This video series presents church leaders with growth strategies given by Jesus to the ancient church to stir up love and good deeds, foster oneness and community, strengthen the church, and increase holiness. This session explores an ancient church size strategy for effectiveness in shepherding and is presented by Stephen Atkerson, President of the New Testament Reformation Fellowship. Jesus said to make disciples of all nations. What is the best size for a church to be to most effectively make disciples? Is it better to have one church with a thousand people in it or ten churches each with a hundred people? It's easy to assume that bigger is better. But did you know that everything in the New Testament that was written to a church was written to a church that met in someone's home? It is a fact that the early church met almost exclusively in the private homes of its members. The first church buildings did not exist until about 200 years after the New Testament was written. What this means is that the typical New Testament congregation was smaller rather than larger. Not thousands of people, not hundreds of people, but scores of believers in a single congregation. The activities described in the New Testament, such as disciple making, were designed for smaller settings. They work better in smaller settings. So when it comes to making disciples and other important things like oneness, multiplication, walking together in love, true fellowship, community, we argue that the design principle, form follows function, comes into play here. The function of a New Testament church is best carried out by the form of the New Testament church. Therefore, our premise is that smaller churches have strategic, divinely designed size advantages. Good things really do come in small packages. In this session, we will consider small size as an ancient church strategy for effective ministry. question arises, why did the early church meet in homes? And the most common answer given is persecution, much as the situation that exists today in Iran or China. So if you want to hide yourself, not call it public attention to what you're doing, a home is a good place to do that. The ESV study Bible says early Christian churches, since they were small and not regarded as a legitimate or legal religion, met in homes. But I want you to consider that no matter why they met in homes, the fact remains that every New Testament letter written to a church was written to a church that met in someone's home. John Adams said that facts are stubborn things. And whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. The fact is, every New Testament letter written to a church was written to a church that met in someone's home. The activities described in the New Testament were designed for smaller settings. So we're going to argue that smaller churches are a divine design for effective ministry. In this session, we're going to consider small church advantages. We'll look at expert testimony about small churches. We'll consider the Greek versus the English meaning of the word church. We'll look at New Testament temple theology. We'll look at scriptural evidence for small congregations. we'll consider the ideal size for a church and offer practical ideas for places to meet today. So let's start with small church advantages. The advantages of small churches are things like fellowship and community. The setting is more suitable to stir up love and good deeds. The each-one-has perspective of a worship service described in 1 Corinthians 14 fits better a smaller setting than a big one, this idea of participatory worship. In a small church, everyone is known and knowable. The Matthew 18 Church Discipline process takes on much more significance in a smaller setting where everyone knows each other and your friends are involved with this process. Building consensus is more doable in a smaller setting where there are open lines of communication and the relationships can be worked. The various one another texts, there's over 50 of them, like love one another, serve one another, esteem one another, are better carried out, arguably, in a smaller setting. John Keats said that nothing ever becomes real until it's experienced. Well, we've been working with small churches for over 30 years, and we can testify to the relationship advantages that exist in smaller churches. Were there big meetings in the New Testament? Yes, there were. Why did they have big meetings? One example can be seen in the ministry of Jesus. The Bible records it great. Crowds followed him. He went up on a mountain. He opened his mouth and he taught them. So when it comes to big meetings, teaching is a wonderful thing that can happen. We read in Acts that the apostles went into the temple courts. It says that they regularly did signs and wonders in Solomon's portico. And it says that multitudes of people were added to the Lord. That sounds to me like miracle evangelism. So when it comes to teaching or evangelism, large crowds are a good thing. I would call these more ministry-type meetings. And so today, in a very large church, there are those same advantages. You could add in worship. A large church has the resources to have first-class musicians who can create magnificent worship experiences. Those are good things. But it is very impersonal. The best place for a tree to hide is in the forest. You can be all alone in New York City, have a big city blues. For example, a family visited our small church once. The father told me that ours was, I think, the fourth church in a list of churches he wanted to visit. He said that ours was the first church where anyone talked to them. In the first three, he was able to go in and out without being spoken to. One lady visited our church for the first time. I didn't talk to her the first time, other people did. The second time she came, I spoke to her and apologized for not talking to her the first time. And she said, oh, that's okay. It was two years before a pastor spoke to me in the church I go to now. Well, that