House of Bethany

For the first 300 years of the church, the members of Christ’s body met together in homes and engaged in mutually edifying, open participatory meetings. The primary character of these meetings was marked by each member of the church having the responsibility and privilege of sharing what they saw of Jesus Christ with each other. Be it a psalm (prayer or song), a teaching, or a revelation. (1 Corinthians 14:26).

When Paul exhorted the church not to neglect meeting together, in Hebrews 10 his focus was on mutual encouragement more so than on listening to a single speaker. Now this is not to say in the least that there is no space for gathering together to hear the preaching or teaching of one single brother or sister, as we see with Paul in Acts 20:9 when the young man fell out the window or with Peter in Acts 3:11-13 in Solomon’s Porch. Opportunities will be made for those types of meetings. However, those meetings were not the primary weekly meetings and they existed to strengthen the regular daily and weekly open participatory meetings of the saints who met in their homes.

We see no “magic” in the house itself but we do believe that the house does have the unique ability to remind us what the primary nature of the church is, namely a family, and the family of God no less. The house also has a unique characteristic of lessening the need for programs to drive church engagement and elevating the depth of relationships and the intertwining lives as the engine of church life just as the Trinity`s Life is rooted in their relationships among the divine persons.

To my mind, the house of Bethany with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus typifies the nature of the house churches we want to see birthed in Geneva. This was a family that loved each other deeply, and that offered a welcome home to the Lord.

His presence and person were always valued by this family and what Jesus said and did set the agenda. In this household, we see the three ideal postures we should have with Jesus. We have Mary sitting at His feet as the adoring disciple, learning in an attitude of worship, we have Lazarus in fellowship and communion with the Lord at the table and we have Martha using her skills and talents to serve the family as well as the Lord Himself. It is from this house that we see the most extraordinary display of resurrection power before the ascension, namely the resurrection of Lazarus which shook both the city and the religious system of the day.

It is our passion to raise up spiritual houses like this across the city that will minister to the Lord Himself, edify and mature believers, take spiritual responsibility for their locale, and welcome unbelievers into the family of God by reconciling them to the Father through faith in Jesus Christ.