers observe a few very involved religious specialists performing for them and with them” (op cit:p.7). His conclusion is that reformation and renewal aren’t sufficient, but that a revolution is what’s called for. Rather than tinkering with an outdated pattern, he suggests starting afresh and building according to the blueprint found in the New Testament, where in no time at all, “a house-church movement swept through the city of Jerusalem like yeast in dough, or like an unstoppable virus” (op cit:p.14). He criticises the Restoration or House Church Movement for falling back into the same congregational church structures and worship patterns that they departed from. He believes, “they renewed the qualitative aspects of the church without touching the structure, and poured new wine into a new set of old wineskins. Even the planting of many new churches did not change much, because it was ultimately still old structures which were planted anew” (op cit:p.73).
 
iii) Size. Rather than seeking to grow large churches, Simson calls for an emphasis on multiplying numerous smaller churches. He argues from creation that nothing healthy grows endlessly, but at some point stops growing and starts multiplying. He also argues from family life, where research has apparently shown that twenty is the maximum number that enables everybody to still feel ‘family’, organic and informal, without the need to get formal and organised. Where churches grow beyond twenty people, Simson believes they lose their organic lifeblood and end up “heavy and inflexible, structurally bloated and deformed, only kept going and inching forward by the relentless activities of a busy pastor or leader with his co-workers” (op cit:p.20). Part of the problem with many churches today then is that they are just too large.
 
iv) Quantity at the expense of quality. “Quickly, quickly - act now, think later! - is a word straight from hell,” according to Francis Schaeffer. Simson claims however that we often greet this message as a revelation from heaven. He points to the obsession with quantity that governs many churches today that tempts us to use means, methods, plans, techniques and projects to attain only our numerical goals. He concludes, “Usually, quality is the silent victim of this action-driven and success-oriented process” (op cit:p.221).
 
v) Leadership. Simson likens the church today to Israel in the time of Saul when God’s people wanted a leader so as to be like all the other nations in the world. He concludes that human leaders aren’t God’s preferred option and can be very damaging. He states, “Leadership in the political sense of assuming the last responsibility, filling a ministry slot and function within a job description within a programme, or taking on some delegated authority from someone else, is simply not good enough for the church. That will choke its development as Saul choked Israel” (op cit:p.146). He refers to the leader-intensive Cell church model which breeds professionalism, clericalism, bureaucracy and centralisation. He contrasts this with house-churches which aren’t led, but are fathered.
 
vi) Our thinking. Simson denounces the compromise-ridden churches which are full of individuals all living by double standards. His point is that most believers spend the majority of their time in the world where they imbibe the world’s values and lifestyle. He contends that merely spending three or four hours together with other Christians “is not enough time to effectively transfer life and Kingdom values, to develop deep relationships, to make disciples and to lay down our lives for each other” (op cit:p.197). Simson believes that the key problem of churches today is an unwillingness to stand against the unquestioned assumptions of an individualistic society and embrace involvement in everyday community with other believers.
 
b) The solution. Simson succinctly outlines his manifesto in the introduction to his book. His threefold conviction is: “that without a return to the New Testament simplicity of house-churches, the empowering fivefold ministry to spawn a flood of quality house-churches, and the strategic process of saturation church-planting as a united effort of the body of Christ, we will continue to fall short of being obedient to the Great Commission” (op cit:p.xxviii). It perhaps makes sense then to summarise his solution using these three main convictions as headings.
 
i) A return to the New Testament simplicity of house churches. Without wishing to be too prescriptive, Simson describes the basic skeleton of house churches as follows:
 
‘Meating’
Simson speaks of the house church as “a table community, sharing real food” (op cit:p.82). With reference to Jesus’ practice of teaching people over a meal, most notably the Last Supper, and that of the early church, who “ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts2:46) and came together “in order to eat” ( Corinthians 11:33), Simson concludes that “eating is central to the extension of the Kingdom” (op cit:p.82). As such, house churches meet to eat! In other words there is a high emphasis on being relational.
 
Teaching each other how to obey
Simson argues that the Greek word dialogizomai, often translated in the New Testament as ‘preaching’, carries the sense of having a dialogue between people. So for example, when Paul “preached for a long time” in Ephesus (Acts 20:7), Simson claims that he wouldn’t have been conducting an endless monologue so much as a question and answer session. As such, the teaching style adopted in the house church “can be a very short talk - not a sermon! - an illustration, parables and stories, usually accompanied and punctuated by ‘nods and grunts of approval’, or healthily interrupted by questions and requests for more tea or another sweet” (op cit:p.84). Simson’s belief is that teaching by discussion and example is both more biblical and effective than a public address.
 
Sharing material and spiritual blessings
Although it may sound like social romanticism or an idealised picture of a bygone era, Simson argues that we cannot simply ignore the God-given concept of sharing. Referring to passages like Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 4:32-35, as well as 1 Corinthians 14:26, Ephesians 5:19 and 2 Timothy 2:2, he concludes that whenever believers gather together, they must share what they have and what they are, whether it is spiritual or material.
 
