Duncan and Rhonda Stewart started Agape Simple Church House Fellowship which is a lay-led house church in Colchester, Essex. In 2021 they both felt the Lord was leading them to set up a simple house fellowship to love God, love others and make disciples for Jesus Christ. The church is Christ’s body in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.” Agape Simple Church house fellowship is set up to function like the Acts church, which is church in its simplest form without the bells and whistle. The Acts 2:42 church was simple in that they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, to prayer and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are a biblically based church family that meet in homes. We are truth believers. We are Christ centred. We are the Church not a building. We come from different backgrounds. We are non-denominational, God's Word not man's rules.
The house church concept is not new as we can see that in the very beginning they gathered in each others homes and the temple courts. Churches in the New Testament era were indeed small assemblies that met in homes (Acts 2:46; 20:20). So, the practice of attending a home church, or house church, is biblically allowable. There also seem to be some good reasons to have house churches as opposed to large gatherings: greater intimacy, stronger relationships, single-mindedness, etc. Historically, the Temple Courts, as a public gathering place, were used for mass gatherings for teaching, evangelism, prayer etc and were utilized for what one might term as multi-church gatherings. Breaking of bread refers to eating meals and is what the phrase means as used in the New Testament. Included in its meaning here would be the Lord’s Supper (as a full meal), as well as their ordinary daily meals the rest of the week. From this point the temple gatherings fade from view completely as the church spread outside of Jerusalem and eventually to the Gentiles. There is nothing unbiblical about Christians gathering regularly in houses or large buildings or any other venue. Some benefits of a house church could be reproducibility, thorough discipleship through participation, a family atmosphere, and better financial stewardship. The Bible does not give any guidelines as to the proper size or location of a church meeting. What it does do is explain what is to take place at those meetings (Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 16:2; 1 Timothy 4:13; 2 Timothy 4:2). So long as biblical teaching (orthodoxy) and practice (orthopraxy) are foremost in the assembly, the format and location really do not matter.
So what does this mean we will continue to meet in homes, Jesus is the true head of the church and we are non denominational. Jesus died for the church not denominations. Agape Simple Church follows a simple yet biblical approach to hierarchy in the church: Jesus → You for individual accountability and at a corporate/group level Jesus → You → One-to-Another. Elders are present, but receiving, ministering, and sharing in the Lord is not centralized to them only. Jesus’s life could be expressed through all members of the church equally. However, we are not alone and forming relationships with other house churches that meet in homes here in the UK and worldwide. The church is not the building and the curtain/veil was torn down from top to bottom thus all are equal in God's sight as a priesthood of believers. Furthermore we have honest accountability to one another which help to keep us focus on the real purpose of the church which is to 1) teach biblical doctrine, 2) provide a place of fellowship for believers, 3) observe the Lord’s supper, 4) pray and 5) share the gospel message. Amen. Want to know more about what happens at our fellowship click when we meet