After posting that I attend a House Church, Mike over at Christian Cognition posted that he too attends a House Church and suggested we both post what we feel (pros/cons) about going to a home church etc.... I read his blog today and figured I should just copy and paste a lot of what he had to say but, I will go ahead and post some of my own stuff.Our past two churches we attended were very good at nurturing fellowship and relationships within the church so that is not anything that we have ever lacked...so when I say I love the intimacy and fellowship, transparency and closeness the house church has its not something we have lacked in the past but yet still have it here. There is a strong bond of unity that has occured within our group and not just within the adults but the children as well since they are amongst the group and not separated. This would indeed be a con for some families (no children's programs) but for us, its perfect and the time of our church is in the evening so by the time we fellowship, worship, pray and move on to the rest of the evening Annah is very well tired and usually falls asleep.
Whereas many house churches begin small and ultimately grow and then go and find a building or a church to rent or buy, our group has maintained the desire to stay a bonified true house church and when the group exceeds about 20 people we will then form another house church and so on.
We meet Saturday evenings and so while I love this and prefer meeting Saturday nights there will be events and functions that arise that we will not be able to miss and will have to miss church because while Sunday is an accepted day to go to church..most events are avoided being planned on Sundays due to church but Saturdays is fair game. :)
While it may appear as a life group or care group to some, the difference would be our leaders, teachers, preachers, evangelist etc...are all together at the same time. :)
Its so cold. I don't like the cold... well, I love the cold but I don't like running in it. But I tell myself...thank God I can run. Thank God I have health to run, legs to run... I remember when I was spending days in the hospital visiting a family member and when I would walk out and smell the air, walk in the sunshine...I vowed to always be thankful to be healthy and to not grumble ...So anytime I begin to feel like I don't want to go out and run, I tell myself to be thankful I can and to run because I can. 
Libby, first regarding the house church: I think it's pretty cool how you don't split up the adults from the kids. My wife wants to know, however, how on earth you do it with the kids mixed in with you!! I imagine our group studying something deep or challenging, but at the same time trying to keep it simple for the kids' sake. How do you do it?
ReplyDeleteSecond, my wife saw that you have chickens/hens. Uh oh! We watched "Food Inc." the other day and she's on the kick about wanting to get chickens for the purpose of obtaining fresh, organic eggs! She's quite a green thumb, but I have reservations about how much work caring for chickens will be. How much of a pain in the neck is it? (Ie, cleaning, feeding, poop, noise, etc.)
Maybe another post idea???
Mike, we only have 4 children including Annah and they are at that age of being very curious and listen rather intently to everything being said, plus they are very well behaved and polite etc.. and we have some very in depth conversations that they listen to...and by this time Annah is usually asleep. I do however feel that it would be difficult with small children who are wide awake or any child who can not listen because they would probably be very distracting to their parents. Because we do not have children of an age that they seem to need anything else to do to keep them happy we haven't faced that yet. I don't know what that would look like quite frankly.
ReplyDeleteIf you have the land and space for chickens then I say by all means get some. You only need a few hens...they usually lay an egg a day per hen unless they get to old...which can be age 2. :) I don't think its that much work at all but we have had them for about 10 years now. It all depends on if you have them free roaming or in a coop or both. I have never cleaned chicken poop... seriously... their coop area is very heavily bedded in straw and we just clear that out once in a while and when they are out in the open they go in the field... the roosters crow all the time... we should only have one per 30 hens but, we ended up with 2 which is not good. But, the hens make cute little clucking sounds and aren't noisy at all. They eat all of our scraps and then chicken feed and bugs...they keep grasshoppers and other stuff like that completely away. I wish they ate ants but they don't. :-) Before we had our dog they used to come all the way up to the house and that could be messy but they don't do that anymore because of our dog.
I think you have found the best community for you in the house church concept you guys do. I think its neat the kids are part of it too and you don't have plans to eventually grow out of houses but just to plant more house churches. I heard (or read somewhere) that this very concept could come about if freedom of religion ever gets taken away here in this country that people will start meeting at houses for worship and the Word.
ReplyDeletehope you had a nice run :)
betty
Thanks for the house church information.
ReplyDeleteAfter we left our last church about 6 years ago, I did some research on house churches and liked what I found.
At that time I was unable to locate one within a reasonable distance near our home.
Maybe I should check them out again.
For about 10 years I rotated teaching with a couple of brothers at a Friday night home Bible study. We had anywhere from 12 to 15 plus kids. At one time it got so big we had to split our groups into 3 homes. Some of the best memories of my Christian life is linked to that Friday night home Bible study.
J. Vernon McGee once said in the last days true believers
would end up meeting in homes as they did when the church began. Maybe his prophesy is coming true.
Thanks for jogging The Old Geezer's memory, Ron
We do the regular church, but for the last 4 years up to about 6 months ago, we did the Friday night Bible study group. It was a great time! However, it disappeared because of a directive that moved everything to Wednesday night at the Church, instead of a house. Wednesday nights didn't work and I miss the Friday sessions a lot!
ReplyDeleteIn the small groups we could get into a lot of depth, and yes, got sidetracked a few times. The main church is great in its own way, but issues and questions cannot be dealt with in a large group. We also used the friday night for fellowship as well as learning. The group was limited in size to 10 or 12 and ended up , I think , with representatives from 4 different denominations attending. No fights! Just a willingness to explre God's word.
I can see why you don't like jogging near a road or other houses.
ReplyDelete