Praying together
Simson claims that the house churches in the New Testament didn’t have a set agenda for their meetings, “the living Christ was the agenda”. He continues, “if a house church didn’t know what to do next, they could simply pray and prophesy, so that God might reveal what he wanted them to do next” (op cit:p.88). Simson also believes that house churches are the ideal setting to confess sins to each other and pray for forgiveness in line with Colossians 3:13 and James 5:16.
 
ii)The empowering fivefold ministry. According to Simson, the Ephesians 4:11 ministries transcend the individual house churches, spending their time circulating from house to house in an area or a region in order to nurture, equip and strengthen foundations. It would perhaps be helpful to summarise his understanding of each of their roles:
 
Apostle
“The apostolic ministry is a founding ministry: it can create something out of nothing. His core word is ‘strategy’, his heartbeat is missions: he wants to see God’s plans come true for nations” (op cit:p.115).
 
Prophet
“He hears from God and quite mercilessly questions everything from God’s perspective. Prophets often have the unique ability to see and hear what others don’t see or hear” (op cit:p.115).
 
Evangelist
“He introduces a healthy outward focus to the churches and empowers others to be evangelists, not in order to create evangelistic enterprises in themselves, but so that the house churches can become or remain an evangelistic movement” (op cit:p.116).
 
Pastor
“Nowhere in the New Testament do we find a pastor truly leading a congregation. He is by nature a very loving person who can create a family atmosphere ... the equivalent of a spiritual ‘uncle’, very caring and loving, but not ultimately responsible” (op cit:p.113, 115).

Teacher
“He has a passion for teaching itself, and his gift is to empower others to teach others how to teach. He leaves behind not primarily teaching notes but literally his spirit” (op cit:p.115). 
 
Simson stresses the need for each of these ministries to work together so as to avoid the errors which can creep in through a bias towards just one of them. Together they empower and counsel the individual elders of the house churches. These elders lead in the loosest possible sense; Simson prefers to talk in terms of ‘fathering’ and ‘mothering’ (c.f. p.94, 122).
 
 
ii)Saturation church-planting.
Simson contends that “for each human being to ‘see and understand’ the gospel of the Kingdom, expressed through the local body of Christ, there needs to be a vibrant fellowship - a shop window for God - within walking distance of every person in each nation” (op cit:p.288). He refers to Christian Schwarz’s research into church growth and uses his statistical analysis to argue that “the smaller the church, the larger its growth potential” (op cit:p.248). His point is that the growing congregational model usually grows by addition, whereas house churches usually grow by multiplication. As such, “one system will result in linear growth, the other in exponential growth” (op cit:p.249). He concludes, “the signs are very clear that the growth potential continues to increase as the church size continues to go down, and it seems to reach a maximum potential at the size of 15-20 people per church” (op cit:p.249).
 
Simson believes that adhering to this threefold strategy will inevitably result in a whole host of benefits. Here’s his summary of the most important practical consequences of a house church:
 
We would stop doing church, and start being church.
Church would again touch all of life, and be ‘holistic’.
The end of money problems.
The end of the leader problem.
The end of the building problem.
A new quality of conversions.
An end to door to door evangelism!
Missions would be redefined.
More action, less acting.
Combining local and regional dynamics.
Better equipped to reach Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.
More effective in socialist and communist cultures.
The excitement level would rise For a more detailed discussion of each of these points, see pages 197-205.
 
2) Response.
Simson specifically states that he isn’t setting out to provide an extensive exegetical study of house churches in the Bible. As such, all he provides is a short biblical overview which is effectively merely a list of every reference to houses to be found in the New Testament (see pages 91-94). Elsewhere, he tends to make broad sweeping statements, substantiated by phrases such as, ‘scholars agree’, ‘more and more people are now thinking this way’ and ‘the Bible clearly teaches’, without in any way backing up his claims with objective evidence. Therefore, a lot of his arguments are based on some pretty big assumptions. Rather than tackling every sweeping generalisation and quirky statement, I merely intend to respond to what would appear to be his most important assumptions.
 
i) The centrality of houses.
Simson points out that “from the time of the New Testament there has been no such thing as ‘a house of God’. At the cost of his life, Stephen reminded us: God does not live in temples made by human hands” (op cit:p.xvi). The conclusion he draws from this is that “the church, therefore, was and is at home where people are at home: in ordinary houses” (op cit:p.xvii). One of his major problems with the restoration movement, then, is that having escaped from more traditional places of worship, they had no problem with meeting in schools, community centres, town halls, or even disused church buildings as they outgrew gathering in their homes (c.f. p.72). His criticism is that “houses, as a meeting place, were considered a matter of very little relevance” (op cit:p.73). To Simson, the house is sacrosanct! However, surely the point which Stephen and the writers of the New Testament were making is that where believers meet is a complete and utter irrelevance - wherever they meet, God is present by his Holy Spirit. By contrast, it seems that having strongly argued against the concept of a ‘house of God’, Simson has recreated the very same thing, albeit in a literal house!
 
Now, there can be no question that the early church often did meet in homes. That the house served as an important base for the formation of the early church is clearly indicated by references to communities gathering in individual houses in passages such as Romans 16:5, 1 Corinthians 16:19 and Philemon 2. However, this was surely by necessity in so much as they were pushed out of the synagogues and were increasingly viewed with suspicion and hostility by the ruling parties. In a culture where the practice of domestic religion played a fundamental role, meeting in homes would have seemed a natural solution.
 
