Going To Church in the First Century: An Eyewitness Narrative of Early Christian Worship and Community Life

By Robert Banks

Book Overview

What was it really like to attend a Christian gathering in the first century?

In this vivid narrative, Robert Banks reconstructs a house-church meeting in Rome through the eyes of an outsider, offering readers an immersive and historically grounded glimpse into early Christian worship and community life.

Set in mid-first-century Rome, the story follows Publius as he attends a gathering hosted by Aquila and Prisca. Through shared meals, prayer, discussion, singing, Scripture reading, and mutual care, readers witness the simplicity, warmth, and spiritual vitality of early Christian fellowship.

Drawing from biblical, literary, and archaeological sources, Banks combines careful scholarship with storytelling to illuminate:

- How early Christians worshiped in homes

- The role of meals, prayer, and spiritual gifts

- Community decision-making and pastoral care

- Fellowship across social and economic divisions

- The contrast between ancient gatherings and modern church practice

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

- Christians exploring authentic community life

- Small groups and church discussion settings

- Students of early Christianity

- Readers interested in historical faith narratives

Accessible yet deeply thoughtful, Going to Church in the First Century offers a fresh perspective on what church once was-and invites readers to reflect on what it might still become.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0940232375
• ISBN13: 9780940232372
• Release Date: December 2011
• Publisher: Seedsowers
• Length: 66 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.0" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Excellent thought provocation

This short fictional rendering based on historical information available gives a refreshing glimpse into something of what being the "church" must have been like in the early days. I've already passed it on to several folks who, after reading it, felt similar to me... we wanted more. If you wrestle with what you see as "church" and are wondering how the early Christ Followers might have been the church you definitely should read this one.

Puts 1 Corinthians 14:26 In Context

Robert Barnes is a scholar. I would argue that he is one of the most gifted scholars in the entire house church movement. This book can show you why I feel that way. Barnes does his research. He is not merely writing what he thinks the Church looked like in the first century but he dives into Church History itself to show you historically what it looked like. The book takes 1 Corithians 14:26 and applies it to the house churches listed in the New Testament. In the end, Banks does a wonderful job of showing the reader how radically different our church "services" are today compared to the first century. Banks then tells us how to apply the apostolic traditions (1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:6) to our current churches whether traditional or house churches. A must read for those longing for pure worship of God and not the worship of men (Mark 7:1-13).

WARNING!

WARNING: This book could turn your world upside down! When we look at the Book of Acts, it's clear that church was much, much more than punching the clock on Sunday morning-it was a way of life. The church also wasn't any particular building or institution-it consisted of communities of friends, family members, co-workers, and neighbors who gathered together in homes for worship, prayer, reading Scripture (including the Gospels and Epistles as they became available), fellowship, and a communion meal. Unlike other recent books on house church, this book doesn't try to present an argument for house churches, it just depicts a very accurate but simple story of what it would have been like to attend a church meeting in the 1st Century. Read it and you'll realize that church was more like a family barbecue than whatever it is we've turned it into today. Utilizing relational house churches today might be a great way to reach people who don't want to attend an institutionalized meeting in a church building, but value the opportunity to gather with family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors in a manner similar to the church of the 1st Century.

Eye-opening account of First Century church

When I was growing up, I would read accounts of church in the Bible and see in my mind rows of pews facing a pulpit. My own experience of church distorted my reading of Scripture. But even for those of us who have long since quit visualizing rows of pews when we read accounts of New Testament worship, the tendency to read our own experience back onto the text, and so to miss much of what was really going on, is always at work.Almost every congregation I work with as a consultant likes to think of itself as a New Testament church, yet every one of them, in very basic ways, ignores many of the core principles that shaped the New Testament church. Not intentionally, to be sure, but out of ignorance of how the New Testament church related or from a largely unexamined assumption that some very radical differences between New Testament practices and ours are superficial, with no consequence for the vitality of church life or the effectiveness of its mission.This carefully researched fictionalized account of a first century house church meeting gives the reader the flavor of a community worship experience that few of us have personally experienced, and so gives us a glimpse of what we may be missing when we settle for "church as usual." And it can show us just how far we have strayed from the New Testament pattern with some of our modern practices and concerns.A couple of churches I have worked with have struggled with the question, "Is it okay to have meals in the church building?" In the house church meeting dramatized in this booklet, the fellowship meal is the central event of the worship. In emphasizing the importance of eating together for nurturing Christian community, I have told some churches that for the New Testament church, the question would not be, "Is it okay to have a meal at church?" but rather, "Is it possible to have church without eating together?"For anyone who wants to catch the flavor of what going to church in the first century was like, this booklet is a delightful read.

Visitor to an early Christian house church tells about it.

Robert Banks, together with his late wife, Julie, have been leading voices in the movement of Christians away from the institutional church and back to the homes, where it all started.In this book, Dr. Banks sets forth a fictional account of a visit to a first-century house church. Sharing a meal, talking about the simple things of ordinary life, praying together -- a picture of what it means to BE the church, instead of just going to church.