House to House

"And they were continually devoting themselves ... day by day, house to house." (Acts 2:46)

House to house. That is how it actually spread, and every time the church forgets it, the church calcifies, and then it dies, and then someone in a living room somewhere starts it again. The book of Acts has no buildings and no budget and no brand, and the movement went through the Roman Empire like fire through a dry field. It went house to house. Through dinner tables and courtyards and shared meals and people saying, come and eat with us, come and see what has happened to me. Through neighbors. Through the woman down the street who was somehow different now and would not stop being kind to you.

You cannot outsource this. There is no program that can do for your street what you could do for your street, and the honest reason we keep hunting for one is that a program does not cost us our Saturday. A program lets us fund the mission instead of being the mission, and it feels like obedience while quietly protecting our calendar.

The kingdom of God is spread by people willing to be inconvenienced by their own address. That is the whole method, and it has never changed. Open the door. Set one more place. Let the people who live near you into the ordinary rooms of your life, and let them see what has happened to you. Fire does not travel through brochures. It travels through tables.