How to Have a Home Church (Part 1) – What a Real Home Church Needs

I even know of one of the colleges in my own denomination that had a man like this, and he was the president of it. He began teaching the students how to know the Lord, getting those kids praying and touching the Lord. This was a long, long time ago, and they removed him from the college almost immediately. I don’t know why. Because he didn’t fit; that was a college, not a seminary.

Now, I say this to everyone who ever hears this. You’re not prepared to raise up a home church, for it’s a whole different world. I’ll tell you what this world is like. First of all, it’s a community. These people right here in this room, they gossip about one another. They go home and complain about one another. They tell stories about one another. They’ll even go so far as to say, did you know that Mary is really in trouble? She and her husband are really having a hard time with their two kids; they’re drinking beer and whiskey, and we should really pray for them. They actually get to know one another. And I’ll tell you something else; that’s one.

Number two, you can’t teach the Bible. Furthermore —number two, this is still number two—you don’t know it. I’ll tell you why you don’t know it. You don’t know it because it’s arranged in chaos. And if you ever learn it in the order in which it happened, you’ll probably have to leave the ministry. That’s just knowing the story. So, you’re disqualified for raising up a church, because there’s nothing spiritual, and you don’t know the Scripture. What you’re going to be doing is preaching sermons and pretty things. I will stand in front of every Bible scholar on this earth and say, you do not know the Scripture if you do not know the New Testament in its chronological order, with the events and times and places. Because when you do, everything changes. So, if you wish to do this, learn the story. Learn the New Testament in the order in which it was written. Then you might be able to say you know something about the Scripture.

There is also a third thing, and that’s just the evangelical mindset. It doesn’t matter what denomination it is, or anything else, or where you go. It’s one mindset. You’re going to have to deal with it sitting in that living room, and it has to be pulled out, and that’s not easy to do. One reason is that the one doing the pulling down also has that same mindset. It takes some humility for all of us to sit down and realize we have a need.

Two passages of Scripture nullify the idea that only teaching the Bible will do it. One of them is, “Without the Father I can do nothing, and without Me you can do nothing.” It is Christ, and it is Christ, and it is Christ, and it is Christ. He can be known, and He can be touched, but you’re going to have to know Him and touch Him first. And that New Testament must become a great revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone.

Eventually, you will run out of things to say, and eventually you will turn to legalism because God’s people that you’re working with are so thick-headed, and they’re so sinful, and they’re so rebellious, and they’re so wrong. You were given the worst group of people God ever put together in one house, and you’re working with them, and you’re giving up on them, and they’re not obeying the Word of God like they’re supposed to, and the Bible says if you obey the Word of God, and this and this and this will happen.

Then it won’t happen, because it’s a bootstrap religion. You’re asking them to do something outside of “without Me you can do nothing.” You cannot do anything without it being Christ, Christ, Christ. So, I would say to you all, you have to start somewhere else, and the first place you start is on your own life.

Now, there are some other things I would like to add to this little chat with you tonight. I have never met a home church that had outreach. Ever. Anywhere. Exceptions? Yeah. The ones that I started. Well, Gene, what makes you so hot? Very simple. I’m the world’s leading authority on the subject. I may not have any other claims to fame in the world, but I wrote the largest-selling book on soul winning that’s ever been written or sold. And you know, I’m wrestling with something I never thought, as long as I lived, that I would ever wrestle with. I am actually thinking about, not with a great happiness either, writing something about how to win people to Jesus Christ. Maybe I can start it off by saying how a home church can lead souls to Jesus Christ. There is such a thought that has not even entered the mind of man.

I want you to know, I’m telling you now, and I said to you before, I never met anyone in all my ministry, in citywide soul-winning campaigns, who knew how to know the Lord. I taught a man how to win people to Christ, and he took it and was so good at it, and he turned his church into a soul-winning church. He was hired at my seminary and put in charge of evangelism. Today, he’s been there so long, and he is idolized because he can tell people how to win people to Christ. They have actually set up a chair now; you don’t know what that means, but they have endowed a chair of evangelism, and it carries his name. He’s one of the oldest professors there at that seminary today, and he is the most revered professor there because he knows better than any man how to lead people to Christ.

I held a citywide campaign in his city, and he was the one who got the ministers to invite me there. He was the local head of the campaign, and it took. It was one of the few things that did take. Now, for some reason, I do not know, they have moved away from personal evangelism, and I don’t know why that happens, but it does. It always moves away. One reason is that it’s as scary as it can be to walk up to somebody and say to yourself, “I want to talk to this person about the Lord and lead them to salvation.” What do I do next? In fact, what do I do first?

And you’re not going… a house church, a church that meets in a home, will not grow. The reason is, one, you’re stuck on teaching the Bible, not Christ. Second, you don’t know how to lead people to Christ. And thirdly, they don’t know how to lead people to Christ, and you’re not leading people to Christ. Therefore, you’re not even a church. You’re a bless-me club. Now, I’m not going to put anyone in this room under condemnation. I will never ask you to go out, knock on doors, and lead people to Christ, but I will accept volunteers.

So, I’m going to tell you a few stories. I think I was 25 when I wrote a book entitled Here’s How to Win Souls. I’m also the fellow that not only put it in print, but I also took it out of print. It was a little bit mechanical, but it was an honest book from somewhere. I taught for a long time, calling it soul winning for cowards, because that’s what it was for.