Jean in Newcastle Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 In two Sundays my families 11 year service at our church is coming to an end. My dh has been preaching interim for the last 3 years. The board has decided that they no longer need his services (he was teaching things that were convicting much of the congregation but unfortunately that did not include the board of the church). Anyway - we are now at an exciting new cross-roads church-wise. We are considering having a home-church (among a few other options). I know that some of you (Nestof3?) attend a home-church. Could you tell me about it? What is your format? Who attends? I'm afraid I don't even know what questions to really ask! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 13, 2008 Author Share Posted August 13, 2008 anybody? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 Jean, Hopefully Natalieclare will jump in here but they are part of a fellowship out in Maple Valley that is a plant of the Household of Faith churches that Greg Harris (homeschooling pioneer, dad to Josh of I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Brett & Alex of Do Hard things) started in the Portland area. They met in a home in Black Diamond for more than a year but recently did start renting a small church in Maple Valley (Hobart, actually) on Sunday afternoons for their service. Don't know if this would interest you, but if we lived anywhere in that area this is where we'd probably be going!! HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nestof3 Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 Jean, I'll chime in when I'm done with lunch. We just walked in the door. See ya in a little. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sophia Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 I have also been researching home churches and have found a lot of info at NTRF.org. Here is a description a friend who homechurches mailed me: We begin at 10:30 with praise time and move to prayer time. Next is the teaching time. We have tried different approaches with this time and are still perfecting it. We have studied a book as a church and different men facilitated discussion each week, we have watched videos (such as Voddie Baucham), each man has prepared a short teaching of what the Lord taught them that week. Currently, one of the elders is taping sermons and distributing them (with permission) to members of the church. We watch them during the week, discuss them with our family and discuss it on Sunday as a church. We have the flexibility to bring in a variety of teachers and topics. We even took church to a nursing home one Sunday morning and led the residents in worship. Our church does allow women to speak in church. Steve Atkerson's church does not. The men in our church are learning how to prepare for and participate in church so we are careful to let the men do most of the talking. The children and teens are encouraged to participate in church! They often play a musical instrument, suggest a hymn or praise song, read from scripture and answer questions. The teenage boys read the bible passages before the Lord's Supper each week. Steve Atkerson wrote the book Ekklessia which outlines the biblical case for home churches. Hth! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rose in BC Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 I pm'd you with what we do. Let me know if I can answer any other questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 13, 2008 Author Share Posted August 13, 2008 Thought of more questions: Do you meet in your home? Do you meet in the living room? Do you put out chairs in rows? Is there a stand like a pulpit? Do you invite the neighbors? (One of the reasons we want to do this). Do you have the kids with you or do they have a Sunday school? (Not an issue for my kids but might be for neighbor kids) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rose in BC Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 Do you meet in your home? We meet in one of the families homes, yes. Do you meet in the living room? Do you put out chairs in rows? Is there a stand like a pulpit? Yes in the livingroom. No we don't put chairs in a row . . . just where ever they fit, as necessary. (We have a lot of children and they often have to sit on the floor.) Do you invite the neighbors? (One of the reasons we want to do this). We do invite people for sure. Do you have the kids with you or do they have a Sunday school? (Not an issue for my kids but might be for neighbor kids) The kids stick with us. At this point we don't have SS but we do a children's segment for them during the worship time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cedarmom Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 We have been house-churching for four years. We are still a small group. We have our family,the original family we started with, another family, and a single family. Over the years we have had a few families come and go. We meet on Sunday evenings. We have dinner and fellowship and then Bible Study. We have done Bible studies (on a book of the Bible) and book studies.One of the men will read the Bible, but we all ask questions and discuss. Everyone participates in discussion and researching Bible verses. Sometimes someone will bring something God has laid on their heart. The younger children play while we do Bible study. The older children participate. The younger children wander in and sit and listen, or we help them look up verses (some are beginning readers) It can be distracting having the children wander in. It however seems a nice comprimise. The parents don't feel pressured to have the children be still the whole time, but the children are able to see adults interested in what God is saying and studying His Word. It is neat to see as the children grow older they are particpating more and more. Nothing cheers my heart more than to hear a child read his