The implications of the New Testament house church

By way of personal introduction to our topic--I came to a personal commitment to Christ through a combination of reading a New Testament given to my by the Gideons and attending an evangelical Bible Study while attending Princeton University. As a result I wanted to serve Christ and so went to seminary. But in the process I never felt the slightest inclination to become a pastor. The primary reason was because I saw almost no similarity between what I saw happening on the pages of the New Testament and what I saw happening in the church. The church has long ago departed from the New Testament norm. There is a need today for a reformation, a reformation in the area of ecclesiology. The reformers demolished the Roman Church in their nations, but what they erected in its place was little better. Many helpful reforms have taken place within the church over the years. Most have been pragmatic reforms. But they have not been philosophical-theological reforms. It is the thesis of this paper that the ingenious concept of the New Testament house church needs to be investigated and its implications must be at the heart of such a reformation