Taking Back Sunday
Twenty Baller Quotes On Why We Gather From Church History
Below I’ve assembled twenty quotes from Church tradition, spanning from the Didache (c. 90 AD) to John Stott. The insight from the Didache is about as close to 1 Peter 2:5 as I’ve ever come across—and frankly, it reads like pure Pentecostal ecclesiology. The early Church believed in priesthood, in offering spiritual sacrifices, and in a gathered people ministering unto the Lord. It’s not modern—it’s ancient.
And then there’s Chrysostom, always clear, always surgical. His words affirm what many of us instinctively know but sometimes fail to articulate: that the gathered Church—corporately assembled—cannot be replicated in your house slippers with coffee in hand on your couch. There is something unique, something irreplicable, about the gathering. Something sacred.
Which brings me to my perennial beef with small groups.
They are good. They are important. They are fellowship. But they are not Church.
Yes, “the early church met in homes”—but let’s not flatten that statement into lazy ecclesiology. They met in homes because they were being hunted. They gathered in secret because to do otherwise meant torture and execution. But let’s remember where Pentecost happened: in a rented upper room that seated 120. That’s not your friend Karen’s living room with throw pillows and a gluten-free snack tray. That was a holy, corporate moment—and the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit didn’t happen in isolation, it happened in gathered worship.
The Jerusalem Church met regularly in large public spaces—like Solomon’s Portico—and yes, they also met “house to house” as Acts 2 tells us. But note the order—temple then homes. The gathering was central, and the homes were supplemental. They even took over synagogues when possible. And when those doors were shut, they moved into larger rooms and villas—not because they were trying to be trendy, but because they were growing. Growth requires space.
House churches work—when you’re just starting. When it’s small. When there’s nothing else. And if you’re doing it right, it won’t stay small. Growth demands more structure, more order, and yes, a bigger room. “Where two or three are gathered” is a beautiful promise—but it was never meant to be a ceiling.
Which brings me to the point of this post: to underline how the Church throughout history has thought about Sunday mornings.
These twenty quotes? They’re not just cherry-picked affirmations—they’re a resounding, historical echo of what Christians across time and space have believed about the Lord’s Day. Sunday morning isn’t optional. It isn’t interchangeable. It’s the heartbeat of the Church.
The richest quotes, in my opinion, are from the Martyrs of Abitene and Thomas Watson. If you don’t feel conviction after reading those—if your theology and your affections aren’t stirred like a hurricane being born from the collision of high and low weather systems—then I honestly don’t know what to tell you.
Maybe try reading them again. Out loud. In a pew. On a Sunday.
Here are the twenty most thunderous quotes (with citations, so you can use these for your own research or writing (and I even did so in Turabian, for all you theological nerds), and a few observations of my own) on the necessity of Sunday Worship and Why We Gather On Sundays: