How Did the Early Church Gather?

The Gatherings of the Early Church, Part 1

How did the early believers meet together?

This is more than a historical question. In many churches around the world today, we have drifted from the New Testament patterns of life together, and we have paid a steep price for that. Our spiritual condition today is a long way from that of the Christians in the beginning.

Of course, our spiritual condition is shaped by more than our patterns of gathering. Our doctrine is extremely important. Yet a church can study the Scriptures and hold all the right doctrines and still miss the life and power of Christ that those Scriptures testify about (John 5:39-40). This document is not primarily about doctrine. It is about the patterns of life together that the New Testament shows us, and what we have lost by drifting from them.

This is not a call to wooden imitation of the first century. We live today in a very different culture and context, and God gives us freedom and flexibility. We are not arguing that any church not following these patterns exactly is in sin or somehow second-class. The early gatherings were not a law to be reproduced detail-for-detail. Some specifics — like greeting one another with a holy kiss — were normal in their culture but might be strange or inappropriate in some cultures today. Other practices — like joining the Communion of the Bread and Cup with a full meal — may or may not be wise in a given setting. The point is not to copy every detail but to recover the principles and the life that those patterns expressed.

In this four-part series, we will look at the foundation of the extraordinary spiritual life and fruitfulness of the Christians in the early days. The New Testament shows us principles and practices we would do well to consider carefully and honestly. These can shape a vibrant and healthy Church today.

1. How Did the Early Church Gather?

2. Christ Is the Center of the Gathering, and Everyone Participates!

3. What Did the Early Church Do When They Met?

4. How the Early Church Gathered vs. How We Gather Today

May God give us clarity of thought and courage of heart to be all He has called us to be as His glorious Bride!

The Significance of the Gathering

In the New Testament, gatherings of believers were called “churches.”

The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 16:19; see also Acts 9:31; 15:41)

The Greek word for “Church” in the New Testament is ekklesia (ἐκκλησία). This word simply means a “gathering” or “assembly.” It is not a religious word and is used elsewhere in the New Testament to refer to non-Christian gatherings. Stephen called the people of Israel “the congregation (ekklesia) in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). In Acts 19:32 the word refers to a disorderly mob! Then, in Acts 19:39 ekklesia refers to a convening of citizens to discuss legal matters.¹

The word ekklesia occurs more than 100 times in the New Testament, almost always referring to the gathering of Christian believers. In that context, it always refers to the people of God, and never to buildings.

Thus, the very name for the people of God — “Church” — indicates the central significance of the meeting together of those people.

The people of God must gather. It is not a legitimate expression of New Testament Christianity for an individual to be an isolated and independent believer with his own private relationship with God. From the beginning, the very identity of the people of God is bound up with their gathering together.

The gathering is not optional. To belong to the Body of Christ means to be part of its gathered life wherever that is possible. The early believers took this seriously. They gathered often, intentionally and joyfully. The question is not whether they gathered but how they gathered and what happened when they did.

How the Early Church Gathered

They Met in Homes

The Early Church did not construct dedicated religious buildings. There is no evidence in Acts or the epistles of a dedicated “church building.”²

For the Early Church, the Church was the people. They gathered where people lived. The epistles repeatedly send greetings to “the church that meets in their house”:

Greet also the church in their house. … (Romans 16:5; see also 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15; Philemon 1:2)

They met “from house to house”:

… how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house … (Acts 20:20; see also Acts 2:46; 5:42)

Sometimes they met in upper rooms, like the one in Troas:

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. (Acts 20:7-8)

It is true that the very first Jewish believers in Jerusalem continued to participate in the temple worship for some time after Pentecost (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 5:12, 42; 21:26). Their gathering as the Church and their participation in established Jewish worship were not yet in obvious opposition. The apostles’ New Covenant faith was understood as the fulfillment of what the temple pointed to. The New Covenant had already replaced the Old (Hebrews 8:13; 10:9), though the early Jewish believers had not yet fully recognized what this meant.

Paul also taught publicly when the situation called for it — including a sustained daily ministry at the hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus that lasted two years (Acts 19:9-10). But this was public teaching, not a substitute for the gathering of the Church. From the beginning, the regular, normal gatherings of local churches took place in ordinary homes — informal and domestic, not institutional.