M.Y. MacDonald points out that “a common tendency in NT interpretation is to describe social realities as being the direct result of the application of ideas” (The Pauline Churches:-A socio-historical study of institutionalization in the Pauline and deutero-Pauline writings, p.53). I would suggest that Simson has fallen into this trap when it comes to his treatment of the importance of the house in the New Testament. The fact that the early church met in houses is surely only descriptive, rather than prescriptive; it was a necessity rather than a binding doctrinal law. What’s more, just by way of an aside, Simson appears to conveniently ignore the fact that Paul was comfortable ministering not only in houses, but also in synagogues, in the open air and even in large halls such as the Hall of Tyrannus.
 
ii)The size of houses and households.
Commenting on the size of the early house churches, Simson claims that “church historians agree that they could have rarely been more than 15-20 people” (op cit:p.40). Throughout his book, the assumption appears to be that because the early church met in houses, they must by necessity have been small in size. As such, Simson concludes that twenty really is the maximum size for a house church. However, this would appear to contradict the findings of certain church historians! In his article on ‘Family and Household’, in the ‘Dictionary of New Testament Background’, C.S. Keener states that “the ancient household included spouse and children, but also other dependents who lived in the household” (op cit:p.366). These would have included grandchildren, servants, slaves, and even ‘clients’ who voluntarily joined themselves to a household for the sake of mutual benefits (c.f. New Bible Dictionary, p.372). As such, their houses tended to be overcrowded - sometimes as many as twenty-five would occupy a one room house in a poorer area of town (c.f. Roman Social Relations, p.13-14). Moreover, in a moderately well-to-do household the capacity would have been even larger. According to Robert Banks, the entertaining room in such a property could have held thirty people comfortably and half as many again in an emergency. He concludes, “a meeting of the ‘whole church’ may have reached forty to forty-five people - if the meeting spilled over into the atrium then the number could have been greater, though no more than double that size” (Paul’s Idea of Community, p.35). 
 
The houses of the wealthy were significantly larger still and would have accommodated many more people. So, for example, when Jesus went to Capernaum, a crowd packed into the house where he was staying. He ate the last supper with his closest disciples in “a large upper room” and, on the Day of Pentecost, 120 of his followers “were all together in one place” - a house. What’s more, the church in Rome met in Priscilla and Aquila’s house, which, according to J.A. Thompson in the ‘Handbook of Life in Bible Times’, would have been similar to the large houses found by archaeologists in Jerusalem, some of which covered an area of 600 square metres! Indeed, rather intriguingly, MacDonald comments that “it is reasonable to conclude that Paul may have actively sought to convert the head of a family who was relatively well-to-do and who, most importantly, could provide a house large enough to act as a base for church meetings” (The Pauline Churches, p.58).
 
One is left wondering where Simson’s seemingly prescriptive 15-20 people came from. It is certainly hard to argue this figure from the pages of the New Testament and harder still when further background studies are considered. What we appear to see is a variety of church sizes depending largely on the size of the house in which they were gathering. Obviously this presented something of a limitation on the size that any given church could grow to - a fact that surely explains the reason why the average church size in the first century was smaller than many of our churches today.
 
iii)Leadership.
Simson states that “man assumes there must be leadership in anything he touches ... However, the church is an exception” (op cit:p.145). He goes on to claim that “no church in the New Testament is said to be ‘led’ by a pastor or any other leader” (op cit:p.147). In short, “leadership in the sense of ... assuming the last responsibility ... or taking on some delegated authority from someone else is simply not good enough for the church” (op cit:p.146).
 
Now, this apparent disapproval of ‘leadership’ is surely at odds with the picture of church government laid out in the New Testament. Quite apart from the fact that leadership is one of the spiritual gifts listed by Paul in Romans 12:8, the writer to the Hebrews specifically calls for believers to “obey your leaders and submit to their authority”. He continues, “They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you” (Hebrews 13:17). Similarly, Paul instructs the Thessalonians to “respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work” (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13). In short, we can conclude that God both anoints people for the task of leadership in the church and also gives them very real authority to carry out their mandate to lead. As such, words such as submit, obey and respect are rightly used to describe the correct attitude towards those God has set in place to lead the church.
 
Rather than speaking of leaders, Simson prefers to use the term ‘father’ (c.f. p.145148). He describes how in each house church, the head of the home, or the father, plays the role of an elder. Now, undoubtedly, some of the exhortations concerning the qualifications for church leadership demonstrate the close connection between one’s position in the household, one’s behaviour with respect to that position and eligibility for office. In the Pastoral letters, the house-related instructions concerning carrying responsibility in the church provide the strongest evidence for the claim that the household provided a model for the organisation of the church community. However, at the same time, these also surely indicate that merely being head of a household
isn’t a legitimate reason in and of itself to lead a house church - a point which Simson himself does in fact concede. As well as being an example of faithfulness to their wife and having the respect of his children, an elder must also be able to rule, lead, manage, teach and shepherd, while being hospitable, generous, self-controlled and generally above reproach (c.f. 1 Timothy 3:2; 5:17). Above all, there must be a sense of being called, anointed and appointed by God (c.f. Acts 20:28). It’s understandable then that Paul should urge Timothy not to be hasty in the laying on of hands to appoint new elders. The appointing of elders in the early church would certainly not appear to have been quite as straightforward as Simson suggests!
 
