The Nature of the Church

Study the Scriptures

Read the following passages of Scripture, paying particular attention to the passages in bold: Matt. 16:13–20; Acts 2:46; 5:42; 20:20 (three passages where the people of God meet both in public gatherings AND in homes); 9:31 (the people of God in a region); 1 Cor. 12:28 (offices and gifts for the entire church); Eph. 2:11–22 (the universal church: one new people of God, consisting of both Jews and gentiles).

Think through and Discuss the Questions

As you read the document below, use the following questions to help you analyze what you read. Come prepared to discuss your answers at your next leadership meeting—with other current or aspiring church leaders.

  1. How would you explain the concept of church to someone unfamiliar with the term? What is it? What isn’t it?

  2. “Four Categories or Groupings of “the Church””

    Why are all four of those categories essential? More specifically, what happens when we neglect one or more of those four categories? What happens when we overemphasize one or more of those four categories?

    Which category (or grouping of believers) do you believe Satan would want to attack first? Why?

  3. Why did the first-century Christians meet in homes? Was that practice simply descriptive or might it also have been prescriptive (a model we should follow)? Explain your reasoning.

  4. “Lies People Believe”

    Which of the bullet points in that section did you find helpful for clarifying how self-professing Christians think about “church”? How have you seen these patterns play out in your own or others’ lives?

  5. “Questions for Church Leaders and Those They are Equipping to Lead in the Future”

    How would you answer those questions listed in that section? What answers, if any, might we incorporate into the life of our church or network of churches? What would implementing those concepts look like in practice?

  6. What other questions or comments do you have about this document?

The Nature of the Church

When Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18), what did he mean? How broad or narrow was the concept of church in Jesus’s mind when he said those words? As we will see, there is a simple definition (see the next paragraph), and yet there are at least four perspectives from which we can view and discuss the church (see the rest of this document).

The Bible reveals that the church is not buildings or land or programs. Instead, the church consists of people—God’s people—those who have been saved by grace through faith, who reside both in heaven and on earth, and who live under the lordship of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:11–22; Col. 1:18; Heb. 12:23).

Four Categories or Groupings of “the Church”

The authors of the New Testament use the word church (using the singular form of the Greek word ekklesia) to describe four categories or groupings of Christians. It can refer to:

  1. The people of God who meet in homes: “Greet also the church that meets in their home” (Rom. 16:5; see 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2).

  2. The people of God in a city: “To the church of God at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2; see 2 Cor. 1:1; 1 Thess. 1:1).

    See Acts 2:46; 5:42 (in Jerusalem) and Acts 20:20 (in Ephesus) for categories 1 & 2 in the same verses, though without the word “church”—evidence of a (citywide) church of (house) churches in both Jerusalem and Ephesus.

  3. The people of God in a region: “So the church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was strengthened” (Acts 9:31).

  4. All of God’s people in heaven and/or on earth, for whom Jesus died: “Christ loved the church and gave himself for her” (Eph. 5:25; see 1 Cor. 12:28) (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1,051–1,052).

Each category helps us understand and participate actively in the worldwide body of Christ. For example, many churches focus their attention on category #2 above (a citywide, large group gathering), which is an essential category to consider and implement in the life of churches. However, most citywide gatherings are poorly designed to disciple people holistically, to train them for ministry, and to mobilize them for advancing Jesus’s Great Commission in their homes, in their neighborhoods, and in their other networks. To be fair, the leaders of “category-two-heavy churches” often have different objectives than those listed above for their main Sunday morning time slot, or they train their congregants in other settings.

Nonetheless, clarifying what we are trying to accomplish in each of the four categories is critically important to the proper functioning of a local church; more on that below.

Lies People Believe

These four categories also help us identify where self-professing Christians and churches often go wrong. For example:

  • Some people may view their Bible study group at a coffee shop as an acceptable alternative to participating in a weekly gathering of a local church (whether category #1 or #2), but they have little or no connection to a specific church’s leaders or other congregants.

  • Some people may view “church” as a building (a place they go) or an event (something they watch in person or online) as opposed to viewing themselves as part of the church—assemblies of Christians in the presence of God, yet in various groupings or categories.

  • Some people may think it is sufficient to come and go from citywide gatherings (category #2) without having any context for more intimate fellowship, more intensive study and discussion of the Bible, and more direct encouragement from others (category #1).