church is too big. A neighbor invited me to go with him along to his mega church. And it was a fun experience. I enjoyed it. They had a coffee break. We're heading toward the coffee bar. It seemed like it was far, far away. And he excused himself. He got so excited. He pointed out the coffee bar, said he'd meet me back at the table. Well, I got the coffee. I went back to the table. He came back and he was excited. And I said, well, what are you so excited about? He said, I saw somebody I know. And he went on to explain that most Sundays he never saw anybody he knew. That's one of the disadvantages, the downsides of a big church. So big churches can have great music and great teaching. But you know, you can get good music and good teaching on the radio. I'm not suggesting you stay home and not go to church. But what you can't get on the radio is relationships face to face. fellowship community. Ron Sider is a Baptist theologian. He said, the overwhelming majority of churches today do not provide the context in which brothers and sisters can encourage, admonish, and disciple each other. We desperately need new settings and structures for watching over one another in love. Peter Davids is a Baptist professor, and along with a German Baptist pastor, Sigfield Grossman, they wrote a paper. The witness of the New Testament church is clear. The living space of the church was the house. We judge the church historical development to be a step backward from relationship to religion. For too long, we have exclusively seen formal church services as the center of the church. The church needs face-to-face fellowship, and therein lies the advantage of smaller churches. So in the New Testament, we do see large meetings. Those are ministry meetings that were for teaching or evangelism. The purpose of smaller meetings in the New Testament What's church meetings? Where there's accountability, emotional support, relationships, fellowship, personalized discipleship. We see both of these come together in Acts chapter two, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. So you see the larger ministry meetings were in the temple, the smaller church meetings were in the homes. And let me just say something about these large temple meetings. That was special. You see, at Pentecost, thousands were converted all at once. And the Jerusalem church was the only church in the entire world. when people, when the pilgrims left Jerusalem to go back to Alexandria or Ephesus or Rome, there was no church there. So it was a unique situation. Thousands needed to be discipled quickly. That led to the communalism we saw in Jerusalem, where these people could be housed and fed while they were trained to learn about Jesus. And an effective way to start to do that were these large temple training sessions and teaching sessions. But I would point out the church didn't own that building. and the use of it quickly came to an end as persecution began. 60% of all Protestant churches in the U.S. have less than 100 adults attending. There are 400,000 churches in the United States with an average size of 100. So if you are leading a small church, you've got a lot of company. And my counsel is, don't try to compete with the big churches. You really can't compete in terms of music, programs, and facilities. But instead, play to your relational strengths, that face-to-face fellowship. It's sort of like the difference between the galleons of the Spanish Armada that invaded England versus the small ships of the English fleet that were quick and maneuverable. Each type of ship had its own strengths and weaknesses. And so we who are involved with smaller churches need to play to our relational strengths. And our premise then is that smaller churches have a strategic and even a divinely designed size advantage. closeness, intimacy, refreshing simplicity. You don't have to layer on complexity. Ease of multiplication. New churches grow faster than established churches. the one-another ministry opportunities, face-to-face fellowship. It puts teeth into church discipline in a smaller setting that's family-like. The Lord's Supper, celebrated as a weekly agape love feast, is more meaningful in a smaller setting. When I was in seminary, I was involved with a church with 14,000 members. It was a blessing to be there. On a Wednesday night, I'd go to the Fellowship Suppers, and I would come out of the serving line, and it appeared to be acres of table, one after another, going off into the horizon. Well, I really had to hunt to find somebody I knew. Well, let me just say that church meals are not to be like that. It shouldn't be like going to a commercial cafeteria where you don't know anybody. Another advantage of a smaller church is that participatory worship is meaningful. We've got another talk on the New Testament strategy of having participatory worship where any church member could speak in the meeting. Another advantage of small churches is that congregational consensus is truly achievable when you know everybody and you love everybody enough to work through your differences to come to consensus. There's also much less bureaucracy and management trouble, as we will see later as we study the Rule of 150. So what's the point? The point is that every New Testament letter written to a church was written to a church that met in someone's home. The function of a New Testament church is best carried out by the form of the New Testament church. The activities described in the New Testament work better in a smaller setting because they were designed for smaller settings. So we're looking at small size as an ancient church strategy given by Jesus to the early church for effective ministry. Now let's look at expert testimony. Charles Spurgeon, a big church guy, saw advantages to smaller churches. Where there is a church in the house, every member strives to increase the other's comfort. All seek to promote each other's holiness. Each one endeavors to discharge his duty according to the position in which he is placed in that