Perhaps one further point which needs to be made here is that Simson seems to condone having one elder, or ‘father’, overseeing each house church, whereas the New Testament always and everywhere describes elders functioning within a church in the plural.
 
Regarding Simson’s treatment of ‘The Fivefold Ministry’, I guess it has to be remembered that he wasn’t setting out to write an extensive exegetical study, but nonetheless his depiction of the roles of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is at best whimsical and at worst, downright absurd! I remain puzzled, for example, concerning the biblical basis for viewing a pastor as “the equivalent of a spiritual ‘uncle’, very caring and loving, but not ultimately responsible” (op cit:p.115). In direct opposition to this somewhat woolly portrayal is P. Beasley-Murray’s compelling presentation of Paul as being a pastor at heart. He describes Paul’s specific and genuinely touching care for individuals across a whole range of churches, alongside his pretty forceful admonitions and authoritative leadership (Dictionary of Paul and his Letters, p.654-658).
 
Unfortunately, a thorough treatment of the exact nature of each of the Ephesians 4:11 ministries is beyond the scope of this paper. However, we surely must avoid the danger that Simson has fallen into of assuming that patterns of leadership in the early church were far more clearly defined than in fact they actually were. It’s easy to forget two thousand years on that what we read about in the pages of the New Testament was very much a rapidly evolving new situation. Interestingly, MacDonald points to the fluidity of roles in the churches which Paul cared for and concludes that “There is every possibility that leadership developed in varying ways in different communities” (The Pauline Churches, p.59).
 
iv) What the early church did when they gathered together.
I guess we would have few problems with the skeleton description which Simson offers regarding what the early church did when they gathered together - they ate, devoted themselves to teaching, shared material and spiritual blessings and prayed. The slightly more problematic issue is Simson’s description of what didn’t happen!
 
a) No worship.
Simson claims that “worship is never mentioned in the New Testament as the reason Christians gather together, and certainly not consisting of singing a number of songs. Worship consists of an obedient and sacrificial lifestyle: this certainly does sometimes involve singing, but only because the whole of life is living worship” (op cit:p.46, c.f. p.210). So then, while he appears to make some provision for sharing spiritual blessings - which may include a psalm, a hymn or a spiritual song (c.f. p.87) - Simson doesn’t appear to advocate the church ‘gathering to worship’ in any formal sense. 
 
Now, while we would have to agree that worship has a lot to do with lifestyle (c.f. Romans 12:1), I’d suggest that to use this as an argument against regular corporate worship is over-stretching the point slightly. Although the New Testament generally speaks of teaching as being the primary reason for the church gathering, it has to be said that truth does lead to worship. Paul illustrates this wonderfully with his fantastic burst of praise at the end of Romans 11. Furthermore, there are at least a number of allusions to worship in the New Testament, whether it be the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs of Ephesians 5:18-19, or the significant gathering described in 1 Corinthians 11-14 which, interestingly wasn’t in a house if chapter 11:22 is anything to go by, but clearly involved singing. It also has to be noted that it is legitimate for us to draw on Old Testament Scriptures as well, whether it be the Psalms or passages which speak of the people of Israel praising God for his goodness at key points in their history.
 
Now, to come at this from another angle, Ralph Martin, in his helpful book, ‘Worship in the Early Church’, argues persuasively that the early church began its existence as a group within the framework of Judaism. He comments that “in the early days of the Church’s life, there seems to have been no desire to leave the parent religion - at least as far as the outward practice of the faith was concerned” (Worship in the Early Church, p.18). This viewpoint is certainly backed up by passages like Acts 24:5, where Tertullus describes Paul, whom he has been hired by the Jews to discredit, as “a ringleader of the Nazarene sect”. The same word, translated as ‘sect’  both here and in Acts 28:22 is the regular term for a party within Judaism. Thus, in Acts 5:17 we read of the “party of the Sadducees” and in Acts 15:5 of the “party of the Pharisees”.
 
There would have been nothing strange then about the early church congregating in a similar way as a party of like-minded Jews. Indeed, interestingly, the Mishnah law makes it possible for ten male Jews anywhere to form a synagogue without any suspicion of schisms being aroused. Martin suggests that this in fact is what happened with the early believers. He argues that the description of what the early church got up to, provided by passages such as Acts 2:42-47, suggests a continuation in the Temple services. He concludes, “as the church grew and enlarged its borders in the formation, under God, of Christian communities outside Jerusalem, it received into its fellowship those whose religious and cultural background was shaped by the synagogue. The earliest converts outside the holy city were evidently drawn from sections of Jewish life most influenced by the synagogue worship ... For these men and women who were familiar with the traditions of the Jewish faith and cultus in the synagogue ... there would have been no need to invent new forms of worship. Christianity entered into the inheritance of an already existing pattern of worship, provided by the Temple ritual and synagogue Liturgy” (op cit:p.19).
 
