First meeting in our home

We were very blessed and God was present in Spirit.

7 believers met. We had invited 4 unbelievers. One had committed, but did not come (she had a true family emergency though). The one who did not come asked today about what we did and restated her intent to come this weekend. Two others that I had invited were soft commits for this past weekend and did not come. I will follow up and warmly encourage them this week.

We are not going to push invitations harder than we think the Spirit of God would have us. We are prayerful in that because we are asking the Spirit to draw of His own. That means at least that we not go where He is not taking us, and that we go well with Him when He is manifestly speaking to our own spirits about people to invite to be with us.

We are taking counsel from other believers, which is helpful. Our own ideas, as I expressed here some time ago, were to focus on inviting unbelievers. The value of believers as part of this fellowship family is something I failed to initially think through. God, in His grace and mercy, directed us otherwise.

We welcomed folks as they arrived on time and a little bit late. The later ones had a real distance to drive, and everyone was pleasantly patient. As everyone made it in, we talked cheerfully and small talk. We also expressed excitement about the meeting.

We made sure no TVs were on in any room, which was a surprisingly easy thing to maintain. Since Alabama had a football game on TV at the time, I expected more talk about that but there was almost none. I can testify that my lifelong love of football has taken a sudden, drastic turn to disinterest. Praise God for that.

Shortly, we enjoyed a buffet style dinner prepared by my wife, who is a wonderful cook. My 10 year old daughter hand made a chocolate cake and the icing for it. It was wonderful.

When we finished eating, we moved to the sofa area in those photos. I shared a brief talk, maybe 5-7 minutes, to orient everyone to our hopes and aspirations for this ongoing fellowship. I asked another brother to read Acts 2:47. I stressed no leaders, no titles, no staging, open floor for the full participation of everyone, and the freedom and expectation of such spiritual gifts as God may express in our midst. This opened up lots of free, submissive flowing of similar thoughts from the others for almost an hour. Lots of biblical sharing, some more pointed ideas of what life in this kind of true relational, loving and biblical grouping can be. I did not have to say much in this time as there was a really well expressed exchange between most of the rest of the others. That was a relief to me, and confirmation of God's dealing with us.

Then, I had mentally pieced together a few thoughts about the importance of communion and the way Jesus reveals Himself in that sharing the cup and bread. We took a simple communion of pita bread and Welch's grape juice. (We bought communion cups, which felt kind of out of place as we proceeded. But other choices just seemed...not sacred or sober to us.). Afterward, we talked some more, and one brother gently suggested we take communion as part of our meal right before eating. It seemed good to us all and there was a happy agreement that this should be the way to share communion next time.

I foresee challenges. One of the brothers is not a total abstinence believer, and that is a little unsettling for some. Another is a follower of some Word-Faith ministries, and we are watchful. He later, the next day, freely offered me a copy of a Joseph Prince book, which I received but told him I did not know if I would read it. I am thinking about it prayerfully with an eye toward making a digest of errors and corrective points of Scripture to quietly set aside in case needed later. And, also "what if-ing" what happens if no unbelievers join us. That last one I need to learn trust on it. Still a vestige of fear that this will be too weird for some local unbelievers.

We began at 6 and dispersed spontaneously at 10. Since then, four of the others have said how they truly enjoyed it and will be back for the next meeting this coming Saturday evening. One of them may, but I am unsure. I do expect that we will see maybe as many as 10 this weekend. Others volunteered to split food duties, so that is encouraging as an indicator of commitment and enthusiasm.

I appreciate all of you. This forum means very much to me.

Hez, I am thrilled that you made that suggestion. From SI, I have learned as you said, that Jesus is the head of the meeting, not simply the head of the organism called church. He is a real time Head when we gather in His Name. Part of my prayer was, and will continue to be, "Lord Jesus, we ask you to come, be our head, our shepherd as none of us is fit or able to be, nor can we ever be."

See, this is more gracious confirmation from people who know God personally. I appreciate you!

QUOTE:
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"I can testify that my lifelong love of football has taken a sudden, drastic turn to disinterest."
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Got a question about this - mind explaining more in detail how this happened? You well know football is King in the south. To hear a native say this forces one to sit up and take notice. BTW, I do not like football, never did, but then I am not a native southerner.

How, ginnyrose? I am not altogether sure.

It is a combination of things. I would like to sound very pious and holy right now and say that God simply led me here and after a period of insight, prayer, and such that my soul was simply overwhelmed by God and His holiness, etc.

I will be truthful instead.

It IS in a large measure a direct, conscious Spirit inspired choice. But, it is also a fleshly dissatisfaction with the evolution of college football to the wide open offenses and no huddles that make it 100 yards of basketball on grass, and also an equally flesh driven weariness of the obssession of my state with the rivalry between Bama and Auburn.

I am a lifelong football fan. The logistics of the game I find enjoyable, especially defensively. I am an alumnus of the University of Alabama and of the University of North Alabama, both of which are tradition rich and cream of the crop in terms of football. Football is an idol here. Truly so.

I wore thinner with it as my own fascination with the rivalry withered as my view of other believers heartened. This silliness just became so much sillier, and the artificial divisions of Tide and Tiger fans easily occupies the church here. It just isn't right. And, again, the game is turning into something I just do not like now.

So, no earth shifting epiphany. Just a slow and steady gain of perspective and a more sudden disgust with the game itself.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us all. Your excitement is a blessing in itself and puts a smile on my face. May the Lord bless your meetings and your home richly as you serve Him in obedience and joy.

