As we move into this new season, the experimenting with new models for doing church differently in the third millennium, has significant unforeseen possibilities. Not only for how we meet, but when and where and in what size these meetings can take place for the optimum release of God’s people. Along with the classic home cell meeting as the historic backbone of New Testament church life, two other sized meetings offer great flexibility and creativity for a new apostolic network model of meeting in a specific city or region or area.
In his classic book, The Normal Christian Church Life, Watchman Nee notes that there were at least two different kinds of meetings that were fundamental to New Testament Christians. He called them church meetings and apostolic meetings. The first was the meeting of the church for itself and the second was a meeting for the work of the church, or the mission and/or the apostolic vision of the church.
In the first of these meetings, the church meetings, everyone contributes for the purpose of mutual edification. In the latter, the apostolic meetings, leaders teach and equip, releasing the character of the work of the church, that of a permissional /missional sending dynamic.
In the church meetings, each one has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation, I Corinthians 14:26. Here the case was not so much individuals leading and others listening, but rather each contributing, and sharing what he/she brings to the meeting. Even though only a few of those present will actually contribute in any given meeting, all may. And whereas, again, a few are actual contributors, all are potential contributors.
So, we have the cell, or the smaller home group meetings of saints gathered in homes for the breaking of bread and fellowship, intimacy and nurture We have the medium-sized or clustered church meetings, in which shepherding/elders facilitate, but all the brethren are free to take part in. And then we have the apostolic meetings that are led by apostolic/prophetic leaders. These three gatherings, these three different expressions, these three different ways of meeting, can be experimented with to find out what best works for any given area, region, community or city.
With these three potential meetings in the life of the church, the small group meeting (cells), Acts 2:46, the medium-sized church meeting (clusters ), I Corinthians 14:26 and the larger apostolic meeting (celebrations), Acts 13:15 - 41; I Timothy 4:13, anything is possible.
The Old Testament seems to carry with it a similar breakdown of group sizes which, when seen in terms of group dynamics, can give us a pretty effective grid for doing meetings with different sizes, different flows and different purposes. Some have called this the Jethro II Principle, as it refers to the counsel given by Jethro to Moses, his son-in-law, in order to help facilitate the gathering of Israel in different sized groupings for maximum administration and care. In Exodus 18:21, Jethro gives counsel to Moses to administrate the people of God in groups of tens, groups of fifties, groups of hundreds and groups of thousands.
One of my early mentors, Don Pickerill began sharing these principles of how to meet in these numerically-defined groups as far back as the early 1980’s.
If we are going to really embrace this Third Day Church apostolic movement, then let’s begin by experimenting with more than one way to meet. Let’s see what happens when we meet in tens, fifties and hundreds.
The word ASAROT is the Hebrew word for the number of ten, which represents the smallest division into which Moses put the people of God for the purposes of wise administration. These small groups are home-based, inter-generational meetings, where we share our lives on a regular basis, make our needs known to each other, and bear each others burdens. This tends to happen best through a weekly meeting in our homes around the joy of a shared common meal and the restored richness of the Lord’s Supper, Acts 2:46.
As Wolfgang Simson shares in Houses That Change The World: Since it is quite difficult to feed a cathedral full of people real food, it (The Lord’s Supper) has degenerated into a religious and symbolic ritual, offering microscopic sips of wine and a small wafer, often only to the ‘clergy’ while the masses look on in pious amazement. This has meant that the Lord’s Supper is a supper no more, and lost its powerful meaning, the unprecedented, revolutionary reality, of a redeemed people, irrespective of classes and caste sharing real food with a prophetic meaning, having dinner with God, expecting His physical presence at any time.
William Barclay writes: The celebration of the Lord’s Supper in a Christian home in the first century and in a cathedral in the twentieth century cannot be more different, they bear no relationship to each other whatsoever.
There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why he uses material things like bread and wine to get the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it. C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity.
Church, in reality, is really meant to be a collection of home churches. It is clear that the vibrancy of church life is directly tied to your connections with people. In other words, if you don't really know others, church life is nothing more than another form of social isolation (and American church life already has way too much of that), or even as one brother called it, "A Rotary Club with tongues."
The church is supposed to be a connected body of people, not just in name, but in reality. We must try harder to let our actions demonstrate how we feel by structuring a church where the Small Groups (or House Churches) take precedence over the larger groups or celebrations.
As shared on the house churching website www.vineyardcentral.com, "These small gatherings of a house church are like a family, while the large gathering on the weekends is like the family reunion. As important and fun as real life family reunions can be, they are not even possible or practical without first having the family relationship that precedes the reunion. So, here we think small, not big!"
"The house church is where you can get to know people, get questions answered, grow spiritually, serve alongside others, share meals, eating with each other and with God, and express your faith face-to-face, in real time with actual people. It's true, hands-on church. It's not an antiseptic, sterile, and lifeless form of church life, where you punch your card in some religious time-clock on your way in and out of a building. Rather, it's an attempt to express faith in the truest of all places: in daily life and among broken people."
The Hebrew word Chameshem is the number fifty, again taken directly from Exodus 18:21, and is the second administrative grouping of the people of God. It possibly represents one of the best ways, if understood geographically, to gather several groups together in a given area for the effective expression of cooperation and participation. Chameshems are not meant to replace the whole body, but rather make possible a type of meeting in which all ages, including children, can participate.
The central principle behind the Chameshem meeting seems to be best defined as "a spirit of prophecy."
Even before the advent of the Holy Spirit, when prophecy rested on a choice few, Moses yearned and longed for the coming day of maturity when all God’s people would become ministers and speak on God’s behalf. "Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!" Numbers 11:29.
The Chameshem assumes that all believers are ministers and every one, without exception, has something to contribute and share. Graham Cook writes: "People who feel insignificant remain ineffective and small. They become grasshoppers in their own sight and may never inherit all that Jesus died to give them," A Divine Confrontation.
Jean Vanier comments that, "we have to create structures which encourage everyone to participate, and especially the shy people. Those who have the most light to shed often dare not show it; because they are afraid of appearing stupid. They do not recognize their own gift.. perhaps because others haven't recognized it either."
 | A Chameshem is based upon the full priesthood of all believers with mutual edification and mutual
up building for the purpose of personal strengthening, similar to the model that we find in I Corinthians 14:26.
| A Chameshem is a meeting centered around interactive worship and outreach, through prayers, songs, dance, mime, art, exhortation, etc., Ephesians 5:19.
| In a Chameshem meeting even the children could have a “song,” and these expressions of worship and outreach may or may not be necessarily led by designated worship leaders and/or worship teams.
| In a Chameshem meeting, each one could have an appropriate “word,” to share, and the reading of the Scripture and the sharing of truth could be both planned and/or spontaneous.
| In the Chameshem meeting, God can and will speak through many individuals. These expressions of “revelation,” can be what the Spirit is saying to the group, or even what the Spirit is saying through one individual to another through edification and encouragement.
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Maot, the word for a number of hundreds in Hebrew, once again shows the prudent administrative potential available as a group reaches this size. The Maot is kind of the all groups gathering with a larger expression than that of an ASAROT or a Chameshem.
There is a principle of group dynamics that says," If everyone in a group cannot potentially do what a single member does, the group dynamic changes." A larger group meeting then, regardless of the actual size, requires a different set of dynamics to make that meeting the most meaningful.
In the larger meetings the emphasis is on the entire group, for the direction of the regional/apostolic church. In these apostolic gatherings, the corporate, prophetic/worship celebration and the gifting of the apostolic/prophetic leaders are needed to cast the vision for the benefit and the equipping of the whole group.