Along similar lines, T.W. Manson argues that “the first disciples were Jews by birth and upbringing, and it is a priori probable that they would bring into the new community some at least of the religious usages to which they had long been accustomed” (Christian Worship: Studies in its History and Meaning, p.35). This is in fact what we see in key verses such as 1 Corinthians 14:26, which fits well with the structure of synagogue worship, which consisted of three main elements - praise, prayer and instruction. Contrary to Simson’s assertion that the New Testament never indicates that the early church gathered together for the purpose of worshipping, this passage in 1 Corinthians at least implies that this was actually a central reason for their gathering!
 
b) No preaching.
Simson’s view is that all preaching is bad preaching. He states, “We will all agree that the church cannot be manufactured: there can be no man-made revival ... nor a manufactured church planting movement. We cannot even make ... a good sermon: we can only make a bad sermon, which is bad simply because we made it” (op.cit:p.104). Now, bearing in mind the size of his gatherings, it’s perhaps no surprise, that Simpson argues strongly for a more discussion based approach to teaching. Let’s face it, a group of fewer than twenty people does limit somewhat the style of preaching that can realistically be adopted. However, rather than arguing pragmatically, Simson attempts to claim biblical authority for his opinion. Admittedly, he correctly points out that an accurate interpretation of the Greek word ‘dialogizomai’ is more closely related to having a dialogue, or reasoning, than with conducting a monologue. However, he then argues that because this word is often translated as ‘preaching’ in the New Testament, preaching should always take the form of dialogue or an informal chat.
 
Now, quite apart from the fact that it’s a disputable point whether this word is really often interpreted as ‘preaching’ in the New Testament (the RSV, NIV, NASB, English Standard Version and the Good News Bible certainly don’t translate Acts 20:7, Simson’s proof text, in this way), Simson completely ignores the fact that there are plenty of other Greek words that cast light on what it means to preach. So, for example:

euangelizo - to announce good news (Acts 8:35.
kerusso - to herald or proclaim (2 Timothy 4:2).
didasko - to teach or give instruction (Romans 12:7).
dianoigo - to open up completely (Acts 17:3).
paratithemi - to place beside (Acts 17:3).
katangello - to celebrate or declare (Acts 17:3).
plerophoreo - to bring in full measure (2 Timothy 4:17).
diermeneuo - to expound or interpret (Luke 24:27).

ektithemi - to set out or expound (Acts 28:23).
There really can be no two ways about it, the biblical understanding of preaching is much broader than Simson allows. We too must avoid the danger of defining preaching too narrowly and missing out on some of the richness and diversity of what it truly means to preach. The challenge for us is surely to see to it that our preaching is consistently true to the pretty expansive and diverse definition of what it means to preach that we find in the New Testament. 
 
Now, again, it’s instructive to recognise that the practise of the early church would have been shaped by the way things were done in the synagogue. According to Martin, “the chief element in the worship practised in the synagogue was the reading and exposition of the Law” (Worship in the Early Church, p.66). He goes on to argue that this pattern would have been carried over into Christian assemblies. Jesus himself modeled this in Nazareth when he read from the Scriptures and then proceeded to interpret and apply to the hearers the passage which he had just read out (Luke 4:14-21). Similarly, Paul followed this example when he visited the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:14-49). Revealingly, Justin Martyr’s description of what happened when the Roman believers gathered together shows that this pattern was being followed by the early church in A.D. 150.  He recounts how “the memoirs of the Apostles and the writings of the Prophets are read as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has finished, the President speaks, admonishing and exhorting the people to follow noble teaching and examples” (Worship in the Early Church, p.69). 
 
Bearing all of this in mind, I’d suggest that the picture painted of preaching in the New Testament is not so much of casual lunch time discussions over whether dogs go to heaven or even the place of dogs in creation (c.f. Houses that Change the World, p.86), but of proclamation, heralding, declaration, exposition, interpretation, instruction and, yes, discourse, but only by those charged and compelled to preach (1 Corinthians 9:16, 2 Timothy 4:1-2). Indeed, in the light of the stricter judgement applied to those who teach, few should presume to do so (James 3:1).
 
c) No evangelism.
Simson argues that “because the church in itself was ‘good news’, there was no need for proclamation style evangelism or going door to door” (op cit:p.43). He refers to the lack of references in the New Testament to ‘evangelists’ (apart, of course, from Ephesians 4:11), ‘evangelism’ and direct preaching to the public masses and claims that we erroneously read evangelism back into the text. Now, without wishing to do this very thing, it surely cannot be disputed that the early church was birthed as a result of Peter’s public proclamation of the gospel! Furthermore, as we read through the rest of the book of Acts, we see numerous examples of the early believers seizing every opportunity to proclaim the good news to crowds of people. There was Peter in Solomon’s Colonnade (3:11ff), Peter and John before the Sanhedrin (4:1ff), Stephen’s speech to the Sanhedrin (7:1ff), the scattered Jerusalem believers who “preached the word wherever they went” (8:4), Philip’s proclamation to crowds of people in a city in Samaria (8:5ff) and of course his appointment with the Ethiopian later on in the same chapter. And so it goes on. You get the impression when reading the New Testament that the early church didn’t need to be told to evangelise because they were already making a pretty good job of it!
 
