Developing the Natural Web of Relationships

by Joel Comiskey The oikos teaching of Scripture helps the church understand that people are already grouped in natural relationships. God uses those natural links to spread his gospel message. Rather than relying on advertising or more parking lot space, the church...

The Domestic Churches

by Mario Vega The “house” (oikos) in the first century was a different reality from our own now. It was not just a place where a nuclear family lived, but it was also the place where the helpers or slaves lived, and where knowledge was transferred from...

Reaching Your Network

by Steve Cordle It is common knowledge that cell-based discipleship is highly relational. As people do life together in the context of a group, they influence each other spiritually in both intentional and unintentional ways. We become more like Jesus as we spend time...

My Experience with Oikos

by Ralph Neighbour In the late 1960’s, Tom Wolfe shared with me his insights about the Greek word oikos. He saw it as “household,” the basic building block composing the larger ecclesia. I was fascinated! I wanted to write and teach about it, but he...

Get Infected

by Jeff Tunnell Should we assume or conclude that as civilization passes through time that it actually advances in quality automatically? I think this is a bad assumption. In fact, I see civilization being brutalized by technology and the extremely fast pace of...