We have Saturday evening home meetings at our friends' place. We include a simple worship time of singing which lifts my heart a lot more to the Lord than the best church service music. We share joys and challenges and pray for each other. One brother shares from the word of God and we take communion before refreshments. The children in the home participate in all of this. I had never thought about doing this in all the years as a Christian but now I realise that "being the church" in it's truest sense is not complicated. If our hearts are in it and surrendered to God He will bless our getting together in His name. I pray that more people will be inspired to do this as they read your posts and find the encouragement to step out in faith.

Whew, y'all. What a week.

I would love to be raw and real here, but I'm going to hold off, for now at least if not permanently.

Allow me to phrase this diplomatically: We're under an assault. And, we have something to learn and to correct.

Can I take these in that order?

First, I would offer that we have been the pointed focus of a weeks long series of salvos from the pulpit of our local church. I know it is us because things we shared with some other believers were quoted verbatim without naming us. The sharing was not a secret, but was a description of the Lord's dealing with us about starting the meetings at our home. This quoting verbatim happened over the course of three Sunday mornings, during which what we are doing --- and we're the only ones in our church doing it --- was called "clique" and "of the devil", among other things. The pastor even invited us out lunch after church one Sunday, for which my wife did not want to but we reluctantly did, and I told her, "Don't worry. He's not going to say anything to us face to face, one on one. He's not prepared to address the things he'd bring up because he has no biblical warrant for it. Let's just go have lunch." We did, and he never said a peep, but he resumed the pulpit and increased the rhetoric and the intensity of his presentation of it.

Now, how do I know it is us? Because, this isn't the first time he's done this, but it is the first time we've been in the crosshairs of it. We've been tempted -- boy, have we ever -- to simply either walk out or not go back. But, I'm not going to do that. I am an adult SS teacher and serve on the panel of people who have financial oversight of the church. Until I'm relieved of those obligations, I intend to carry them out humbly, lovingly and faithfully until the Lord sees fit to do something else. Moreover, I LOVE the people that I know most, and I've no mind to abandon them. Meanwhile, my poor wife has stomached all she can of it and she did leave the service about 10 minutes early yesterday morning. I remained, participated in an altar call to affirm my unity with the church (oh, yeah, the pastor started a new series on church unity) and hugged and smiled my way out of the building with people I know best and love. As I made my way out of the building, the pastor purposely came to a side entrance door and yelled to me, "Y'all have a good evening," as if to say, "I see you and I know you are not coming to evening worship." Which, he was right about that.

A little over a month ago, just after this stuff I shared with other believers had been shared with the pastor somehow, he crafted an entire sermon in response to a specific statement I had made, and then said if you didn't agree with him you were wrong. I felt kicked in the teeth. But, I didn't flinch and I didn't leave. He specifically said this, too -- "When you come to the church, you need to be ready to raise your hands and worship like you've lost your mind. We need people to lose their minds in here." Well, nobody did; they never do. It is a source of angst for him for reasons I can only speculate. Yet, he was "amened" and all sorts of other supportive things. And, since then, it has been a rain of statements that are either quotes from what I said and thrown back as barbs, or statements that go farther than that.

So, there's that.

Meanwhile, the believers who meet in our home are half composed of members of our local church, half who are not but do or have attended in the past. This in spite of our specific statement that this is not an official ministry of the local church but is our answer and obedience to the Lord and what He has told us.

(* The statements I had made were not against our church, but were the general kinds of statements that have been observed by the likes of Ravenhill, SI, and others about the need for revival, the fruit of repentance, and the failure of the invite-come-and-see/praise-and-worship-singing emphasized large church model. It was not tied to our pastor, whom I have considered a friend, in any personal or direct way. It was made in the context of personal sharing that we engage in every Friday night in our bible study meeting where we look at the Word and discuss difficulties ranging from marital issues, single life struggles of a single parent, sick children, teens and college age children, jobs, retirements, ministry futures, and everything under the sun about our lives.)

2. We are learning and we have correction to make. The hard way, evidently. The recent post here sharing the "others can, you cannot" tract text from G.D. Watson (some attribute it to L. Ravenhill -- I don't know who wrote it first) has deeply spoken to me and makes the last 25 years of my life more sensical. And, it may just be that what we are doing now is no exception. But, to an extent, there was some discussion about my own uncertainties here last week about leading these gatherings. Well, it seems that there is a void and I'm going to step into it humbly. There is lacking a more definite sense of purpose and direction in our meetings, and I believe there is a way to move our meetings toward true fellowship. I'm going to post separately something I'm putting together to share or at least hand out for this weekend. I'll do that with the request that you pray for us.

But, we had six folks Saturday night, including my wife and me. One of our couples was on vacation. One brother starts, this weekend, his final shut-down work at a local plant before he retires early next year and he'll be out of our meetings on Friday night at church and on Saturday nights at home for the next month. Another brother and his wife are expected to join us, as well as a long-time friend of mine and his new wife who are believers. We had a nice meal, and my wife actually lead us in communion where we, in turn, served one another. It was a very meaningful time and I will remember Him more so this next week because of it. Our scriptural urging went off track with one couple sort of domineering the time, but we will correct that with some teaching this week --- the substance of the other thing I will post separately.

Maybe I thought that we had covered sufficiently with everyone all of the reasons, scriptural and personal, that we were doing this. Or, maybe sufficient is insufficient and you have to forge ahead with some people. So, learning how to be patient in helping shepherd with one another, but also that there is a need to push forward with the real reasons for this instead of letting "openness" slip into floor-mongering and malcontentment.