  • Some churches may focus on one category to the exclusion of the others—such as a small house church (category #1) that is not connected in any way to Christians throughout its city, its region, or the world (categories 2, 3, or 4). In this way, a gathering of Christians in a tiny house church (perhaps just a pastor and few others) that is disconnected from the rest of the body of Christ is quite vulnerable, particularly as the months and years go by.]

    Or a church may focus on large gatherings in auditoriums (category #2), but they struggle to organize their congregants into smaller gatherings of believers (category #1), which are essential for our growth.

  • Worst of all, some people claim, “I love Jesus, but I have no need to be a part of a local church or to study the Bible with other Christians”—a distorted, tragic, and frankly dangerous statement. Loving and serving Jesus within his church (the Bride he loves and for whom he died!), loving God’s people in the context of Christian community, and cherishing God’s Word—these are some of the hallmarks of Christian maturity.[1]

Those lies and distortions concerning the Bible’s diverse groupings of the church (categories 1 through 4) are precisely what hinder Christians and churches from achieving the balance that is outlined in the New Testament. And from a different perspective, one of the most intense battlegrounds for spiritual warfare takes place in the ways people (including both non-Christians and Christians) view “church.”

If someone wanted to oppose the work of Jesus in and through his church, would it not be shrewd to plant lies like those in the heads of Jesus’s people?

Questions for Church Leaders and Those They are Equipping to Lead in the Future

With the preceding discussion in mind, it is wise for church leaders to consider all of the following questions, not just a few of them, with a view to integrating their answers into a coherent whole:

  1. How do we want category #1 (the people of God meeting in homes, ideally celebrating the Lord’s Supper in the context of sharing meals) to express itself in our church? If the New Testament refers to these gatherings in houses as “churches,” why do so many people (or we) resist that category? If we choose to explore this category further, how should we educate our congregants about this category, and how should we train people to lead in these contexts?

  2. How do we want category #2 (the citywide church or, put differently, gatherings of multiple house churches) to express itself in our church? What objectives do we want to accomplish during those citywide meetings (in light of what we want to accomplish in other contexts)? And depending on how we answer that previous question, what is the best way to organize and conduct those meetings to integrate with and support our involvement in the other three categories?

  3. How do we want categories 3 and 4 to express themselves in our congregation (the regional and worldwide gatherings of the church)? Yes, we should always support diverse missions efforts (like building and supporting Christian orphanages in Nigeria, or digging wells in India). But how, in particular, can we partner with like-minded churches to start, strengthen, and multiply churches in our region and throughout the world? Oftentimes is is easier to contribute money here or there than it is to establish true partnerships in the gospel (Phil. 1:5).

  4. Perhaps just as important as those individual questions, what holistic system are we trying to build? (Obviously our “four-category-church-multiplication model” outlined on this website is very different from a model that begins with and heavily focuses on increasing attendance in auditoriums.) To what extent and in what ways does each of our church’s activities either contribute to or detract from the holistic, systemic vision of our church? That’s why management experts like Jim Collins encourage organizations to create “start doing” lists AND “stop doing” lists.

Our Vision in Relation to the Four Categories

This website outlines our systemic response to those questions and others. Again, our vision is to start, strengthen, and multiply churches—building up the church in four categories: (1) in homes, (2) in cities, (3) in regions, and (4) throughout the world. We do this primarily by casting vision (through our core documents) and providing educational plans and resources (in the areas of evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development). We are not putting forward a recent, novel vision for the church, for isn’t this what Jesus led his apostles to do during the thirty years outlined in the book of Acts?


[1] It is possible that a person who talks this way is truly a Christian, and he or she, for example, has been hurt deeply in a local church, perhaps abused by someone he or she trusted. That is why we must first seek to understand people to avoid saying something unwise or in an ungodly way. However, more often than not, such claims indicate that there are major heart issues that, in time, need to be addressed—such as Is the person truly a Christian? What is the person’s definition of a local church? Why does the person think the church is unnecessary? Does the person view the Bible as his or her foundational source of authority? When faced with such a statement (“I love Jesus, but not the church or the Bible.”), sometimes the best thing we can do is to ask good questions, listen well, probe further, invite the person out for coffee, and look for opportunities to get to the underlying issues. Or, much more directly, read Hebrews 10:24–25 out loud and then discuss: “And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching” (Heb. 10:24–25).