I’d suggest that Simson’s approach of sitting back and letting unbelievers come to you is flawed on two counts. First, as we’ve seen, it simply doesn’t fit with what we see unfolding in the book of Acts. Jesus instructed the disciples to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (1:8) and they were clearly incredibly proactive in doing so. What’s more, secondly, while Simson’s approach may be well-suited to some parts of the world, it is hard to imagine it working in our culture. Let’s face it, twenty people gathering in a house isn’t culturally attractive in and of itself. In fact, if anything, it’s more likely to put people off, whether it’s the cars taking all the parking spaces in the street, the noise generated, or simply the appearance of cranky community living. Furthermore, faced with the insularity of twenty first century Britain, we would surely be doomed to failure if we simply waited for the inhabitants of our towns and cities to search us out. The reality is that we have no option but to proactively reach out to people, who otherwise would never stand a chance of hearing the gospel.
 
Having said that, Acts 5:13-14 provides us with a glimpse of the awesome, yet winsome nature of the early church which perhaps Simson is driving at and we could do with learning from. Despite the fact that “no-one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people”, nonetheless, “more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number”. Perhaps there is a sense in which we rely on evangelistic extravaganzas because the quality of our church life isn’t sufficient to draw people in. Thwaites points to an all embracing quality of church life, not restricted to our Sunday morning service, but encompassing every sphere of life. His conviction is that this will heighten both the relevance and the attractiveness of the church, thus reducing our need to concentrate on evangelistic methods and programmes. He concludes, “the strain of marketing our meetings and selling our products will be gone because the saints themselves will become the main light and best attraction to a world in darkness” (The Church Beyond the Congregation, p.194). Maybe we need to look again at the relevance and quality of our church life and see to it that we are effectively building something which clearly demonstrates the manifold wisdom of God. 
 
Now, of course, a definite part of this demonstration must also be an abundance of signs and wonders. Without doubt, a key aspect of the early church’s evangelism was the presence of the supernatural power of God backing up both their lifestyle and their words. Reference to this is strangely lacking in Simson’s book. The challenge for us is that we don’t fall into the same trap and think of evangelism without any reference to miracles, signs and wonders. 
 
In concluding this section, it’s important to take note of B.W.R. Pearson when he warns that, “One danger faced by all who wish to view the NT historically is that gaps in our knowledge about the time of the NT - especially those gaps that are not perceived as such -will be filled in by our own modern understandings” (Dictionary of New Testament Background, p.300). Our problem is that we simply don’t know all the answers. MacDonald comments, “that the NT leaves us with many puzzles with respect to the organization of the community indicates the author’s purpose. The author doesn’t seem to be especially interested in setting out a blueprint as to how the community should be organized” (The Pauline Churches, p.219). Because the early church evolved so rapidly, it’s surely fair to assume that the patterns dictating how things should be done were only beginning to take shape. Nonetheless, we can state a number of points with some confidence:
 
i) The size of house churches in the New Testament differed and were often far larger than Simson suggests. ii) Although the early church largely met in houses, they certainly didn’t do so exclusively; wherever they met, God was present by his Holy Spirit. iii) God gives gifts of leadership for the strengthening of the church - these include elders (in the plural), as well as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. iv) The make-up of the corporate gatherings of the early church were largely shaped by the way things were done in the synagogue. v) Charismatic corporate worship was a central reason for the early church gathering together. vi) The reading and exposition of Scripture was also of paramount importance. vii) The early church fearlessly proclaimed the gospel in the public domain wherever they went. viii) In place of a fixed structure that is meant to fit all, the early church advocates a flexible, adaptable, evolving structure that is developed to meet the current needs.

Each of these points would appear to stand in opposition to Simson’s description of church life.
 
 
3) Challenges Bearing in mind all of the above, one has to ask why it is that so many people appear to be jumping on Wolfgang Simson’s bandwagon? Clearly, the answer must be that he is offering something which appears both highly attractive and also unobtainable within our churches as they are at present. Let me seek to define what this might be under three main headings:-
 
i) Relationship For a ‘relational movement’ this is perhaps hard to swallow, but perhaps relationship is something we’re not so good at anymore. Simson warns that quality of relationship is often the silent victim of a purpose-driven, action-driven and success oriented emphasis. With our emphasis on being a prophetic movement and our vision here in the UK to see “1,000 churches and churches of 1,000’s”, there is the very real danger of us sacrificing our sense of family. Where a drive to see more churches and larger churches comes at the expense of real, strong, meaningful relationships, we surely have to begin asking some important questions. Maybe the time has come for us to examine a little more closely exactly what it is that we are reproducing and see to it that quality isn’t being sacrificed for the sake of quantity. Quite possibly, we also need to look again at Wagner’s view that any given network of churches will inevitably peak at some point, after which it becomes detrimental or even impossible to add in any more (Churchquake, p.142).
 
