The furnishings of the home – tables, chairs, utensils, a pool for baptism – could become the articles of worship.4 The excavation of a house church at Dura-Europas shows how far the remodeling could be taken: a wall was removed to join two rooms, a small platform was found at one end, and a room opening off the atrium was converted into a decorated baptistry.5 But the house church was a low-cost solution, and it could hide a church in times of persecution.Īt the coming of the Protestant Reformation, for all their differences, the Reformers agreed that worship renewal necessitated a restoration of the laity in worship. Indeed, the tablinum, a reception room and shrine in wealthier homes, could serve as a seat for reading and expounding the Word and for celebrating communion. The main gathering could be in an atrium in good weather or in a dining room throughout the year. Over its first three centuries, the church for the most part had to pour this rich heritage into the small vessel of the family home.3 Evidence is scanty, but it seems that larger homes or apartments were transformed into worship space, and returned after celebration to domestic use. Worship took a form something like the traditional four-fold structure: the church gathered as the baptized people of God, heard the Scriptures read and explained, celebrated the Lord's Supper, and went out into the world as salt and light.2 Prayer, spoken and sung, found substance and pattern in the Psalms, read of course in light of Christ. Worship also involved the reading and explanation of sacred texts, including eventually the New Testament. It involved ceremonial rites of commemoration, formation, mission, and hope, again centered in Christ.
Thus, corporate worship fell into a weekly rhythm within a yearly calendar centered on historic acts of God, rooted now in Christ. The earliest churches inherited a collection of convictions and practices from Judaism, which put an indelible stamp on Christian worship.1 At heart was a conviction that the Old Testament Scriptures were true and authoritative, and that as the people of God by faith in Christ, they held the key to Scriptural interpretation in the person and work of Jesus, with its Trinitarian implications.
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