The House Church and Its Worship

At the local level, the New Testament church was a house church; Christians met for worship in small groups in the homes of those members who might be wealthier or have larger houses. In a larger city, the church might meet in a number of house churches. In the New Testament, the word church may refer to the universal church, the church in a particular city, or the individual house church, which was part of the larger congregation. The Universal Church and the Local Church In the New Testament, the Greek word ekklsia (usually translated "church") is used primarily in two ways: (1) to describe a meeting or an assembly and (2) to designate the people who participate in such assembling together-whether they are actually assembled or not. The New Testament contains a few places that speak of a secular Greek assembly (Acts 19:32, 41); everywhere else speaks of a Christian assembly. Sometimes the word ekklsiais used to designate the actual meeting together of Christians. This is certainl…