Now, reassuringly, the early church managed to spread rapidly while maintaining an incredibly powerful sense of togetherness and community. However, if Simson is right, this was only made possible by the small number of people in each church. We need to honestly evaluate whether our current church structures create an environment in which relationships can flourish. Very simply, if we cannot find a way to grow large churches and maintain a strong sense of togetherness, then we surely need to seriously consider how to rectify the matter. You see, I would suggest that the sense of commonality and commitment to one another was such a key aspect of life in the early church that we cannot afford to disregard it.
 
Rather pertinently, Lesslie Newbigin comments, “Evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, conferences and even books ... are all secondary, and ... they have power to accomplish their purpose only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing community. Jesus did not write a book but formed a community” (The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, p.22). Newbigin is simply reaffirming Jesus’ own promise that our love for one another, our visible demonstration of living community, will prove both our legitimacy and his. This is truer than ever in a community-starved postmodern culture, where the pendulum has swung to extreme individualism, isolation and loneliness. Where this has led to a deep-rooted craving for meaningful relationship, community and family, we have a magnificent opportunity to build New Testament style churches that meet these very needs. As Martin Robinson comments, “The populations of the West are open to spirituality, they yearn for an experience of community that the church would like to offer but has forgotten how to model. What we see before us is not a hopeless cause but an open door for mission. We might very reasonably conclude that the Holy Spirit has been busy preparing the way for the church. In such a situation the church is called to reconsider its core life and purpose” (Invading Secular Space, p.36). As leaders we have a responsibility to ensure that our churches never forget or lose sight of what genuine community looks like. Perhaps we need to evaluate just what it is that we’re modelling right now and see to it that hospitality, informality, warmth, friendliness and availability aren’t replaced by professionalism, appointments, inflexibility and coldness.
 
ii) Reality Some concern has been shown recently regarding the perceived weakness in the area of holiness in our churches. Now, at least in part, we have put this down to our strong emphasis on grace; however, Simson would almost certainly also put it down to our church life. He points to the weakness of a meeting based approach to being church, pointing out that it breeds unreality, hypocrisy and mask wearing. He argues passionately that Christianity is a way of life, not a series of religious meetings. His opinion is that where Christianity is merely lived out in meetings it inevitably results in a slack attitude towards holiness and purity. He appeals for an end to such duplicity and pleads for a style of church that produces authenticity.
Thwaites carries the argument further, claiming that the church is most effective and most relevant when it embraces every area of life. He bemoans the fact that the church has been detached “from most of the saints’ life and work in creation ... The result is that believers are left with a narrow and obscured vision of the Son of God in their marriage, in their family, in their relationships and in particular in their work. Thus their ability to correlate the personal Christ preached on Sunday with the creation they encounter every day of the week is, compared to what it should be, very limited in scope” (The Church Beyond the Congregation, p.37, 285). 
 
I guess the challenge for us is to find ways for church to cease being something we do and start being something we are in the midst of everyday life. To this end, we must pursue an understanding of church life that involves the whole of life and not just a couple of meetings a week. We must foster more of a disciple-making ethos, where friendship, trust, openness, honesty, transparency and accountability are modeled and shown to be attractive as well as beneficial. We perhaps also need to examine the content of what we do when we gather together corporately in order to ensure that it is in touch with real life. We should make a priority of equipping and encouraging our members to see what they do at school, college, in their workplace, or at home, as part of their worship to God. With increasingly demanding jobs and more and more time being spent away from home, we need to find creative ways of integrating businessmen, doctors, nurses, lawyers, shift workers, teachers and so on,  into the life of the church. We must create contexts in which our members feel both safe and able to talk about and seek help for the pressures, challenges and temptations they face.
 
As David Oliver warns, “If as church leaders we won’t change or don’t change, then Christianity will become increasingly marginalised in the workplace, and our church gatherings and structures will become increasingly irrelevant to everyday people in normal occupations” (Work - Prison or Place of Destiny, p.94).
Now, again, this plea for relevance, reality and authenticity appeals to our postmodern culture. Increasingly, people are searching for integrity, words integrated with deeds, openness and honesty. We must ensure we don’t disillusion or disappoint people by giving them unrealistic expectations or promises. There is a very real danger in hyping things up or only ever focussing on the positives. Where failures and mistakes are never addressed, people will invariably become cynical and opt out. Greater reality is what is called for. To this end, we need to ensure we stay in touch with people and foster communities that are real, relevant and involved with the whole of life. When we do this, perhaps we will find that godliness and purity characterise our churches once again.
 
iii) Reinvention We must sit up and take notice of Simson’s criticism that neither the Reformation nor
the Restoration movement went far enough in changing the basic structure of the ‘worship service’. Thwaites picks up on this theme and calls for a long overdue reevaluation of our present congregation-focused approach to church life. He argues, “In spite of all the changes we have seen in our society in the past 30 to 40 years, we still remain focused on the building, the meetings and the programmes we call ‘church’. If the saints are to strongly engage and light up their world then our containment in the local church (or local cell) must be reviewed. In this I don’t want to undermine the powerful place of the gathering. Rather I want to explore and discover the strategic place it might begin to occupy at this time in history” (The Church Beyond the Congregation, p.5). I’d suggest that these are challenges which we must listen to.
 
