An Assembly of God church in Detroit, Michigan has taken an old idea for a church and revived it, AG News reports.

Throughout the New Testament, we see several references to churches that were meeting in people’s homes. It seems initially they were allowed to meet corporately at the temple in Jerusalem, but along with that they were meeting in people’s homes to break bread, which was a reference to communion celebrations.

“Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes” (Acts 2:46).

They were eventually forbidden from meeting at the temple in Jerusalem and as the church spread out to other cites, the early believers began to meet in homes.

We see many mention of these house churches.

This included one in the home of Mary, the mother of Mark (Acts 12:12), and another that met in Cornelius’ home (Acts 10:23-26). We also know that Priscilla and Aquila had one in Rome (Romans 16:3-5) and later started another one in Ephesus (1 Corinthians 16:19).

There was also a church meeting in the home of Nympha who lived in Laodicea (Colossians 4:15) and Lydia in Phillipi (Acts 16:40).

This is the pattern that Pastor Art Thomas, who started Roots Assembly of God, followed in Detroit in 2011. He was pastoring a mid-sized AG church at the time, when God impressed on him the idea of starting a house church.

As the group grew, a second house church spit off in 2015, and a third one was created in 2018. A year later, Roots AG was officially incorporated as its own church.

It now has 10 house churches in the city with an average attendance of 300 and plans are in the works to start three more house churches.

It has a group of leaders, who oversee the network and help train future house church leaders.

Aside from the weekly house meetings, twice a month the network gathers on a Sunday evening for a time of corporate worship and fellowship.

The smaller setting allows for more hands on discipleship and ministry.

Alex Perry and his wife Gracie were part of the network’ first house church and now lead their own group.

In an interview with AG News, Alex said that he noticed “how my personal discipleship was accelerating much faster than it had in a traditional church.”

His wife Gracie added that the smaller size offers the opportunity for “everyone to minister to each other,” and because of this she “started to see a lot of spiritual growth in herself and others.”