Throughout the Book of Acts and the various letters of Paul we find abundant evidence that Christians regularly gathered in their homes for times of worship, sharing a meal, praying together, meeting one another’s various needs, and reaching out to those who did not yet know Jesus as their Lord. In recent years many Christians have returned to meeting in homes as a primary place for being the church. 

Even though Northland is by all definitions what could be called a mega-church, we are committed to helping others do church on as small a scale as a dozen people in a home. The reason for this is found in our understanding of what it means to be a Church Distributed. In a sentence, it means helping people to be the church, the Body of Christ wherever they are, everyday. Our Pastor, Joel Hunter, speaks often of us being field based. That means we want to bring resources and encouragement, and training for ministry to people where they live, and work and play. The house church allows that to happen anywhere in the world.

Simply put it is a gathering of around a dozen people from at least two different nuclear families gathering for worship and who see themselves as living out the New Testament example of the House Church. The first few generations of Christians regularly met in houses in order to worship and minister to one another. 

Five times each weekend, Northland sends it worship live across the Internet. Currently we average over 1,200 locations around the world were people worship via the webstream. Some of these are house churches. They sing and pray, celebrate communion, great one another, share scripture and do whatever else we are doing in worship at that time. They listen to the sermon for the day and often gather after worship to share a meal and talk about what they have just heard. Sometimes they even communicate with other sites via the web, exchanging prayer requests and praises.

It depends on the group. In some house churches children are included for the entire worship time. In others the members of the house church will share responsibility to teach the children. The curriculum for children that is written by a team at Northland is available for free on the Internet. All you need to do is go to www.childrensministrywarehouse.org and download the materials for the week that you want to use. 

One of the most important aspects of being a house church is serving and loving your neighbors in the name of Jesus. Being the church in a house allows people to work together to serve others in ways that larger churches often overlook. Typically the members of a house church will share with one another the needs that they know of from their own relationships. As they are led by God they then reach out and meet those needs. It can range from providing meals for someone in the neighborhood who is ill, to providing Christmas for a family in need, or even doing home repairs. The type of serving depends on the situations that God presents to the church and the gifts and abilities within the church to meet those needs.

You will receive personalized mentoring to help you grow as a house church leader. This will include direct conversations, emails, and personal visits from the support team at Northland. We will also connect you with other house church leaders and networks, both within and outside the structure of Northland. We will help you to identify potential people for your house church and give you a presence on our webstream worship so that people who are online and live near you can connect with you.