church. W.H. Griffith Thomas, an Anglican scholar, said, for two or three centuries, Christians met in private houses. There seems little doubt that these informal gatherings of small groups of believers had great influence in preserving the simplicity and purity of early Christianity. Those are some of the advantages he noted. David Watson, a Church of England pastor, said, for the first two centuries, the church met in small groups in the homes of its members. Significantly, these two centuries marked the most powerful and rigorous advance of the church. The lack of church buildings was no hindrance to the rapid expansion of the church. Instead, it seemed a positive help. The Book of Acts records, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. That was said by the church's critics. They did that through the small church model. Ron Sider said that the network of tiny house churches scattered throughout the Roman Empire did experience their oneness in Christ so vividly that they were able to defy and eventually conquer a powerful pagan civilization. And they did this not with a large church paradigm, but with a smaller Roman villa-sized church paradigm. Back to Cider. The early church experienced the reality of Christian fellowship in a mighty way. Unconditional availability to, and unlimited liability for, the other sisters and brothers, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. When one member suffered, they all suffered. When one rejoiced, they all rejoiced. Even Martin Luther weighed in on this. He said, those desirous of being Christians in earnest should assemble by themselves in some house. Those whose conduct was not such as benefits Christians could be recognized, reproved, or excommunicated. Here, in the house, we could have baptism in the sacrament and direct everything towards the Word and prayer and love. So to summarize Luther's ideas, he said, meet in homes, have meetings that are not open to the public, believers only. There would be accountability and church discipline. The person coming had to be active in both word and deed. And the focus is not on a performance, but on scripture, prayer, and love. So our premise is that smaller churches have strategic divinely designed size advantages. Why is that? It's because the function of a New Testament church is best carried out by the form of the New Testament church. And it is a fact that every New Testament letter written to a church was written to a church that met in someone's home. The activities described in the New Testament were designed for smaller settings. Small church is an ancient church strategy for effective ministry. So let's review. We looked at small church advantages, practically. We've considered expert testimony. And now, let's look at semantics. Let's look at the Greek word for church, which is ekklesia. Antonin Scalia said, words have meaning. Let's look at this word. In English, the word church clearly can refer to a building. So if I said, vandals destroy the church, you would know I meant the church building. But it was not so in Greek. The Greek word for church, ekklesia, never referred to a building. It referred to people, not a place. It referred to a meeting of those same people, not the location of the meeting. Donald Guthrie said the expression, in church. refers to an assembly of believers. There is no suggestion of a special building. Indeed, the idea of a church as representing a building is totally alien to the New Testament. So, for example, if you read in the book of Revelation that Jesus had something to say to the church in Ephesus, don't envision a church building in Ephesus. Envision a group of believers in Ephesus. Graydon Snyder of Chicago Theological Seminary said, the New Testament Church began as a small group house church and it remained so until the middle or end of the third century. There are no evidences of larger places of meeting before 300. So what's the point? Here's the point. The function of a New Testament church is best carried out by the form of the New Testament church. It is a fact that every New Testament letter written to a church was written to a church that met in someone's home and the activities described in the New Testament were designed for smaller settings. So our premise is smaller churches have strategic divinely designed size advantages. Let's review. We looked at practical small church advantages. We've looked at some expert testimony about small churches. We've looked at the semantics of the word church, but there's more. Now let's look at Old Testament and New Testament temple theology. It's a fact that in the Old Testament, Jehovah God gave detailed instructions for the construction of the tabernacle and later for the construction of Solomon's temple. In contrast to this, in the New Testament, there's a complete absence of information about the importance of building church buildings. In fact, Jesus said, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain, Gerizim, nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. But an hour is coming, it is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Now that says to me that in the New Covenant, worship of God is not associated with any particular building or temple or place. Arthur Wallace, an English Bible teacher, said, in the Old Testament, God had a sanctuary for his people. In the New, God has a people as a sanctuary. And Paul asked in Corinthians, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? And Peter wrote that you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house. Charles Spurgeon asked, does God need a house? He who made the heavens and the earth, does he dwell in temples made with hands? What crass ignorance this is. John Havlick, a Southern Baptist pastor, wrote, the church is never a place, but always a people. Never a fold, but always a flock. Never a sacred building, but always a believing assembly. The church is you who pray, not where you pray. So what's the point? The function of a New Testament church is best carried out by