|
|
|
|
|
Original Form of Small Church
|
|
|
Paul Jang
|
2008-03-24 15:51:38, hit : 2,892 |
|
|
Original Form of Small Church
In the strict sense of the word, the concept of "church" can be divided into "the Old Testament church" and "the New Testament church." (Park 1973, 55). Of course, it may be said that the church originated, at the same time of creation of man, with the family of Adam (Adam and Eve) with God in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8). At that time, the membership of the family church is a couple with God who created them and officiated their wedding (Gen. 2:24); Matt. 19:5).
Without God church never exists even though no matter how many members does it have because it has been founded by God and Jesus Christ (Matt. 16:18). God had founded the first church in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8). The church was a small group consisted of only a couple. As mentioned above, this small group was the original form of the small church in the beginning of the creation of man (Gen. 3:8). The original form of small church was, in particular a family unit (Gen. 2:24-25).
In the Old Testament, small church also began with a family: "the family of Abraham." (Gen. 12:5; McBride 1993, 14). God chose and called Abraham among many people on the earth, and made him the people of God. Thus his family became the church of God. After all, the original form of the Old Testament church also was a small group consisted of the family of Abraham in covenant with God (Gen. 12:1-3; Icenogle 1994, 13-14).
There had been the church in the wilderness (Acts 8:38 KJV). On Jethro's advice, his desert church had been reorganized into small groups by Moses. On this point, Palmer Becker explained as follows:
On Jethro's advice, Moses asked his congregation to choose leaders with whom he could work. The chose leaders and organized into small groups of ten where their basic needs could be met. Moses remained responsible for the overall leadership and ministry of the people but now he did the work of ministry together with a team of lay pastors (Becker 1993a, 12). In this paragraph, it is very important that a large group of the nation church (McBride 1993, 14) in the wilderness was reorganized into many of small groups (Ex. 18:25). In this sense, it is true that small church must be based on small group. This small group is no doubt the typical form of small church in the Old Testament times.
In the New Testament, small church began with a small group, the membership of which was only twelve Apostles (McBride 1993, 16). After ascension of Christ, the early Christian churches met in homes (Acts 2:41-47; 12:12; 16:15, 40; 17:7; 1 Cor. 16:15; Rome 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2). These were the house churches, each of which had been consisted of a few families (Barrett 1986, 25-26). The most well known have been such house churches of the New Testament (Barrett 1986, 20). Judging from this, the original form of the New Testament churches must be small churches consisted of small groups.
And also in modern times, it is reasonable that church must be planted and developed in the form of small group because it is necessary to harden the ground of the church and to train its members for an evangelism to promote the growth of the church (Barrett 1986, 26). Most of modern churches have the small group systems such as discipleship training classes, the Bible study classes, fellowship groups, nuture groups, home cell groups and so on. As a matter of fact, the small church must begin with small group, therfore the original form of small church is small group, the kind of which may be different as well. Cannon L. Callahan defined that church is an assemmbly of small groups (Callahan 1983, trans. by Kwon 1988, 96).
. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Introduction
Ch Growth 