House Churches | St. Columba's Episcopal Church

St. Columba's is launching a new worship opportunity, and we'd love for you to be involved! Very simply, the new initiative is to ask members of the parish to host small groups in their backyard for prayer and fellowship.
We imagine that this might look no more complicated than a small group of people sitting outside at an appropriate distance reading a scripture passage, listening to a sermon, saying a few prayers, and sharing in the Eucharist.

This Week at House Church

Download this week's Bulletin

Missed last week's sermon? Catch up here.
Interested in participating in small group worship? Contact Joshua Daniel.

Organizing your House Church

Step One

Logistical Questions for Hosts to Consider

Where will you meet? In your backyard, in a park?
How many people will be able to meet there safely and comfortably?
When will you meet? (Any time after the Eucharistic elements are blessed until Sunday is appropriate.)
Will there be children there? (Please ask parents to consider ground rules.)
What will you provide (water, access to restrooms), what will you ask others to bring?
How will you play the sermon (video/audio or just audio)? Consider using an external speaker.
How will you have participants sign the Covenant for Regathering? Consider having copies available.

Pastoral Questions for Hosts to Consider

Think ahead of time what elements of the bulletin you will use and what, if anything, you might add.
Consider who you will ask to read (for instance) the Scripture.
Consider who might help MC a conversation about the sermon.
Consider what prayer time will be like. Some groups may go around the circle asking for thanksgivings and prayer requests. Some groups may read through the Prayers of the People and allow time for the group to add in their own prayers.

Handling the Eucharist

Using one-time use, disposable cups (like “dixie cups”) for distributing the bread and wine

Step Two

If you would like your small group to participate in the Eucharist, Joshua Daniel invites you to a short community Eucharist on Thursdays at 7 pm in St. Columba's courtyard. At this service Joshua will consecrate additional bread and wine for you to take and share with your group. The church will supply the bread, please bring an unopened bottle of wine.

Please RSVP to attend this service at St. Columba's. If you can't attend, but would still like to have elements blessed for your group, please contact Joshua Daniel directly to coordinate dropping off/picking up supplies.

We worship a living God who calls us forth to renew our faith and live boldly for the time we are given. Some of you may be willing to attend House Church, but understandably may not be able to participate in this way. We give thanks for our church, that is vibrant in so many different ways. Thank you all for your gifts of wisdom, discernment, and service!

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The Rev. Dr. Joshua Daniel

Associate Rector for Discipleship and Worship

202-363-4119

A Reflection on House Churches

What role has the "house church" played in our tradition?

In the first three months since COVID-19 has disrupted our normal worship practices we have pursued a distinctly 21st Century response: a simplified digital worship experience that preserved many of our core values of corporate worship (reading scripture, praying, singing, preaching, and blessing).

They have preserved many, though not all of our core values. Our inability to gather as a corporate body has also meant, quite literally, that we have not been able to share in the Body of Christ. In response to a crisis not in our control we have appropriately abstained from this form of sacramental worship. But for more than a generation the calling of the Episcopal community to table fellowship has defined us and the task of discerning its restoration is paramount.

As our communities emerge from strict isolation, we are afforded another opportunity to exercise a creative and faithful response to this particularly defined moment for our parish. What will it look like to worship in each other’s presence in this continued age of social distancing? We need to find environments that are both natural for small groups to gather and also flexible enough to adjust to the particular needs and contexts of different groups.

Fortunately the Church has already experimented with one such model. It's perhaps the oldest model in our tradition for sacramental worship: the 1st Century house church. After the Resurrection, the church met in houses. In houses, at first, because that’s where Jesus found them. But in the weeks and months (and for the more than two hundred years) that followed they met in houses, in part, because of persecution, but mostly because those early Christians had neither institutional credibility nor the monetary assets to access large public gathering spaces. The church met in rather disorganized fashion in the only context they could: the homes they lived in.

And so we find ourselves, nearly two millennia later. The Body of Christ dispersed into the world yet without access to large public meeting spaces. In this moment might we return to where we started?

The Rev. Dr. Joshua Daniel