the form of the New Testament church. And since every New Testament letter written to a church was written to a church it met in someone's home, the activities described in the New Testament work better in a smaller setting. That's why our premise is that smaller churches have strategic, divinely designed size advantages. So we've looked at practical advantages of small churches. We've considered expert testimony. We looked at the semantics of the word ecclesia. We've looked at biblical temple theology and the change from Old Testament to New Testament. But there's more. Let's look at scriptural evidence. In the New Testament, we find house churches, not church houses. M.J. Selman of Spurgeon's College, the theme of the household of God undoubtedly owed much to the function of the house in early Christianity as a place of meeting and fellowship. Scripture says that Prisca and Aquila had a church that met in their house. Nympha is mentioned as hosting a church in her house. Philemon had a church that met in his house. Aquila and Priscilla, in a different city, continued to host a church in their house. James writes about an assembly that had a footstool in it. Well, you find footstools in private homes, not church buildings. William Hendrickson wrote, since in the first and second centuries church buildings, in the sense in which we think of them today, were not yet in existence, families would hold services in their own homes. So what's the point of all this? The function of a New Testament church is best carried out by the form of the New Testament church. It is a fact that every New Testament letter written to a church was written to a church that met in someone's home, and therefore the activities it describes, such as disciple making, work better in a smaller setting. That's why our premise is that smaller churches have strategic divinely designed size advantages. And some of the benefits, we've talked about them. Closeness, intimacy, simplicity, ease of multiplication, one another ministry, face-to-face fellowship, puts teeth into holiness. It makes participatory worship meaningful. The Lord's Supper is an agape love feast family meal. It's more significant. Congregational consensus is achievable. There's much less bureaucracy and management problems. So we looked at small church advantages, we looked at expert testimony, we've looked at the meaning of ecclesia, we've looked at temple theology, we've considered the scriptural evidence, and now let's consider exactly what size were these first century homes the churches met in? We need to look at this to see if we can figure out what is the ideal size for church to most effectively make disciples. Archaeologists from Yale University wrote, the first Christian congregations worshipped in private houses, meeting at the homes of wealthier members on a rotating basis. For example, Philemon, who hosted a church in his home, was wealthy enough to own slaves. Lydia, who hosted a church in her home, was a seller of purple, a very expensive dye. It would be almost like being a Mercedes salesman. When you sell things that expensive, there's usually a high commission to go with it. She had her own home, complete with servants. Aquila and Priscilla were involved with the evidently lucrative first century trade of tent making. Paul, in his tent making, was able to support not only himself, but his traveling companions. Gaius is mentioned as hosting a church in Corinth, a church big enough for the entire church of the city to meet in his home. And we'll see in just a minute that that was a big home. How big was it? Well, we know that in Corinth there was only one congregation with many people in it. Gaius is said to host the whole church. The greeting in Paul's letter to the church in Corinth was to the church in Corinth, not the churches in Corinth. Paul talks about church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5, and he says, when you are assembled together, put a man out. Obviously, the entire church, the only church, everyone assembled together in the same place. There was problems in their communion. The rich did not want to eat with the poor. They accomplished that not by meeting elsewhere, but by meeting early in the only one place that the church met. In 1 Corinthians 14, describing a worship service, Paul talks about when the whole church comes together. So we've got one house church in Corinth with a lot of people in it. Paul mentions many different spiritual gifts operative in that church, such as wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, revelation, prophecy, distinguishing spirits, tongues, interpretation, helps, administration, teaching. And it seems not only were there great many different gifts, but there were multiple people with the same gift, so much so that he has to regulate the number of people who can use the same gift in a meeting. There was a healthy number of people there. He had a big enough house to host that many. So what size were their homes? Here is a floor plan of an actual first century Roman villa. The typical Roman villa didn't have outside windows because of security concerns. They did have large open spaces on the inside to let light in and fresh air. So typically the rooms at front of the street were businesses, they were shops that were rented out to business owners. So you see at the bottom of the screen there in the rooms labeled Q, those were shops. Now, letter B is a hallway between the shops into a large area called the atrium. Typically it was open to the outside, had an impluvium in the middle of it to catch the water. Through that into room G, that's the business office, you go into letters K and J, which was a large semi-covered garden, also called a peristyle. So you've got these large areas where numbers of people can meet. So here Exhibit A is a drawing of a typical Roman villa. If you look to the left-hand side of the screen, you'll see the shops. In between the two shops is a hallway to the atrium. Through that was the business office into the large garden or peristyle area. Exhibit B is similar. Here you've got shops on two sides of the building, but again you see the opening for the atrium and then a very large opening for the peristyle. Now here is an actual photograph of a first century Roman villa atrium. Jerome Murphy O'Connor in his study of six different first century Roman villas found the average in an atrium with 800 square feet. Here's another Roman villa atrium. You can see it's a good-sized room. Here's yet another. In this photograph, you see people walking around. It gives you a feel for the size of these atriums in the Roman villas. Here's a photograph of one as it would have looked new, not so rustic as in the archaeological photographs. So the question you have to ask yourself, and we're trying to determine should we do house churches today, well, do you have a room that is this big in your house? That's obviously going to affect the size of how big these early church meetings were. The ESV study Bible says early Christian churches met in homes. There is extensive archaeological evidence from many sites showing that some homes were structurally modified to hold such churches. So we already saw they had big rooms in them and now we find out they're modifying these Roman villas to hold a few more people. For example, there is one Roman villa that hosted a house church in a city called Dura Europis, Fort Europe. The home was located on the outer defensive wall and the Romans built a second interior defensive wall after the city was built and they filled everything in between with rubble, entombing these homes and businesses and even a synagogue. So they found this pretty well-preserved Roman villa that they found out the church met in. They know that because of the murals on the wall, some of the earliest Christian artwork. There's a mural of Jesus healing the man and tells the lame man to pick up his bed and walk. There's a mural of Jesus and Peter walking on the water, and also of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Well, when you look at this home, and we're trying to figure out how big were these first century Roman villas, the Yale University archaeologist estimated it could hold 65 to 70 people. If you look at this drawing, the center room there was the atrium. They had tiled over the impluvium and put benches around the walls. And then in a side room, they had torn out a wall, put a raised platform at one end, It's speculated that perhaps that's where they did some teaching or training sessions there. We do know from the Book of Acts that there were 120 in the upper room, which was somebody's home. So what's the point? Well, sociologists tell us about something called the Rule of 150. Malcolm Gladwell wrote, the size of a group can make a big difference. Crossing the 150 line is a small chain that can make a big difference. Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, observed that military units are typically under 150 because orders can be implemented and unruly behavior controlled on the basis of personal loyalties and direct man-to-man contacts. The Hutterites, for example, an Anabaptist group, for hundreds of years have had a policy that whenever a colony reaches 150, it is divided. They discovered that over this number, people became divided and alienated. Bill Gross, one of their leaders, said that keeping things under 150 just seems to be the best and most efficient way to manage a group of people. When things get larger than that, people become strangers to one another. And so the point is, in keeping with the New Testament example, the ideal size for a congregation today might be the same number of people that could fit into a first century Roman villa. We're not talking about thousands of people in a single church. We're not even talking about hundreds of people in a single church, but rather scores of believers. but there's more to consider. How should that impact the idea of a modern Western house church? My ministry, NTRF, worked with house churches for over 30 years, from Maine to Florida, and we learned a few things. First thing we learned is modern house churches, well, they're just too small to have the same health of a New Testament house church. Our houses are a lot different than first century Roman villas. For example, can your home hold 65, 75 people? Most of ours can't. Also, a modern Western house church is so small there's not a lot of financial strength there. It's difficult to support widows and orphans in their need. It's difficult to support missionaries and qualified pastors. Also, it doesn't look like the Holy Spirit gifted enough elders for every micro-church to have its own qualified leadership, and too often you have a situation of the blind leading the blind. There's also a shortage of teachers in modern house churches. The fellowship's great. The teaching is not so good. Even if you do get 65 or 70 people into your house, maybe you could take out a load-bearing wall, then there's the problem of what to do with the cars. Now, that's a problem first century believers didn't have. Your neighbors are not going to be happy if every week, Sunday after Sunday, all the streets around your house are choked up with automobiles that it takes to bring 65 or 70 people to church. Another dynamic that we didn't anticipate at first is, well, house church is countercultural. We in the West have a 1,500 year tradition of meeting in church buildings. And so house church is countercultural, and it attracts a lot of countercultural people. There was even a house church conference once, and one of the topics was, how many dysfunctional people can you have in a single house church before it destroys the church? So traditionally minded Christians view house churches with suspicion and it attracts a very high percentage of counter-cultural people. So what size were New Testament congregations? What size might be the ideal congregation that most effectively make disciples? Well, we would suggest going by the Goldilocks rule. Not too many, not too little, but just the right number. Not thousands, Not hundreds, but not tens of people either. Scores of believers. So we've looked at small church advantages. We've looked at expert testimony. We've looked at the semantics of the word ecclesia. We've looked at Old and New Testament temple theology. We've considered scriptural evidence. We've considered what the ideal size is. Now, let's look at some practical ideas for small spaces. Charles Price, late director of the San Antonio Baptist Association, said that the typical cost to plant a new church in the United States is an astounding two million dollars. Jim Henry, pastor of First Baptist Orlando, said, our two church plants are going to cost us about $2,450,000 over a three-year period. So I would suggest that we think twice before spending big money on buildings that sit empty most of the week. Money that arguably is better spent on evangelism, benevolence, missionaries, pastors. Most people that know about these things will say that Christianity appears to be receding in the West and in the United States. I know of a Southern Baptist seminary professor who advises the seminarians that they should be prepared to be bivocational pastors of a small church, because there won't be enough people in the church to support them. If that's true, consider this. The church planter himself has housing costs. He's got to live somewhere. So if the church planter or pastor could rent or buy a suitable home to host the church, that would free up funds otherwise going for rent to support him and give the church a place to meet. Church funds otherwise diverted to a building. There are requirements for a suitable house though. Charles Spurgeon said there would be a great deal of good done if persons who have large rooms in their houses would endeavor to get together little congregations. So one prerequisite is the house should have a very large meeting room that can hold scores of believers. It might be necessary to add on to the house. There needs to be ample and discreet parking. off-street parking. Maybe a house could be rented across from a school or business that's closed on Sundays, or a house with a large enough lot that you can get the cars off the street onto the property. And ideally, this house should be on a busy street. Even if you get all the cars off the street, people don't like a lot of cars driving through their neighborhood every Sunday, so if it could be on a busy street, that's more ideal. Searching out the right house is worth the effort. The right house has a big room, ample parking, on a busy street. Now, if you need to rent the dynamic equivalent, then maybe a restaurant would work. You're going to be eating anyway if you have the Lord's Supper as a meal. A storefront situation, a school cafeteria, community center, apartment clubhouse, but wherever it is, as much as possible, it should have a homey feel with homey furnishings. A large enough meeting area to hold, what, 120 people? And when you arrange the room, don't put all the chairs in a row. There's no reason for that. At least put them in a semi-circle so people can see each other. It should have a kitchen and a dining area in it. It should be child-friendly, safe play area for the kids. If there's a long fellowship time after church, it's got to be somewhere for those kids to go where they are safe. And as we've already seen, it should have plentiful parking. So in conclusion, we're saying that smaller churches are a divine design because the function of a New Testament church is best carried out by the form of the New Testament church. We want you to think small in a really big way. To think small without being small-minded. New churches grow faster than established churches. So we're arguing for growth through multiplication of other smaller churches. To continually train up and send out new leaders and new groups, clusters of people should be sent out. We want you to be a small church that starts new small churches that start other small churches. As I said before, there are 400,000 churches in America with an average size of 100. If only 10% start a new church in the next five years, that would be 40,000 new churches. That's something to get excited about. The point is, every New Testament letter written to a church was written to a church that meets in someone's home. The function of a New Testament church is best carried out by the form of the New Testament church because the activities in the New Testament were designed to work in smaller settings. That's why our premise is that smaller churches have strategic, divinely designed size advantages if they play to their relational strengths. Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us. Arguably, small size is an ancient church tradition given by Jesus and the apostles for effective ministry. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. If you want to read more about this, we have a book on growth strategies Jesus left the early church called New Testament Church Dynamics. You can get it off our website, ntrf.org. You can also find MP3s, listen to this and other talks as you drive. We have a workbook to help you teach this called The Practice of the Early Church. It's laid out in Socratic format. And we have videos on YouTube that are like pastoral tutorials on growth strategies of the ancient church. You'll find a persuasion strategy for consensus, a communion strategy for community, a worship strategy for participation and edification, and a traditions strategy for success in ministry. I'm Stephen Atkerson, New Testament Reformation Fellowship. Thanks for watching. This message was produced by the New Testament Reformation Fellowship, reforming today's church with New Testament church practices. Permission is hereby granted for you to reproduce this message. You can find us on the web at www.ntrf.org. May God bless you as you seek to follow Him in complete obedience to His Word. May your faith in the Lord Jesus be strengthened and your daily walk with Him deepened. ? ?