However, to think that either Simson or Thwaites, or anyone else for that matter, has discovered the perfect model that will solve all our problems forever is to misunderstand the world in which we are now living. McLaren points out that too often we fall into the trap of “arguing over methods, as if old methods are the problem and sparkling new methods will solve the problem. Unfortunately, if a method solves the problem, it will itself become the problem sooner or later when an even newer method will be needed to replace it. This is nothing more than the parable of the wineskins being replayed again and again” (The Church on the Other Side, p.43). As such, we are wrong to think in terms of merely trading one old, hallowed way of doing things for an alternative hallowed tradition, but rather, we need to accept the notion that no single new programme will serve and satisfy us forever.
 
In a world which appears to be changing with frightening velocity, the church will have to repeatedly adapt and change and reinvent itself in order to engage with the rapidly evolving context it finds itself in. We have seen this in recent times with wave after wave of new strategies and systems which have come to us from churches around the world. The problem is that without a clear sense of understanding concerning both our mission and the non-negotiables of church life and structure laid out for us in the New Testament, we run the risk of ending up blown about by every wind of teaching. Now, more than ever, we need to re-examine and redefine what constitutes church so as to be able to adapt to and embrace change without losing our bearings. We can expect a proliferation of books from authors like Simson and Thwaites, all seeking to redefine church. We need to prepare our churches for these and provide clearer guidelines as to how to arbitrate between what is helpful and what is unhelpful. Communicating clearly the defining marks of the church will provide an important safeguard as our churches attempt to respond to the context in which they find themselves with creativity and innovation.
 
Now, interestingly, as we examine the New Testament, I’d suggest that one of the things it provides us with is an eternally relevant example of how the early church itself adapted and evolved and coped with rapid change and new challenges. In place of a fixed structure that is meant to fit all, the early church advocates a flexible, adaptable, evolving structure that is developed to meet the current needs. So then, the church really isn’t delivered in a fully prescribed form. Principles are present from which we are to create structures and methods to suit our own local conditions, opportunities and pressures. As such, Simson is wrong to assume that he has found the magic blueprint, the lost, last detail that will suddenly spell supernatural success for the church, just as we are wrong if we assume that in fact we are the ones who have got it right. In other words, there is absolutely no room for us to rest back on our laurels and congratulate ourselves for having made it. Rather, as a matter of urgency, we must honestly and critically re-examine what we are doing. To quote from McLaren once again, “As long as there are people, there will be problems; as long as there is history, there will be struggle; as long as the church exists in this troubled world, it will compete neck and neck against the gates of hell to see who will prevail against whom. As long as we keep having children, those offspring will eventually rise up and call us outdated. Biblical history illustrates that adaptability is what the church desperately needs” (‘The Church on the Other Side’, p.23).
 
Now, of course there are any number of other issues that Simson touches on which perhaps deserve some treatment. There’s his pretty damning indictment of the whole Cell Church structure, with its performance driven, leadership heavy, bureaucratic approach. It would be helpful to evaluate whether the Cell way of doing things is really working in our churches. In addition, Simson’s comments on city wide gatherings deserve some attention, as does his bias towards saturation church planting. What’s more, we could profitably discuss the merits of his easily reproducible model of church planting which is far less money, leadership and building driven than our own at times. However, I am aware that this paper is already probably far too long and have therefore had to draw a line somewhere!
 
Conclusion

‘Houses that Change the World’ is one of a number of books currently being written to explore the nature of church in the twenty-first century. What each of these books has in common is an assumption that the church today desperately needs to undergo a process of adaptation and change.  Simson’s objective in writing his book is not to offer something completely new, so much as to revisit the pages of the New Testament and unearth an authentic model of how the early church operated.
 
Now, of course, this begs the question: “Has Wolfgang Simson succeeded in hitting upon the definitive model for the church today?” Well, in response, I guess we would all have to conclude, “no!”. In answer to the question: “Is what he proposes nonetheless a valid model?”, my conclusion would be “not entirely”. As has been argued above, there are some pretty fundamental biblical problems with his model. However, having said this, although he argues that his approach is biblical, Simson never sets out to offer a closely argued doctrinal book, but chooses instead to adopt a more pragmatic approach. Therefore, to treat his arguments fairly, we must ask whether or not what he describes really does work in practice. In the light of his sweeping claims for the effectiveness of his model we could do with a little more concrete evidence that it actually does deliver the goods. Personally, from a purely pragmatic point of view, I remain unconvinced that what he describes would work in our culture. However, there can be no denying that his arguments are proving attractive and persuasive to many and we would be foolish to ignore this fact. As such we are certainly faced with something of a challenge.
 
The fact that Simson’s arguments have led to a number of people leaving our own ranks would seem to suggest that we need to re-evaluate what we are doing and see if there are ways in which we need to adapt. To do this, we need to ensure that we have a firm grip on both the negotiables and the non-negotiables; that which the New Testament merely describes and that which it prescribes for all time. While not providing us with the answer, Simson has left us with some helpful and provocative challenges - ones which we would do well to reflect and act upon if we wish to stand the test of time.
 
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