favorite verse from the Bible. We take turns meeting at each other's homes. We sit around in our living room. Kids usually lap sit. Teenagers sprawl out on the floor. We don't have a pulpit. It has more of a Bible study feel then a sermon feel. If one of the dads is doing an object lesson he may stand, otherwise we are all sitting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nestof3 Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 Do you meet in your home? Not our home, because it is very small, but we rotate between the homes of 4 other families. We have about 10 families who come, but some families don't come every week. One family attends a "regular" church most of the time. Each of these homes is at least 45 minutes from our house. Usually, there are between 4 and 7 families there, but each family has many children, so it gets pretty crowded at times! Do you meet in the living room? Do you put out chairs in rows? Is there a stand like a pulpit? Yes, but it also spreads into people's dining areas, kitchen, etc. Chairs are packed in to accomodate as many people as possible and most younger children sit on the floor. We do not have a pulpit -- the man speaks from where he sits. Sometimes he will stand to be heard better. Each man is invited to bring a teaching, and at the opening, the elder (we only have one right now though he is encouraging another to rise up among us) asks who brought a teaching. Aside: If you study the New Testament, you will see the priesthood of believers emphasized, and you will see eldership mentioned and the requirements for it. You will see that a formal degree has nothing to do with it, and that personal and family integrity is stressed more than anything. Somehow MDivs came into the mix and people started stressing the importance of picking apart scripture passages and how special training was needed for this. The exhortations in the scripture really are pretty simple and clear, and the body is in need of regular encouragement, exhortation, etc. in order to stay on the straight and narrow. Through study, you will also see that "pastor" is not a position or office, but a gifting -- something people do. "Leadership" was borne out of integrity and experience, not education. Elders and deacons are the biblical "positions" in the body of believers and the descriptions and requirements can be found in 1 Titus. You'll see in Eph 4:11 that Christ has equipped some people to be apostles, prophets, teachers, shepherds, and evengelists. These were not "positions" in the early church, but giftings. A shepherd was gifted in being able to lead and protect the flock. He was not the 'head" of the church, the grand poobah. There is no indication in scripture that there was ONE of them either. Plurality of elders is spoken of, though. 1 Cor 12:28 also speaks of the various giftings of people -- teaching is mentioned along with helping others and speaking in tongues. Surely, we wouldn't "hire" a special person to be the tongues-speaker, but we do so with "teacher" or "shepherd." Do you invite the neighbors? (One of the reasons we want to do this). Okay, here is another potentially divisive statement. The church (the called out ones -- remember, church is people not a place or building) have been given the job to preach the gospel. The church (those people called out) are exhorted to meet together on a regular basis for the edification of the body of Christ. That is the main purpose of such a meeting, as scripture clearly points out. The main purpose of this meeting is not evangelism (remember, the church is supposed to be doing this in their interactions with people). Now, if a nonbeliever comes in the midst ( 1 Cor 14:23 shows this clearly: So if the whole church (note here who the church is) comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers (here are the ones who are not the church) come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? If you keep reading, you'll see more, but that is enough to show that the purpose of the meeting together is for the body of Christ (the members -- the limbs). This time was not designed for the unbelieving. The fields are white for harvest, not the meeting together of believers. A nonbeliever should not just be "invited to church" -- they need to be preached the gospel and you, the neighbor, are equipped to do so. But, yes, families do invite other believing families from time to time. Do you have the kids with you or do they have a Sunday school? (Not an issue for my kids but might be for neighbor kids) Yes, the children are with us the entire time. Families tend to sit together. This helps the parents be ready to correct them if need be, and it encourages closeness among families. We each bring a meal to share when the meeting has ended. The children end up playing games afterward, running around, swinging and so forth. Oh, and this is how our meeting usually goes, though it's not set in stone, nor need it be. We sing songs (meant to edify the body) -- by request. Each man is given time to bring his teaching for the day. We pray. We take the bread and "wine" to remember the Lord's gift to us. Our 18 year old has brought a couple of teachings as well, the last one really being to encourage the children. Sometimes we have missionary families come speak to us, and sometimes we attend a regular meeting at a building to hear a special teaching or such (a couple of weeks ago a family from Israel was speaking at a building local to us, so some of us attended this meeting). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 14, 2008 Author Share Posted August 14, 2008 Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions! I have printed out and shared all the answers with my dh as well. What is freaking me out now is the idea of having my house clean and organized enough to host people every Sunday!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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