Strawman Argument: No Elders / No Leadership / No Authority

This is a common strawman argument against house churches. It basically states, "House churches are problematic because they don't have elders/pastors, they don't have leadership, and they don't fall under anyone's authority."

The above statement is inaccurate on several points. I'll try to deal with them one-by-one.

First, some house churches have elders/pastors while others do not. For those that don't, they need to do so in order to follow the biblical model. For those that do, the roles of their elders will probably be quite different than what we see pastors do in traditional churches. In house churches, the elders don't dominate the activities like in traditional churches. They are not "up front" for everyone to see. They aren't responsible for doing all the primary teaching. In fact, if you visited a house church on a given Sunday, you might not even know who the elders are.

Traditional churches almost all have elders/pastors (unless they are between pastors because he resigned, was fired, etc.). Although these churches have pastors, the role of these pastors often deviates far from what we see in scripture. They act more like a C.E.O. than a shepherd. Sadly, within the traditional church model, most do not have biblical pastoral roles.

Second, the issue of leadership is related to the issue of pastors. In the traditional church, most of the people look to the pastor(s) for leadership in almost all aspects of church life. This is because of the recognized clergy-laity divide. The church follows the leadership of the pastor(s) until a significant problem arises, then (usually) it becomes time for the pastor to leave. This is not how it is done in house churches. Within house churches, leadership falls to many more people. Although there are (or should be) elders in place, many others will take leadership roles in specific areas of church life. There are clearly areas where only men lead (such as in teaching the body and in judging prophecy). However, it is possible for just about any other person to lead in an area of their gifting. So there is leadership in house churches, but it looks very different from traditional churches.

Third, let me deal with the issue of authority. In the bible, we see churches fall under the authority of the Holy Spirit. He empowers, directs, and guides. I imagine that almost all churches today still agree with this. However, some people (usually pastors) in traditional churches see themselves as being in positions of significant authority over the people in the church. The pastors serve as their authority. The false claim is then made against house churches that they do not fall under anyone's authority because "they don't have pastors." When this is said, what it means is that they don't have someone with a seminary degree or something like that. This is all absurd. We all fall under the authority of the Holy Spirit. Yes, elders do have some leadership role in the church, but to place modern ideas of authority onto the pastoral role is simply unbiblical. House churches fall under the authority of the Holy Spirit instead of under the man-made idea of "strong pastoral authority."

So, in the end, house churches do have elders - or at least they should. We must keep in mind, however, that these elders will function far differently than what we see them do in traditional churches. House churches do have leadership; it just doesn't fall in the hands of one or a few people. House churches do have authority. This authority is the Holy Spirit as opposed to any man.