Martin Luther: house church advocate?

It's the thought that counts, right?

Tucked into the wordy preface to instructions for a formal, public worship gathering was an admission by the Great Reformer himself that the Reformation did not go far as he had wished.

While this is by no means a new discovery (and we've made reference to it on this blog previously), it's curious that Martin Luther himself would in theory support something similar to what we're doing in today's organic house churches.

While Martin Luther never, to our knowledge, acted on this hypothetical "third order" of worship gathering (the first two orders were a Catholic-like Latin liturgy and the other a more simplified service in a native language -- similar to what many Lutherans practice today), his very mention of this kind of simple, interactive gathering shows a snippet of Luther's long-range vision. Totally reforming the church involves Christians developing intimate communities focused on mutual edification, and these communities happening rather spontaneously.

As just about every house churcher, past and present, can attest, finding people willing to do this is not easy. Not even Luther could find enough people interested. Read on: