Home Groups #1 – What is a home group?

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To start the series it will be a good idea to define what we mean by the term ‘home group’.

The first time I was involved with this type of group was at university. There was a Christian Union meeting in my Halls of Residence. Every week we would gather as a whole body for an hour or so corporate worship before breaking up into small groups to study the Bible and pray. We met in the group leader’s room, so the term home group wasn’t really appropriate, but it still contained many of the elements that we will look at over this series.

As the name suggests, a home group is a small group of people who have gathered together, possibly in someone’s home although not necessarily, in order to study the Bible, pray and build community. Different churches and traditions call them by a variety of names – small groups, cell groups, fellowship groups, Bible study groups, house groups, clusters. I like the name home group because I think it sounds more welcoming. But that’s just my preference and it really doesn’t matter too much what we call them.

Home Groups in the Bible

The idea is not a new one. In fact, this is how the early church originally met. The word church is a translation from the Greek word ekklesia. (The New Testament was written in Greek, which was the lingua franca of the day; much like English is the dominant language in the West today.) Ekklesia was the common word for a meeting or gathering of people. So, in the New Testament, a church was a gathering of Christians and did not mean a particular type of building or a denomination.

I believe that this is also how we should view the church today; not as a building, as nice and awe-inspiring as many church buildings are, but the gathering together of Christians.

The New Testament book of Acts records how Christianity spread throughout the Mediterranean region. Communities of believers sprang up in many cities. St Paul wrote letters to some of these churches and it is recorded several times in his letters that the church would meet in someone’s home (see Romans 16:3-5, Colossians 4:15, Philemon 2).

The purpose of a Home Group

Home groups are therefore the church in microcosm, an expression of the wider church. As such they should then reflect what happens in the wider church. This will include:

• worship,
• support for one another in the group,
• and a focus on serving those outside the group.

We will look at each of these aspects in future posts. As we have already seen, home groups can meet in someon’e house or within the context of university Christian Unions. They are also very successful in schools, prisons and the workplace. The focus in each context will vary, but the general principals of running the groups will be similar. Home groups are a worshipping, serving community, and an integral part of the wider church community.

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Over the next several weeks I’ll be writing a series of posts covering all aspects of running home groups. Whether you lead a home group yourself, or are a member and would like to get more out of it, then there will be some helpful advice for you in this series. Have a question you’d like me to answer? Leave it in the comments!

Miss a post? Visit the main post for links to each day.