Why the Future of the Church Might Fit in Your Living Room
The story of how ordinary people are reclaiming an ancient way of life in community, communion, and co-mission.
The Return of the Simple Church
How ordinary people are rediscovering the way of Jesus together
We live in an age of hurry. “Do more” is the air we breathe, but the oxygen is thin. The pace has left people exhausted, lonely, and spiritually numb. Many are walking away from large, production-driven expressions of church, not because they’ve lost faith, but because they’re hungry for something raw.
What’s rising in that hunger is not a new model but an ancient one: the simple church, small gatherings of disciples who eat, pray, learn, and live on mission together. No stage lights, no big bands. Just people following Jesus in living rooms, parks, and backyards, the same way the first disciples did.
This isn’t about doing less church. It’s about BEING the church again.
A Movement as Old as the Gospel
The first-century church didn’t start with cathedrals or choirs. It began with meals and mission. Followers of Jesus gathered around tables, told stories, prayed for one another, and saw God move in ways that transformed cities.
But somewhere along the way, we traded intimacy for infrastructure. Faith became an event instead of a way of life. The system got bigger, but the relationships got thinner. People began to consume church instead of being the church.
Now, across the world, we’re watching something sacred return. Ordinary people are rediscovering that church isn’t a building you go to, it’s a family you belong to and a mission you live out.
Why Simple Works
Simple churches make room for what the human soul was designed for: connection, authenticity, and co-mission.
In a living room or around a dinner table, you can’t hide behind performance. There’s no crowd to disappear into. There’s laughter, awkwardness, tears, and transformation. People share stories, confess struggles, pray for healing, and celebrate breakthroughs. Everyone participates; no one spectates.
When the Holy Spirit is free to move among a few obedient people, multiplication happens naturally. That’s how Jesus did it, He poured deeply into a few, and the few turned the world upside down.
Simple churches aren’t built on charisma or programs. They’re built on presence, the presence of God and the presence of people who actually know each other’s names.
What It Looks Like
A simple church might meet in a living room on Sunday night, at a coffee shop on Tuesday morning, or around a fire pit on Friday. It’s not about the format, it’s about the fruit.
Every gathering orbits around three things:
Loving God through Scripture, prayer, and worship.
Loving one another through authentic relationships and shared life.
Loving the world by living sent in the places we work, learn, and play.
We use tools like the 3/3rds process to stay anchored:
Look Back (care, celebrate, and hold one another accountable),
Look Up (listen to God through His Word), and
Look Forward (obey and go on mission).
It’s simple enough for anyone to do, and powerful enough to multiply anywhere.
Starting a Simple Church
Starting a simple church doesn’t require a seminary degree or a sound system. It starts with prayer and a few open hearts.
Ask God to show you who in your life is spiritually hungry - friends, co-workers, neighbors. Begin praying together. Share meals. Read the words of Jesus and ask, “What will we do about this?”
Don’t recruit people out of existing churches. Instead, go where the gospel isn’t yet visible. Your neighborhood. Your workplace. Your kid’s soccer field. That’s where movements are born.
You can find coaching and tools through Disicple-Making Collective and Ignite Disciple-Making Network—resources designed to help you start right where you are and multiply outward.
The Challenges (and the Beauty)
Simple doesn’t mean easy. Without a stage and a structure, you’ll face challenges, messy relationships, limited resources, conflicting opinions. But that’s the very soil where discipleship grows.
When you choose humility, grace, and repentance, you discover that the church Jesus envisioned was never about perfect order but perfect love. Conflict handled with love becomes a testimony of the Kingdom.
What’s Happening Now
All over the world, the Spirit is breathing life into small, multiplying communities. In homes in Tennessee. In refugee camps in the Middle East. In underground gatherings in China. These micro-movements are restoring something we lost, a church that moves at the speed of relationship and the pace of obedience.
The Invitation
Maybe you’re feeling it, that pull toward something smaller, deeper, truer. Maybe you’re tired of attending and ready to engage.
You don’t have to start a movement, but you can join one. You can rediscover the kind of community that transforms hearts and neighborhoods alike.
If your heart longs for a simpler, Spirit-led expression of church, you’re not alone. Join the growing network of disciple-makers learning to live the Great Commission together.
Let’s not just go to church.
Let’s BE the church again.
Some of my best times with church has been within simple church structures.
I’ve been listening to Dr. Tom Wordsworth because I feel it vibes with the stuff you wrote here on Simple Church. I’ve walked away from my own denomination because of leadership abuse and corruption and having time to reflect on “what is church.” I think this all went overdrive with the pandemic because this question has constantly been bugging me ever since I was in Bible school.