Origins and history

The first house church is recorded in Acts 1:13, where the disciples of Jesus met together in the upper room of a house. For the first three centuries of the church, Christians commonly met in homes. Clement of Alexandria, an early church father, wrote of worshipping in a house. A private house in Dura-Europos (near Baghdad) was excavated in the 1930’s and was found to be used as a Christian meeting place in AD 232, with one small room serving as a baptistry. Throughout history, various Christian groups worshipped in homes, often due to persecution by the state church or the civil government.

After being freed from prison by an angel, the apostle Peter went to the house of Mary the mother of John Mark (where believers were gathered for prayer) so that they might spread the news of his escape. Since Mary is the only name mentioned in the Bible in reference to a house church in Jerusalem (where the church was then being persecuted), and since Peter made this his first stop before moving on, this may indicate that the church that met in Mary’s house was a notable assembly.

The origins of the so-called house church movement are varied. In North America and the UK particularly, it is often viewed as a development and logical extension of the 'Brethren' or Plymouth Brethren movement both in doctrine and practice where many individuals and assemblies have adopted new approaches to worship and governance, while others recognise a relationship to the Anabaptists, Quakers, Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, Moravians, Methodists, and the much earlier Waldenses and Priscillianists. Another perspective sees the house church movement as a re-emergence of the move of the Holy Spirit during the Jesus Movement of the 1970s in the USA or the worldwide Charismatic Renewal of the late 1960s and 1970s. Others see it as a return to a New Testament church Restorationism paradigm and a restoration of God's eternal purpose and the natural expression of Christ on the earth, urging Christians to return from hierarchy and rank to practices described and encouraged in Scripture.

In addition, house church social networks and discussion lists such as SimpleChurch.com, Organic Church Today, Koinonia Life, HCDL, Home Church Connection, and New Wineskin have had an influence on the growth of the house church movement for the past decade. People, who might otherwise have remained disconnected prior to the internet, have met online to discuss house church-related topics, as well as to form face-to-face house church fellowships. For many, these discussion lists are the first taste of relational body life outside of the traditional church.