About us
Since 2012, some Catholics in the south of the Netherlands under the name Visie van Gelovigen (Vision of Faithfull People) have been looking for means to structurally change the R.C. Church. Over the years they have supported many international initiatives and have taken some actions of their own.
After six years they concluded that this Church has got into an solid political system, cut off from ordinary people and alianated from living evangelical principles. The gospel inheritance is only to be found among the grassroots. Tom Table offers accommodation for those who try to practise charity in the spirit of the New Testament and want talk about it in dialogues
In February 2020 Tomastafel was registered as a stichting, a foundation according to Dutch law with appropiate
Statutes.
Board
Kees Lambregts Chair
Edwin van den Oetelaar secretary
Vivace Schreurs treasurer
Postal address: St Tomastafel,, Grensheuvel 2, 5685 AG Best NL. M +31 628538029
Small meetings
The source of the house meetings doctrine is "two or three gathered together." Mt. 18:20
The "glue" that is necessary to unite believers cannot be achieved as a meeting grows beyond a limit of about 40 people. Some experts point out that even an assembly larger than a mere dozen people creates an environment in which some of the people often back away from full participation.
Many in the professional clergy understand their role as a "priestly" one in which they are to be intermediaries between the Lord and His flock, being thus trusted through the Ordination process with a certain degree of authority.
Institutions tend toward viewing its members as an "audience" and the worship experience as a show. It is better to view God as the audience and all the people equally accountable for the "performance" of worshipping in Spirit and in Truth.
Three reasons for house meetings
* All gatherings in the young church era were small assemblies that met in homes.
* For non-denominational Christians an invitation offered to a work-place acquaintance to a home is much less threatening than one to a church.
* House gatherings reject any human authority other than the very real and present rule of Christ, who was inaugurated the king at the first Pentecost (Acts 2). The house gathering assembles are supposed to know the will of its king through the Holy Spirit and to be obedient to that will. As long as they are focusing on the evangelical message of equal treatment, freedom from authority and helpfulness, they are bound.
These arguments have been taken from House Church Central