The Meetings Were Small Enough that People Knew Each Other

Because they met in living spaces, dining rooms and courtyards of Greco-Roman homes, the gatherings were naturally limited in size. In the homes of that day, a dining room could hold 7-12 people while the central courtyard could hold an additional 30-40 people. Most house churches probably averaged 20-30 people, while a large gathering in a wealthy patron’s home could reach many more — perhaps 100 or so.³

Rather than a large crowd event where people could easily get lost, this was something far more personal — a family get-together marked by genuine closeness and fellowship, in sharp contrast to the formal and institutional Jewish worship many of them had come from.

Moreover, they greeted each other with a holy kiss:

Greet one another with a holy kiss. … (Romans 16:16; see also 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14)

There was physical warmth and familial affection. These were not strangers sitting in rows avoiding eye contact and then quickly leaving as soon as the formal meeting was concluded. The church was a family with a heavenly Father (Ephesians 3:14-15) and acted like a family. They were all children of God, brothers and sisters together.

They Met Often

Church life was embedded in ordinary life, not limited to a single weekly event. Immediately after Pentecost, the Jerusalem church met daily:

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47)

Teaching and preaching occurred daily in the temple and from house to house:

And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. (Acts 5:42)

This phase was disrupted in two ways. The daily Jerusalem temple participation was short-lived, ended by the persecution that scattered most of the Jerusalem believers (Acts 8:1). And, as Jesus had foretold (John 16:2), Jewish believers in many places were progressively pushed out of synagogue life by Jewish authorities who came to view the followers of Jesus as a sect (Acts 24:5, 14; 28:22) and a threat — though the timing and intensity of synagogue exclusion varied from place to place.

Then as the Church expanded across the Roman Empire, the established pattern shifted to gathering on the first day of the week to honor the resurrection of Jesus. These passages indicate that Sunday was the regular day for believers to gather and break bread, with the first day of the week also marked as the day for setting aside money for those in need:

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread … (Acts 20:7)

Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. (1 Corinthians 16:1-2)

These gatherings celebrated the spiritual significance of the first day of the week, marking both God’s creation of the world in the beginning⁴ and the new creation through Jesus’ resurrection. Rather than being a legalistic replacement for the Sabbath, these gatherings were a joyful celebration of Christ’s living Presence in His Church through His Spirit.

Because Sunday was a normal workday in the Roman world, they likely met toward evening after work, with meetings sometimes stretching late into the night:⁵

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. … And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. (Acts 20:7, 11)

They Met Regularly, Not Randomly

The gathering schedule was intentional and expected, not improvised. As we have seen, Acts 20:7 describes a Sunday gathering and 1 Corinthians 16:2 assumes a consistent weekly meeting.

Moreover, Hebrews 10 warns against neglecting the meetings:

… not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:25)

This instruction only makes sense if people were expected to be at regular meetings.⁶ Notice also that meeting together is paired directly with stirring one another up and with mutual encouragement. The gathering itself was the context for that ministry to one another.

1 Corinthians 11 and 14 both say “when you come together,” presupposing a known, recurring gathering:

… when you come together as a church … (1 Corinthians 11:17-18)

… When you come together … (1 Corinthians 14:26)

The Early Church had a way of life: daily gatherings at the temple in the earliest period, weekly meetings on the first day of the week, and continuous house-to-house ministry in the daily life of the people.

However, while the meeting itself was expected, what happened in the meeting was not scripted. There was a general expectation of what might happen — like teaching, prayer and encouragement, but as we will see, the meeting was Spirit-led, participatory and open-ended.

Moreover, alongside the regular schedule, the community was flexible enough to spontaneously come together when the situation demanded it. Sometimes it was a crisis response as when the church gathered at Mary’s house to pray for Peter in prison:

When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. (Acts 12:12)

Another example was when Peter and John were released by the Sanhedrin, and went straight to “their friends” to report and pray, with the room shaking:

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God … And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. (Acts 4:23-24, 31)

Sometimes it was ministry reports, as when Paul and Barnabas returned from their first missionary journey and gathered the church together to report what God had done and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles:

… and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. (Acts 14:26-27)

Paul and Barnabas then remained with the disciples for a considerable time afterward:

And they remained no little time with the disciples. (Acts 14:28)

This was not a brief visit but an extended period of ministry and fellowship. They probably met with believers in various homes regularly, teaching the Word, sharing their stories and encouraging them.

Sometimes it was important news such as when the Jerusalem council’s letter was delivered and the people read and rejoiced over it:

So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. (Acts 15:30-31)

In addition, there was the normal and informal daily life of the community as they grew in God together, served one another, built one another’s lives and reached out to the lost around them.

In summary, this was how the community met together as a family:

• Regular Sunday gatherings (often in the evening, sometimes before dawn).

• Spontaneous meetings.

• The informal daily life of the church.

Leadership Was Plural and Functional

Every church had leadership.

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: (Philippians 1:1; see also Acts 14:23; 20:17, 28; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13; 1 Timothy 3:1-13; 5:17; Titus 1:5-9; Hebrews 13:7, 17, 24; James 5:14; 1 Peter 5:1-4)

The New Testament norm was a plurality of elders shepherding the people rather than the now-common solo senior-pastor model. Their gatherings were not planned performances by a few — they were opportunities for active participation by all. The entire Body was expected to function, not just the leaders. There was leadership in the meetings, but the meetings were not one-man shows.

The role of the leader in the New Testament Church is not to run programs or to perform as the celebrity at the center of the meeting, but to intentionally build people. Jesus told us to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19) — and a disciple is built through life, relationships, teaching and encounters with God, not produced by a religious performance.

As seen in Ephesians 4, the leader’s primary responsibility is to equip the saints so that the people themselves can do the work of the ministry, which in turn builds up the Body of Christ:

And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ … speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the Head, into Christ, from whom the whole Body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the Body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

We must embrace this simple but profound New Testament paradigm, restoring genuine spiritual leadership and ministry so that the Church can mature and function as God intended.

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In Part 2, we will begin our exploration of how the early church gathered.

1. “The term ἐκκλησία was in common usage for several hundred years before the birth of the Church and was used to refer to an assembly of persons constituted by well-defined membership. In general Greek usage it was normally a socio-political entity based upon citizenship in a city-state.” (Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2^nd edition, Vol. 1, p. 125). New York: United Bible Societies.)

2. The Dura-Europos building in Syria is the earliest identified Christian worship space. It began as a domestic house and was renovated for Christian use (with a baptistry, altar and religious art) sometime between 233 and 256. (Provance, B. S. (2009). In Pocket Dictionary of Liturgy & Worship (p. 51). Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.) The Aqaba Church in Jordan is considered to be the world’s oldest purpose-built Christian church building, dated between 293 and 303. (Govier, G. (1998). Archaeology: “Oldest Church” Discovered in Jordan. Christianity Today, 42(10), 26.)

3. Estimates of house-church size vary among scholars; see for example Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community (Hendrickson, 1994), Vincent Branick, The House Church in the Writings of Paul (Liturgical Press, 1989), and especially Roger Gehring, House Church and Mission (Hendrickson, 2004). Most place the typical gathering at 20-30, with larger gatherings in wealthy patrons’ homes potentially reaching 50-100. Architectural constraints of Greco-Roman dining rooms and central courtyards limited what was physically possible.

4. In his First Apology, Justin Martyr (c. AD 155) provides the most direct evidence for the link between the first day of the week and the beginning of the world: “But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.” Justin Martyr. “The First Apology.” In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Vol. 1, 186. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885.

5. There is also some historical evidence for pre-dawn meetings. Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, wrote to Emperor Trajan around AD 112 to ask how to handle accused Christians. He reports that they met “on a fixed day before dawn” to sing a hymn to Christ as to a god and to bind themselves to moral conduct, then dispersed and reassembled later for a common meal (Pliny, Letter 10.96). This is one of the earliest external descriptions of Christian gatherings.

6. The Greek word translated “meet together” in Hebrews 10:25 is episunagoge (ἐπισυναγωγή) — a “gathering together” or “assembly.” It is closely related to sunagoge (συναγωγή), the word from which we get “synagogue.” The verb form (episunago) is used elsewhere of intentional gatherings – of the saints to Christ at His coming (Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27), of crowds drawn to Jesus (Mark 1:33; Luke 12:1) and of God’s longing to gather Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34). The everyday relational life of believers is conveyed by different Greek words: koinonia (κοινωνία), “fellowship,” and philoxenia (φιλοξενία), “hospitality.” Moreover, the writer of Hebrews says that some had made a “habit” of neglecting these gatherings. You do not form a habit of missing incidental encounters — you form a habit of missing recognized, recurring meetings. Hebrews 10:25 is not exhorting believers to casual social contact. It is calling them not to neglect the regular, expected gatherings of the church.